The Saint on the Spanish Main (27 page)

“My captain’s been ordered not to take
me anywhere
near the Narrows before Monday, and he’s too scared of
losing
his license to play games. Rawl’s crew is under the
same orders from the
Governor of the British islands,”
she told him.
“But I can’t even take you over for a
look.”

“You wouldn’t have to go along,” he
said. “Since you
showed me the chart, I could go straight to
the spot
from memory. Why couldn’t I hire another boat and go
there
tomorrow? By the same token what’s to stop Rawl
doing the same—or anyone else, for that
matter?”

“Because the place has been guarded ever
since this hassle started. My lawyer got the American Governor to
send a
Coast Guard cutter to anchor over there to pro
tect my interests,
and as soon as it got there a boatload
of police from
Tortola came out and tied up alongside to watch out for the British claim. The
treasure couldn’t be
safer until the official hunting season
opens at dawn on
Monday.”

It was then Saturday night.

“At least we’ve still got about thirty
hours to develop an inspiration,” he said finally. “Suppose we
adjourn to
your hotel now, where I hear they have dancing under
the stars, and see if we dream
up something there.”

But when he finally left her that night, considerably
later, they had still not dreamed up anything that
was strictly related to the problem that had brought them
together. Not that either of them felt that the
time had
been altogether wasted …

“Call me when you wake up in the morning,” he said,
“and we’ll start again.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’ve
promised to go to Caneel
Bay for the day with my attorney and his wife,
and
they’ve been so sweet to me that I’ve got to do it. Be
sides,
he’s trying to come up with a last-minute inspira
tion too. But I’ll
call you as soon as I get back.”

And that was another conventional obstruction,
which at the moment he could have done without.

He was picking up his key at the desk of
Bluebeard’s
Castle when a large man heaved himself out of an armchair
in the lounge with a prodigious yawn.

“What sort of an hour is this to come
home?”
boomed Jack Donohue. “If I’d had to wait for you
much longer they were going to
start charging me rent.”

“You’re lucky I got back at all,”
said the Saint. “I
might have been in hospital, or in jail. Weren’t you wor
ried?”

“I could have been. They told me you’d
had a
gorgeous red-head to dinner, and then you’d gone off
with her
somewhere. But I knew she’d get wise to you
fairly soon, and
throw you out.”

They walked across to Simon’s room with a pitcher of
ice, and he produced a bottle of Peter Dawson to
go
with it.

“Well, Jackson,” he said. “Besides bumming a free
nightcap and insulting me, what’s on your
mind?”

“Are you going to do that swimming and
diving for
me on Monday, or not?”

“Can’t you do it yourself?”

“Yes, I could do it, but it would look
like hell in the
picture. You’ve read the script. It calls for someone who
l
ooks svelte, meaning skinny and underfed, like you. And I’ve got to know
whether I can count on you, tonight. If not, I’ve got to phone New York and
have
someone flown down tomorrow.”

Simon moved his head reluctantly, left to
right.

“I’m sorry, chum. I’m sort of engaged
for Monday.”

“Give the girl such a time tomorrow
that she won’t
miss you till Tuesday.”

“She’s tied up tomorrow.”

“Then to hell with her. Make her wait
for you till
Tuesday.”

“We have a shooting schedule for Monday,
too, and
it’s something I can’t change.”

“What a louse you turned out to
be,” Donohue said morosely. “I should have made an actor of you when
I met you in Hollywood. Then you’d have been pleading
with me for a chance
to work, instead of spurning me for
some ginger dye job. Aren’t you
getting a bit old to be
chasing these dizzy dolls?”

The Saint grinned.

“Didn’t you know, Junior? When you get
to be my
age, you’ll really appreciate them. And they will ap
preciate
you for your sophistication and all the money
you’ll have. It’s a
grand old formula. And talking of
formulas——
”

He broke off suddenly, his face transfigured
in mid-
speech by a beatific thought that had illuminated his
brain
like a revelation from heaven. For several seconds
he rolled it
rapturously around in his mind, assaying all its possibilities of perfection.

“Well?” Donohue said coldly.

“I’m thinking of your corny script. And
I will double
in those underwater shots for you.”

“Thank you.”

“On Tuesday.”

“Monday.”

“No, I’m booked even more solid on Monday
now.
Just switch
your schedules for the two days. I’m sure
you
can do it.”

“All right, damn you,” Donohue
said resignedly. “I expect you’ll sink like a stone on Tuesday, but all
right.
If that’s all it’s costing me, I’ll switch the schedule for
you.”

“It isn’t
quite
all… .”

The director groaned aloud.

“What else? You want real mermaids to
fan you between takes?”

“I don’t want to strain your budget. But
since you
don’t have to worry about getting a professional swim
mer
tomorrow, and you’ll have nothing but time on
your hands, you’re
going to have to do something for
me.”

4

The Narrows on Monday morning had the air of a
maritime picnic ground rather than the site of a
salvage operation. The US Coast Guard cutter would have been
dwarfed by a destroyer, but she looked big enough
to be
the mother of the brood of
other craft gathered around her. The police boat from Road Town and the pinnace
that had brought the Governor of the
British islands
were tied up to one
side of her, and April Mallory’s chartered cabin cruiser was tied up to the
other side.
Duncan Rawl’s launch was
hove to only a few yards
away.

It was a perfect day for a picnic or for
salvage. The
water was oily calm, silver blue and turquoise, as the
sun
took its first step up into a cloudless sky; and the variety of flags
called for by the nations and services and personages represented gave the
little group of boats a fes
tive and holiday appearance.

“I’m only surprised that everything
else in the Carib
bean that’ll float isn’t here,” said the Saint.

“All of us tried our best to keep it
quiet,” April said.
“That was about the only thing everyone
was agreed on,
including the authorities. If it had got into the
papers,
it’d ‘ve taken the American and British navies combined
to keep the channel
clear.”

The American Governor was on board the cutter,
where he was playing host to the British
Governor, and
he had courteously
invited April and the Saint aboard as
soon
as they came within hailing distance.

It had been nine o’clock the previous night
before Si
mon had talked to her on the phone.

“I had to have dinner with them,”
she said, “and now
I’m full of sun and sleepy, and we’ve got to
leave tomor
row before daylight. Don’t let’s try to meet
tonight.”

“Did your legal beagle produce his
brainstorm?” he
asked.

“No. Did you?”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a moment.

“I’m too tired to be teased,
darling.”

“And I don’t want to give you any false
hopes, baby.
It might work, but it’s only a wild wild gamble. So I
won’t say
anything now. Get some sleep, and I’ll see you
on the dock.”

But when they had met, before dawn, and the
cabin
cruiser droned out through Pillsbury Sound under the
paling stars, he still refused
to tell her any more.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “You’re
prettier than most
actresses, but you may not be one. And if you just act
naturally,
it’ll be better than any performance.”

“I think I’d rather not know,
anyway,” she said listlessly. “I’ve been trying to get used to the
idea that I’m
licked, and it wouldn’t be much fun to start hoping and
be let down all over
again.”

Now, as they stood on the cutter’s deck
watching
Duncan Rawl preparing for his first dive, Simon could
feel that she was somewhat less stoical than she might
have wished to be,
and he was scarcely surprised. He
was aware of more than a mild tingle
of anticipation
himself, although it was necessarily in a different key
from
hers.

Stripped down to his swimming trunks, Duncan Rawl looked like a
heroic if slightly debauched and hungover
Norse
god. He had declined to board the cutter or to tie
up to her, cutting his engine a few lengths away
and
letting the launch drift by to
the separate focal spot
befitting the
star of the show. He had ignored April and
the Saint in his greetings as he passed as if he had not
even seen them. He sat with his feet dangling over
the
side, scowling down at the
water, while his helpers hung
the air
tanks on his shoulders and put a weighted belt
around his middle.

The sun was barely high enough to send light
under
the water when he pulled down his mask, put on the breathing mouthpiece,
and let himself down till he sank
out of sight.

“I suppose it’d be wicked to hope that a
shark bites
him,”
April said.

“Could be,” said the Saint.
“But let’s hope it any
way.”

He lighted a cigarette and forced himself to
smoke it
unhurriedly. In that way, disciplining himself against
the
temptation to look at his watch every few seconds, he
could
estimate fairly accurately that it was less than ten
minutes before Rawl
surfaced again, and his spirits leapt
as he saw it.

Rawl’s men helped him aboard and lifted off
his air
tank. There was a brief excited colloquy, and then one of
the men
took the wheel and the engine coughed and
started. Rawl sprang up on to the foredeck
as the launch eased over to the cutter, and as it drew alongside he was
tall enough to grasp a stanchion on the cutter and
hold
on, mooring the launch with his
own arm.

“Ahoy there, Captain, or whoever’s in
charge!”

The Coast Guard skipper came to the rail, but the two
Governors were at his elbow, and April and the
Saint
were close beside them.

“What is it, Mr. Rawl?”

“You’d better get these boats moved
away. I’m going
to
dynamite.”

“Already?” April gasped.

Simon cleared his throat, and moved in still closer.

“Pardon me, your Excellencies,” he
said to the two Governors, “but Miss Mallory asked me to come as her
adviser
because her attorney had to be in court this
morning. And I think
she has a right to protest against
what Mr. Rawl proposes to do.”

“On what grounds?” asked the
British Governor.

“To use dynamite now, before the bottom
has been thoroughly examined as it is, could obliterate a lot of
treasure
that otherwise might be quite easy to locate and
bring up—for someone
who really knows what he’s
doing, I mean. Of course nobody would mind
Mr. Rawl making a mess down there if he were the only person
concerned. But he should be
obliged to leave Miss
Mallory a fair chance
to find something when her turn
comes
tomorrow.”