Enter the Saint (20 page)

Tremayne’s stoicism matched it. Hilloran promised death as he might have promised a drink: Dicky accepted the promise as he might have accepted a drink. Yet he never doubted that it was meant. The very unreality of Hilloran’s command of temper made his sincerity more real than any theatrical elaboration could have done. “I should like to ask a last favour,” said Dicky calmly.

“A cigarette?”

“I shouldn’t refuse that. But what I should appreciate most would be the chance to finish telling-her-what I was telling her when you came in.

Hilloran hesitated.

“If you agree,” added Dicky callously, “I’d advise you to have her tied up first. Otherwise, she might try to untie me in the hope of saving her own skin. Seriously-we haven’t been melodramatic about this to-night, so you might go on in the same way.”

“You’re plucky,” said Hilloran.

Tremayne shrugged. “When you’ve no further interest in life, death loses its terror.”

Hilloran went and picked up a length of rope that had been left over. He tied the girl’s wrists behind her back; then he went to the door and called, and two men appeared. “Take those two to my cabin,” he said. “You’ll remain on guard outside the door.” He turned back to Dicky. “I shall signal at eleven. At any time after that, you may expect me to call you out on deck.”

“Thank you,” said Dicky quietly. The first seaman had picked up Audrey Perowne, and Dicky followed him out of the saloon. The second brought up the rear. The girl was laid down on the bunk in Hilloran’s cabin. Dicky kicked down the folding seat and made himself as comfortable as he could. The men withdrew, closing the door.

Dicky looked out of the porthole and waited placidly. It was getting dark. The cabin was in twilight; and, beyond the porthole, a faintly luminous blue-grey dusk was deepening over the sea. Sometimes he could hear the tramp of footsteps passing over the deck above. Apart from that, there was no sound but the murmuring undertone of slithering waters slipping past the hull, and the vibration, felt rather than heard, of the auxiliary engines. It was all strangely peaceful. And Dicky waited. After a long time, the girl sighed and moved. Then she lay still again. It was getting so dark that he could hardly see her face as anything but a pale blur in the shadow. But presently she said softly: “So it worked.”

“What worked?”

“The coffee.”

He said. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“Almost neat butyl, it was,” she said. “That was clever. I guessed my own coffee would be doped of course. I put the idea into Hilloran’s head, because it’s always helpful to know how you’re going to be attacked. But I didn’t think it’d be as strong as that. I thought it’d be safe to sip it.”

“Won’t you believe that I didn’t do it, Audrey?”

“I don’t care. It was somebody clever who thought of catching me out with my own idea.”

He said: “I didn’t do it, Audrey.”

Then for a time there was silence.

Then she said: “My hands are tied.”

“So are mine.”

“He got you as well?”

“Easily. Audrey, how awake are you?”

“I’m quite awake now,” she said. “Just very tired. And my head’s splitting. But that doesn’t matter. Have you got anything else to say?”

“Audrey, do you know who I am?”

“I know. You’re one of the Saint’s gang. You told me. But I knew it before.”

“You knew it before?”

“I’ve known it for a long time. As soon as I noticed that you weren’t quite an ordinary crook, I made inquiries-on my own, without anyone knowing. It took a long time, but I did it. Didn’t you meet at a flat in Brook Street?”

Dicky paused. “Yes,” he said slowly. “That’s true. Then why did you keep it quiet?”

“That,” she said, “is my very own business.”

“All the time I was with you, you were in danger-yet you deliberately kept me with you.”

“I chose to take the chance. That was because I loved you.”

“You what?”

“I loved you,” she said wearily. “Oh, I can say it quite safely now. And I will, for my own private satisfaction. You hear me, Dicky Tremayne? I loved you. I suppose you never thought I could have the feelings of an ordinary woman. But I did. I had it worse than an ordinary woman has it. I’ve always lived recklessly, and I loved recklessly. The risk was worth it-as long as you were with me. But I never thought you cared for me, till last night. …”

“Audrey, you tell me that!”

“Why not? It makes no difference now. We can say what we like-and there are no consequences. What exactly is going to happen to us?”

“My friends are coming in a seaplane. I told Hilloran, and he proposes to double-cross the crew. He’s got all the jewels. He’s going to give my signal. When the seaplane arrives, he’s going to row out with me in a boat. My friends will be told that I’ll be shot if they don’t obey. Naturally, they’ll obey- they’ll put themselves in his hands, because they’re that sort of fool. And Hilloran will board the seaplane and fly away-with you. He knows how to handle an aëroplane.”

“Couldn’t you have told the crew that?”

“What for? One devil’s better than twenty.”

“And what happens to you?”

“I go over this side with a lump of lead tied to each foot. Hilloran’s got a grudge to settle-and he’s going to settle it. He was so calm about it when he told me that I knew he meant every word. He’s a curious type,” said Dicky meditatively. “I wish I’d studied him more. Your ordinary crook would have been noisy and nasty about it, but there’s nothing like that about Hilloran. You’d have thought it was the same thing to him as squashing a fly.”

There was another silence, while the cabin grew darker still. Then she said: “What are you thinking, Dicky?”

“I’m thinking,” he said, “how suddenly things can change. I loved you. Then, when I thought you were trading on my love, and laughing at me up your sleeve all the time, I hated you. And then, when you fell down in the saloon, and you lay so still, I knew nothing but that I loved you whatever you did, and that all the hell you could give me was nothing, because I had touched your hand and heard your blessed voice and seen you smile.” She did not speak. “But I lied to Hilloran,” he said. “I told him nothing more than that my love had turned to hate, and not that my hate had turned back to love again. He believed me. I asked to be left alone with you before the end, to hurl my dying contempt on you-and he consented. That again makes him a curious type-but I knew he’d do it. That’s why we’re here now.”

“Why did you do that?”

“So that I could tell you the truth, and try to make you tell me the truth-and, perhaps, find some way out with you.”

The darkness had become almost the darkness of night. She said, far away: “I couldn’t make up my mind. I kept on putting myself off and putting myself off, and in order to do that I had to trade on your love. But I forced you into that argument at dinner to find out how great your love could be. That was a woman’s vanity-and I’ve paid for it. And I told Hilloran to dope your coffee, and told you not to drink it, so that you’d be ready to surprise him and hold him up when he thought you were doped. I was going to double-cross him, and then leave the rest in your hands, because I couldn’t make up my mind.”

“It’s a queer story, isn’t it?” said Dicky Tremayne.

“But I’ve told you the truth now,” she said. “And I tell you that if I can find the chance to throw myself out of the boat, or out of the seaplane, I’m going to take it. Because I love you.” He was silent. “I killed Morganheim,” she said, “because I had a sister- once.” He was very quiet. “Dicky Tremayne,” she said, “didn’t you say you loved me-once?”

He was on his feet. She could see him.

“That was the truth.”

“Is it-still-true?”

“It will always be true,” he answered; and he was close beside her, on his knees beside the bunk. He was so close beside her that he could kiss her on the lips.

Chapter X
SIMON TEMPLAR sat at the controls of the tiny seaplane and stared thoughtfully across the water. The moon had not yet risen, and the parachute flares he had thrown out to land had been swallowed up into extinction by the sea. But he could see, a cable’s length away, the lights of the yacht riding sulkily on a slight swell; and the lamp in the stern of the boat that was stealing darkly across the intervening stretch of water was reflected a thousand times by a thousand ripples, making a smear of dancing luminance across the deep.

He was alone. And he was glad to be alone, for undoubtedly something funny was going to happen. He had himself, after much thought, written Patricia’s letter to Dicky Tremayne, and he was satisfied that it had been explicit enough. “My eyes are red from weeping for you.” It couldn’t have been plainer. Red light-danger. A babe in arms couldn’t have missed it.

And yet, when he had flown nearer, he had seen the yacht was not moving; and his floats had hardly licked the first flurry of spray from the sea before the boat he was watching had put off from the ship’s side. He could not know that Dicky had given away that red signal deliberately, hoping that it would keep him on his guard and that the inspiration of the moment might provide for the rest. All the same, the Saint was a good guesser, and he was certainly on his guard. He knew that something very fishy was coming towards him across that piece of fish-pond, and the only question was-what?

Thoughtfully the Saint fingered the butt of the Lewis gun that was mounted on the fuselage behind him. It had not been mounted there when he left San Remo that evening; for the sight of private seaplanes equipped with Lewis guns is admittedly unusual, and may legitimately cause comment. But it was there now. The Saint had locked it onto its special mounting as soon as his machine had come to rest. The tail of the seaplane was turned towards the yacht; and, twisting round in the roomy cockpit, the Saint could comfortably swivel the gun round and keep the sights on the approaching boat.

The boat, by that time, was only twenty yards away.

“Is that you, sonny boy?” called the Saint sharply.

The answering hail came clearly over the water.

“That’s me, Saint.”

In the dark, the cigarette between the Saint’s lips glowed with the steady redness of intense concentration. Then he took his cigarette from his mouth and sighted carefully. “In that case,” he said, “you can tell your pals to heave to, Dicky Tremayne.

Because, if they come much nearer, they’re going to get a lead shower-bath.”

The sentence ended in a stuttering burst from the gun; and five tracer bullets hissed through the night like fireflies and cut the water in a straight line directly across the boat’s course. The Saint heard a barked command, and the boat lost way; but a laugh followed at once, and another voice spoke.

“Is that the Saint?”

The Saint only hesitated an instant. “Present and correct,” he said, “complete with halo. What do your friends call you, honeybunch?”

“This is John Hilloran speaking.”

“Good evening, John,” said the Saint politely.

The boat was close enough for him to be able to make out the figure standing up in the stern, and he drew a very thoughtful bead upon it. A Lewis gun is not the easiest weapon in the world to handle with a microscopic accuracy, but his sights had been picked out with luminous paint, and the standing figure was silhouetted clearly against the reflection in the water of one of the lights along the yacht’s deck.

“I’ll tell you,” said Hilloran, “that I’ve got your friend at the end of my gun-so don’t shoot any more.”

“Shoot, and be damned to him!” snapped in Dicky’s voice. “I don’t care. But Audrey Perowne’s here as well, and I’d like her to get away.”

“My future wife,” said Hilloran, and again his throaty chuckle drifted through the gloom.

Simon Templar took a long pull at his cigarette, and tapped some ash fastidiously into the water. “Well-what’s the idea, big boy?”

“I’m coming alongside. When I’m there, you’re going to step quietly down into this boat. If you resist, or try any funny business, your friend will pass in his checks.”

“Is-that-so?” drawled Simon.

“That’s so. I want to meet you-Mr. Saint!”

“Well, well, well!” mocked the Saint alertly.

And there and then he had thrust upon him one of the most desperate decisions of a career that continued to exist only by the cool swift making of desperate decisions.

Dicky Tremayne was in that boat, and Dicky Tremayne had somehow or other been stung. That had been fairly obvious ever since the flashing of that red signal. Only the actual details of the stinging had been waiting to be disclosed. Now the Saint knew. And, although the Saint would willingly have stepped into a burning fiery furnace if he thought that by so doing he could help Dicky’s getaway, he couldn’t see how the principle applied at that moment. Once the Saint stepped down into that boat, there would be two of them in the consomme instead of one-and what would have been gained?

What, more important, would Hilloran have gained? Why should J. Hilloran be so anxious to increase his collection of Saints? The Saint thoughtfully rolled his cigarette-end between his finger and thumb, and dropped it into the water.

“Why,” ruminated the Saint-“because the dear I soul wants this blinkin’ bus what I’m sitting in. He wants to take it and fly away into the wide world. Now, again-why? Well, there was supposed to be a million dollars’ worth of jools in that there hooker. It’s quite certain that their original owners haven’t got them any longer-it’s equally apparent that Audrey Perowne hasn’t got them, or Dicky wouldn’t have said that he wanted her to get away-and, clearly, Dicky hasn’t got them. Therefore, Hilloran’s got them. And the crew will want some of them. We don’t imagine Hilloran proposes to load up the whole crew on this airyplane for their getaway: therefore, he only wants to load up himself and Audrey Perowne-leaving the ancient mariners behind to whistle for their share. Ha! Joke… .”

And there seemed to be just one solitary way of circumventing the opposition. Now, Hilloran wasn’t expecting any fight at all. He’d had several drinks, for one thing, since the hold-up, and he was very sure of himself. He’d got everyone cold- Tremayne, Audrey, the crew, the Saint, and the jewels. He didn’t see how anyone could get out of it.