Salvage for the Saint (17 page)

He released the arm and shoved Bernadotti away hard, so that he crashed into the bulkhead opposite the cabin door. But Simon had underestimated his resilience, and was caught partly off his guard by the sudden ferocity with which Bernadotti sprang back at him in a cursing rage for revenge. He succeeded in catching Simon with a hard but glancing blow to the side of the head, and for a few seconds a kaleidoscope of coloured lights danced before the Saint’s eyes. Bernadotti had meanwhile sprang back to gather himself for a new rush. Simon waited, poised easily on the balls of his feet like the superbly fit fighting animal he was.

Arabella watched from inside the cabin; Descartes had quietly drawn an automatic of his own from a pocket, but he was making no attempt to influence the fight. And so Bernadotti hurled himself forward again, with wolf-teeth bared in a blood-lust of fury; and Simon Templar stepped aside adroitly and delivered a single hard forehand chop to the man’s ribs.

There was a whmmph sound, and he fell back winded and gasping. Simon half-crouched, waiting for another rush …

But then something quite unexpected happened. Suddenly the corridor lights dimmed, almost to darkness; then, after a second or two, they brightened again, then dimmed … then brightened. And in time with those weird fluctuations of light there came from the direction of the engine room an even weirder sound, an unearthly laboured whining that climbed up and down the scale of musical pitch in synchronisation with the alternations of brighter and dimmer lighting.

“Pancho!”

Descartes’ exclamation reminded them of what had been forgotten in the heat of the struggle: that the deaf-mute had not returned from his electrical mission in the engine room.

Descartes motioned urgently to Bernadotti, who limped off down the companionway to investigate after a final murderous glance at the Saint. Descartes flicked the barrel of his automatic to draw attention to it.

“Monsieur Templar,” he said as the weird variations of light and sound continued. “You will please retrieve Enrico’s weapon now, rather than later. Carefully! Holding the barrel! Thank you. Now give it to me.” As Simon complied he added, “It was most careless of Enrico, was it not, to permit you to disarm him?”

It was then that the said Enrico reappeared grim-faced and shaken, and with naked fear in his eyes.

“Pancho is dead,” he told them. “Strangled with his own tie—in the generator.”

-3-

It was a scene of perfectly stark and graphically gruesome clarity.

There, heroically trying to keep on working, was the generator; and there lying across it was the prone and unquestionably dead body of Pancho Gomez, his tie caught in the flywheel spindle, which had dragged him in tight against itself. Sparks showered about his head with the periodic binding of the flywheel. The generator whined in varying pitch as it laboured against the unwonted resistance; and as its output fluctuated, so did the lighting.

All this could be, and was, taken in at a single glance. But to Simon Templar, and no doubt to the others, there was a central point of focus in that scene, a point that drew the attention inexorably and mes-merically, and made all the other details pale into mere backdrop. That compelling point of central and inescapable interest was the condition of the dead Pancho’s face. It was blue; and from between the blubbery lips, now grotesquely parted, there protruded a hideously swollen purplish tongue. Pancho’s ugliness in life had been remarkable, but it was nothing to his ugliness in death.

It was a sight which few can imagine who have not actually seen, as Simon Templar had seen a couple of times before, the victim of a strangulation. And even he found he needed to make a definite and deliberate effort to tear his eyes from the hypnotising sight of that lividly engorged tongue.

When he did tear himself from the sight, he found he was the first to do so. The others were still standing frozen in horror-struck immobility when he reached forward to the mains box, took down the big battery lantern, and switched it on. He stopped the generator, and as the lights died he handed the lantern to Descartes to free both hands for the task of disengaging Pancho from the works. He managed it in a little while, with the sullen assistance of Bernadotti, and they lifted the body clear.

“Glory be!” said a familiar voice from behind, as they removed the last mangled pieces of the mauve tie.

And Finnegan appeared, clutching his hip-flask in the tight grip of a man who knows how to look after his possessions.

Simon blinked in astonishment.

“The helm, Captain!” he said. “What on earth are you doing down here?”

Finnegan made a smoothing-out gesture with his hands.

“Well, now, didn’t I lash it tight? Sure it’ll come to no harm for a minute or two.” He moved forward to start up the generator again, shaking his head sadly. “And a nasty accident it was, to be sure.”

“If it was an accident,” Simon said slowly, looking hard at Finnegan.

“How what in the devil’s name would he be doin’ bendin’ over the generator?” Finnegan puzzled aloud, either ignoring or not hearing Simon’s comment.

As the lights came on, Descartes moved up close to him ominously, and Bernadotti did the same. Finnegan backed nervously away from them.

“Aw, you don’t t’ink …“He eyed them disbelievingly as they fixed him with accusing glares. “How could I … ? How could it ‘a had anyt’ing to do wit’ me? Sure and didn’t I just this minute pop down to see what the thrubble was? Wasn’t I just in the wheelhouse—steering dhis ship for yous?”

“The ship is proceeding at this moment without your attentions at the helm,” Descartes pointed out. “Why should we believe that you did not ‘pop’ here one minute earlier, and force the strangulation of our associate?”

Finnegan glared balefully from Descartes to Bernadotti and back to Descartes. Suddenly they grabbed one arm each and began to frog-march him away.

“I was in the wheelhouse, I tell yous!” Finnegan protested loudly as they got him up the companionway and out on deck.

Which was a considerable achievement in view of the hindrance which Descartes’ great quivering paunch represented to any serious physical endeavour relying on his contributory efforts. But somehow they managed it, with Simon and Arabella following closely behind. More than that, within seconds they had changed their grip on the hapless Finnegan—Bernadotti taking his feet and Descartes his hands—and had hoisted him bellowing on to the rail.

“Over he goes!” said Bernadotti.

“Stop!” the Saint called out with all the quiet authority he could muster; and it was just about enough. He spoke with the crisp urgency that the situation required. “Fin-negan’s the only one who can navigate us to that gold!”

Descartes and Bernadotti stood in frozen indecision for long moments. They could not be sure that Simon Templar was telling the truth; he might have already wormed the necessary details out of Finnegan himself. But it was not a point they could seriously afford to put to the test. Descartes spoke.

“As usual, Monsieur Templar, you are right. We must not be hasty …” They lowered Finnegan to the deck none too gently, and Descartes added, “… with the good Captain.”

Finnegan, who in the last few minutes had sobered up probably faster than ever before in his life, tipped his cap to Simon and scuttled back towards the wheelhouse.

Descartes stood in silent thought for a minute or so, and then went determinedly after him. Simon followed, and so did Arabella; and Bernadotti tagged along too.

“Now!” they heard Descartes say, as the fat man completed the enterprise of squeezing his vast wobbling bulk up into the wheelhouse ahead of them. “It is time we had a truthful, a fully truthful conversation, my fine Captain Finnegan of the bottle!” He stood next to the helm with folded arms so that his presence would be impossible to ignore. “So—please begin the talking. Or we may yet change our minds and put you over the side!”

“I tell you, I had nothin’ to do with it,” Finnegan began.

“The gold! About the gold!”

Finnegan looked blank.

“Sure and didn’t I tell yous before? Two or t’ree times. I know nothin’ about any gold. What gold is it that you’d be t’inkin’ of, now?”

“I am thinking of the gold that you and Mr Charles Tatenor would collect during your cruising to Corsica. So—to where on the island did you go?”

Finnegan eyed him warily, as he might have eyed a mad dog.

“We only went fishin’, and that’s the truth, so it is.”

“And where exactly,” Descartes demanded, looking searingly into Finnegan’s face, “did you fish?”

Finnegan sighed with long-suffering patience.

“Like I said before—we’d anchor in a small bay. Always the same one.”

“Why always the same bay?”

Finnegan shrugged.

“Mr Charles—he liked it there. And … he liked the next bay round. He’d go off around the headland in the dinghy— spearfishin’.”

There was a long silence while the last revelation sank in. Descartes’ eyes lighted up.

“So,” he said softly. “We make progress at last.”

“And you are taking us to that usual bay, aren’t you?” Simon put in.

“Certain it is that I am,” Finnegan said, clearly relieved to have got off the hook so lightly after all. “And we’ll be there in the

mornin’.”

Before they left him, Finnegan assured Simon that he was now revivified and daisy-fresh, and would happily stay at the helm through the night until they reached their destination.

“Not another drop,” he told Simon earnestly, “shall pass these trut’ful ould lips this night.”

Simon felt confident in the circumstances that the Captain would be as good as his word; and he was incidentally glad of the opportunity to get his own head down for a few hours of sleep in preparation for whatever tomorrow might bring.

“Time for some shuteye,” he told Descartes as they left the wheelhouse.

“An excellent suggestion,” Descartes agreed. He pointed with his automatic. “Down below—both of you. As you will have observed, Monsieur, we are now outnumbered, my one associate and I.” He indicated Bernadotti. “And since the door to Madame’s cabin cannot now be locked, you will both please to spend the night in the other cabin.”

“You mean—together?” Arabella enquired frostily.

“I object strenuously,” Simon protested, with evident delight.

“Now look here—” Arabella began; but Descartes’ face and voice hardened.

“No, Madame! You look here,” he told here. “And you do, please, as the weapon commands!”

And so it happened that Simon Templar came to be locked in a cabin with Arabella Tatenor; and it happened also that he awoke with the first light of dawn, as he had intended, and slid silently off his bed while she slumbered on in the one opposite.

Their luggage had been carefully searched, of course; but the Saint had one useful possession which nobody had thought worth confiscating; and that was a slim pencil flashlight. He put it in his pocket now in preparation for the early-morning walk which he intended to take as soon as he had disposed of the minor obstacle of the locked cabin door.

He examined the little heap of feminine impedimenta that Arabella had deposited on the dresser, and selected a promising-looking hairclip. The Saint’s experience with locks and the techniques of opening them had been long and varied, and the cabin door would have delayed him only briefly in any case; but here he had an almost unfair advantage which made the enterprise childishly simple. He had been able to get a close-up view, not long before, of a similar lock on the damaged door of the next cabin, so that he knew exactly which type of mechanism he was dealing with.

Less than one minute later, after two minor adjustments to the bend he had made at the end of the clip, the lock gave a satisfying click as his makeshift instrument did the trick. Unfortunately that click also had a side-effect which he would have preferred it not to have.

It woke Arabella.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at him uncomprehendingly for a few moments where he knelt by the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked muzzily.

The Saint held up the bent clip and pointed to the door. Then he put his finger warningly to his lips. Arabella sat up and spoke in a firm whisper.

“OK. I’ll keep quiet, but I’m coming along.”

Simon shrugged his agreement to the ultimatum. He opened the door gradually, making scarcely a sound.

“Where to?” Arabella whispered.

“Finnegan’s cabin. I want to see if he knows more than he’s letting on.”

They made their way noiselessly along the corridor and past the galley to Finnegan’s cabin. But it yielded no surprises to the probing of the Saint’s torch; it merely looked lived in, as indeed it had been. There was a bunk, with the bedding not very tidily straightened since it had last been used; there were a few books on a shelf, some magazines strewn about, and three or four empty bottles. The carpet had a grubby look, and some of Finnegan’s clothes were hung untidily over a chair. It was, in short, just what might have been expected.

“Nothing untoward there,” Simon had to concede as he closed the door again softly from the outside.

Arabella had glanced only briefly around the cabin with him, and now he found her by the open door of a small storage room that faced Finnegan’s cabin.

“Look,” she whispered. “Fishing gear.”

The Saint looked. The store-room, lit by the pale dawn light slanting through a single porthole, was in a bit of a jumble, but he could see that besides the fishing gear various odds and ends were stacked there. There were some assorted cans of paint, a drum of paraffin, some hanks of cord and rope in various thicknesses, some lanterns and a couple of waterproof torches; there was a stack of folded rubber wet-suits—the Saint counted three—and the scuba outfits; a nylon mesh net; rods, reels, tackle boxes—and one large deep angler’s basket complete with lid.

Simon picked up the basket curiously. It was sturdily constructed, and quite heavy. He took off the lid and peered inside. It was empty, but somehow the inside depth seemed less than the outside. He prodded the base from the inside, and it seemed to give slightly.