Saint Overboard (8 page)

“You’ve decided to go down again,
then?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve only just started. That
first trip of mine was
only a trial. With my new bathystol I hope to get down twice as
far—and that’s nothing. If some of the latest
alloys turn out all
right, we may be able to have a look at the Cape
Verde Basin—
over three thousand fathoms—or
even the Tuscarora Trough,
more than
five miles down.”

“What do you hope to find?”

“A lot of dull facts about depth
currents and globigerina ooze.
Possibly some new forms of marine life.
There may be some
astounding monsters living and dying down there, and
never
seeing the light of day. We might even track down our old friend the
sea serpent.”

“There are some marvellous possibilities,” said the
Saint
thoughtfully.

“And some expensive ones,”
confessed Yule, with attractive
candour. “In fact, if it hadn’t been for Mr Vogel they might
not have been possibilities at all—my first descent just about ruined me. But
with his help I hope to go a lot further.”

The Saint did not smile, although a sudden
vision of Kurt
Vogel as a connoisseur of globigerina ooze and new
species of
fish tempted him almost irresistibly. He saw beyond that
to
other infinitely richer possibilities—possibilities which had proba
bly never
occurred to the Professor.

He knew that Vogel was watching him,
observing every mi
croscopic
detail of his reactions with coldly analytical precision.
To show a poker-faced lack of interest would be
almost as suspi
cious as breaking
loose with a hungry stream of questions. He
had to judge the warmth of his response to the exactest hun
dredth
of a degree, if he was to preserve any hope of clinging to
the bluff of complete unsuspecting innocence which
he had
adopted. In the next twenty
minutes of ordinary conversation he
worked
harder than he had done for half his life.

“… so the next big descent will show
whether there’s any
chance of supporting Wegener’s theory of continental
drift,”
concluded the Professor.

“I see,” said the Saint
intelligently.

A man wandering about the terrace with a large
camera
pushed his way to their table and presented a card with the in
scription
of the Agence Fran
ç
aise Journalistique.

“Vous permettez, messieurs?”

Yule grinned ruefully, like a schoolboy, and
submitted blushingly to the ordeal. The photographer took two snapshots of the
group, thanked them, and passed on with a vacuous air of wait
ing for
further celebrities to impinge on his autocratic ken. A
twice-divorced
countess whom he ignored glared after him indig
nantly ; and Kurt
Vogel beckoned a waiter for the addition.

“Won’t you have another?”
suggested the Saint.

“I’m afraid we have an engagement. Next
time, perhaps.”
Vogel discarded two ten-franc notes on the
assiette and stood up
with a flash of his bloodless smile. “If
you’re interested, you
might like to come out with us on a trial
trip. It won’t be very
sensational, unfortunately. Just a test for the new apparatus in
moderately deep water.”

“I should love to,” said the Saint
slowly.

Vogel inclined his head pleasantly.

“It won’t be just here,” he
said—“the water’s too shallow. We
thought of trying it
in the Hurd Deep, north of Alderney. There
are only about ninety fathoms there, but
it’ll be enough for our
object. If you
think it’s worth changing your plans, we’re leaving
for St Peter Port in
the morning.”

“Well—that sort of invitation doesn’t
come every day,” said the Saint, with a certain well-timed embarrassment.
“It’s cer
tainly
worth thinking about—if you’re sure I shouldn’t be in the
way… .”

“Then we may look forward to seeing
you.” Vogel held out his
hand. He had a firm muscular grip, but there
was a curious rep
tilian coldness in the touch of his skin that prickled
the Saint’s scalp. “I’ll give you a shout in the morning as we go by, and
see
if you’ve made up your mind.”

Simon shook hands with the Professor, and
watched them
until they turned the corner by the Petit Casino. His blue
eyes were set in a lambent glint, like polished sapphires. He had got
what he
wanted. He had made actual contact with Kurt Vogel,
talked with him,
touched him physically and experienced the
cold-blooded fighting presence of the man,
crossed swords with
him in a breathless
finesse of nerves that was sharper than any
bludgeoning battle. He had gained more than that. He had re
ceived
a gratuitous invitation to call again. Which meant that he
was as good as on the prize list.
Or in the coffin.

3

A highly conclusive and illuminating
deduction, reflected the Saint grimly… . And then all the old reckless
humour flickered back into his eyes, and he lighted another cigarette and ordered
himself a second drink. So be it. As Loretta Page had said, there were no
dividends in guessing. In the fullness of time all uncertainty would doubtless
be removed—one way or the other. And
when that happened, Simon Templar
proposed to be among those
present.

Meanwhile he had something else to think
about. A man came
filtering through the tables on the terrace with a sheaf
of English and American papers fanned Out in his hand. Simon bought an
Express,
and he had
only turned the first page when a single-
column headline
caught his eye.

TO SALVE

CHALFONT CASTLE

——————

£5,000,000 Expedition
Fits Out

—————

A SHIP will leave Falmouth early in August
with a contract
for the greatest treasure-hunt ever attempted in British
waters.

She is the
Restorer,
crack steamer of
the Liverpool &
Glasgow Salvage Association——

Simon skimmed through the story with
narrowing eyes. So that was it! If Kurt Vogel was cruising in the vicinity of
the
Channel Islands on active business, and not merely on a holiday, the
Chalfont
Castle
was his most obvious target. And it seemed
likely—otherwise why
not take Professor Yule and his bathystol
down to some place like Madeira, where
there was really deep
water close at hand
for any number of experiments? The
Chal
font Castle
could not wait. If an authorised expedition was being organised so
quickly, there was not much time for a free-lance to
step in and
forestall it. Perhaps the underwriters, taught by past experience, had thought
of that. But for a man of Vogel’s nerve
there
might still be a chance… .

Simon Templar lunched at the Gallic, and
enjoyed his meal.
The sting of the encounter from which he had just
emerged had
driven out every trace of the rather exasperated
lassitude which
had struck him an hour or two before; this providential
hint of
new movement swept new inspiration in like a sea breeze. The
spice of certain danger laced
his wine and sparkled through his
veins. His
brain was functioning like an awakened machine, turning over the urgencies of
the moment with smooth and effortless
ease.

When he had finished, he went out into the
main foyer and
collected a reception clerk.
“You have a
telephone?”

“Oui, m’sieu. A gauche——
”

“No, thanks,” said the Saint.
“This isn’t local—I want to talk
to England. Let me have a private room. I’ll pay for
it.”

Ten minutes later he was settled comfortably
in an armchair
with his feet on a polished walnut table.

“Hullo, Peter.” The object of his
first call was located after the London exchange had tried three other possible
numbers
which he
gave them. “This is your Uncle Simon. Listen—didn’t
you tell me that you once had a respectable
family?”

“It still is respectable,” Peter
Quentin’s voice answered indig
nantly. “I’m the only one who’s had
anything to do with you.”

Simon grinned gently and slid a cigarette
out of the package in front of him.

“Do any of them know anything about
Lloyd’s?”

“I’ve got a sort of cousin, or something,
who works there,”
said Peter, after a pause for reflection.

“That’s great. Well, I want you to go and dig out this sort
of cousin, or something, and stage a reunion. Be nice to him—re
mind him of the old family tree—and find out
something for me
about the
Chalfont
Castle.”

“Like a shot, old boy. But are you sure
you don’t want an
estate
agent?”

“No, I don’t want an estate agent, you
fathead. It’s a wreck,
not a ruin. She sank somewhere near Alderney about the begin
ning of March. I want you to find out exactly where
she went
down. They’re sure to have a record at Lloyd’s. Get a chart from
Potter’s, in the Minories, and get the exact
spot marked. And
send it to me at the Poste Restante, St Peter Port,
Guernsey—
to-night. Name of Tombs. Or get a
bearing and wire it. But get
something.
All clear?”

“Clear as mud.” There was a
suspicious hiatus at the other end
of the line. “But if this means
you’re on the warpath again——
”

“If I want you, I’ll let you know, Peter,” said the
Saint con
tentedly, and rang off.

That was that… . But even if one knew the
exact spot
where things were likely to happen, one couldn’t hang
about there
and wait for them. Not in a stretch of open water where a
float
ing bottle
would be visible for miles on a calm day. The Saint’s
next call was to another erstwhile companion in crime.

“Do you think you could buy me a nice
diving suit, Roger?”
he suggested sweetly. “One of the latest self-contained
contraptions with oxygen tanks. Say you’re representing a movie com
pany and you want it for an undersea epic.”

“What’s the racket?” inquired
Roger Conway firmly.

“No racket at all, Roger. I’ve just
taken up submarine geol
ogy, and I want to have a look at some
globigerina ooze. Now, if
you bought that outfit this afternoon and
shipped it off to me in
a trunk——”

“Why not let me bring it?”

The Saint hesitated. After all, why not? It
was the second
time in a few minutes that the suggestion had been held
out, and
each time
by a man whom he had tried and proved in more than
one tight corner. They were old campaigners, men with his own
cynical contempt of legal technicalities, and his
own cool disre
gard of danger, men who
had followed him before, without a
qualm, into whatever precarious paths
of breathless filibustering he had led them, and who were always accusing him
of hogging
all the fun when he tried to
dissuade them from taking the same
risks
again. He liked working alone; but some aspects of Vogel’s
crew of modern pirates might turn out to be more
than one
man’s meat.

“Okay.” The Saint drew at his
cigarette, and his slow smile
floated over the wire in the undertones of
his voice. “Get hold of
Peter, and any other of the boys who are
looking for a sticky
end. But the other instructions stand. Ship
that outfit to me
personally,
care of the Southern Railway—you might even make
it two outfits, if you feel like looking at some fish—and Peter’s
to do his stuff exactly as I’ve already told him.
You toughs can
put up at the Royal;
but you’re not to recognise me unless I
recognise you first. It may be worth a point or two if the un
godly don’t know we’re connected. Sold?”

“Cash,” said Roger happily.

Simon walked on air to the stairs. As he
stepped down into the foyer, he became aware of a pair of socks. The socks were
partic
ularly noticeable because they were of a pale brick-red hue, and
intervened
between a pair of blue trousers and a pair of brown
and yellow
co-respondent shoes. It was a combination of colours
which, once seen,
could not be easily forgotten; and the Saint’s glance voyaged idly up to the
face of the man who wore it. He
had already seen it once before, and his
glance at the physiognomy of the wearer confirmed his suspicion that there
could not
be two men simultaneously inhabiting Dinard with the
identi
cally horrible taste in colour schemes. The sock stylist was no stranger.
He had sat at a table close to the Saint’s at lunch-time,
arriving a
few moments later and calling for his bill in unison—
exactly as he was
sitting in the foyer now, with an aloof air of
having nothing
important to do and being ready to do it at a
minute’s notice.