The Saint on the Spanish Main (31 page)

“What’s wrong with Puerto Rico? You can
get a tax
exemption there if you bring in an employing
industry.”

“Sure. But the Puerto Ricans are
getting spoiled, and
the cost of labor is shooting up. In a few
more years
they’ll have it as expensive and as organized as it is
back
home.”

“So you’re investigating Haiti because
the labor is
cheaper?”

“It’s still so cheap that you could starve
to death
trying to sell machinery. Go visit one of the factories
where
they’re making wooden salad bowls, for instance. The only power tool they use
is a lathe. And where does
the power come from? From a man who spends the
whole day cranking a big wheel. Why? Because all
he
costs is one dollar a day—and
that’s cheaper than you
can operate
a motor, let alone amortizing the initial cost
of it”

“Then what’s the catch?”

“This being a foreign country: your product hits a
tariff wall when you try to import it into the
States, and
the duty will knock you silly.”

“Things are tough all over,” Simon remarked sympa
thetically.

The other’s sinewy lips flexed in a tight
grin.

“Any problem is tough till you lick it.
Coming here
showed me how to lick this one—but you’d never guess
how!”

“I give up.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not telling. May I fix
your drink?”

Simon glanced at his watch and shook his head.

“Thanks, but I should be on my
way.” He put down his glass and stood up. “I’m glad I needn’t worry
about
you getting
ulcers, though.”

Netlord laughed comfortably, and walked with
him
out on to the front verandah.

“I hope getting Sibao back here didn’t
bring you too
far out of your way.”

“No, I’m staying just a little below
you, at the
Ch
â
telet des Fleurs.”

“Then we’ll probably run into each other.” Netlord
put out his hand. “It was nice talking to
you, Mr.——
”

“Templar. Simon Templar.”

The big man’s powerful grip held on to Simon’s.

“You’re not—by any chance—that fellow
they call the Saint?”

“Yes.” The Saint smiled. “But
I’m just a tourist.”

He disengaged himself pleasantly; but as he went
down the steps he could feel Netlord’s eyes on his
back,
and remembered that for one
instant he had seen in
them the kind
of fear from which murder is born.

3

In telling so many stories of Simon Templar,
the
chronicler runs a risk of becoming unduly preoccupied
with the
reactions of various characters to the discovery
that they have met
the Saint, and it may fairly be ob
served that there is a definite limit
to the possible variety
of these responses. One of the most obvious
of them was
the shock to a guilty conscience which could open a
momentary
crack in an otherwise impenetrable mask.
Yet in this case it was of vital
importance.

If Theron Netlord had not betrayed himself
for that
fleeting second, and the Saint had not been sharply
aware of
it, Simon might have quickly dismissed the
pantie potentate
from his mind; and then there might
have been no story to tell at all.

Instead of which, Simon only waited to make
more
inquiries about Mr. Netlord until he was able to corner
his host,
Atherton Lee, alone in the bar that night.

He had an easy gambit by casually relating
the inci
dent of
Sibao.

“Theron Netlord? Oh, yes, I know him,” Lee said.
“He stayed here for a while before he rented
that house
up the hill. He still
drops in sometimes for a drink and
a
yarn.”

“One of the original rugged
individualists, isn’t he?”
Simon remarked.

“Did he give you his big tirade about
wages and tax
es?”

“I got the synopsis, anyway.”

“Yes, he’s a personality all right. At
least he doesn’t
make any bones about where he stands. What beats me
is how a
fellow of that type could get all wrapped up in
voodoo.”

Simon did not actually choke and splutter
over his
drink because he was not given to such demonstrations,
but he felt as close to it as
he was ever likely to.

“He what?”

“Didn’t he get on to that subject? I
guess you didn’t stay very long.”

“Only for one drink.”

“He’s really sold on it. That’s how he
originally came
up here. He’d seen the voodoo dances they put on in the
tourist spots down in
Port-au-Prince, but he knew they
were just a
night-club show. He was looking for the
McCoy. Well, we sent the word around, as we do some
times for guests who’re interested, and a bunch
from around here came up and put on a show in the patio.
They don’t do any of the real sacred ceremonies,
of
course, but they’re a lot more
authentic than the professionals in town. Netlord lapped it up; but it was
just an
appetizer to him.
 
He wanted to get right into the
fraternity and find out what it was all
about.”

“What for?”

“He said he was thinking of writing a
book about it.
But half the time he talks as if he really believed in
it. He
says that the trouble with Western civilization is that it’s too
practical—it’s never had enough time to develop its
spiritual potential.”

“Are you pulling my leg or is he pulling yours?”

“I’m not kidding. He rented that house,
anyway, and
set out to get himself accepted by the natives. He took
lessons in Creole so that he
could talk to them, and he
speaks it a hell
of a lot better than I do—and I’ve lived
here a hell of a long time. He hired that girl Sibao just
because she’s the daughter of the local
houngan,
and
she’s been instructing him
and sponsoring him for the
houmfort.
It’s all very serious and
legitimate. He told me
some time ago
that he’d been initiated as a junior mem
ber, or whatever they call it,
but he’s planning to take the full course and become a graduate
witch-doctor.”

“Can he do that? I mean, can a white man qualify?”

“Haitians are very broadminded,”
Atherton Lee said
gently. “There’s no color bar here.”

Simon broodingly chain-lighted another
cigarette.

“He must be dreaming up something new
and fright
ful for the underwear market,” he murmured.
“Maybe
he’s planning to top those perfumes that are supposed to
contain mysterious
smells that drive the male sniffer
mad with
desire. Next season he’ll come out with a negligee with a genuine voodoo spell
woven in, guaranteed
to give the
matron of a girls’ reformatory more sex ap
peal than Cleopatra.”

But the strange combination of fear and
menace that
he had
caught in Theron Netlord’s eyes came back to
him
with added vividness, and he knew that a puzzle
confronted him that could not be dismissed with any
amusing flippancy. There had to be a true answer,
and
it had to be of unimaginable
ugliness: therefore he had
to find
it, or he would be haunted for ever after by the
thought of the evil he
might have prevented.

To find the answer, however, was much easier
to resolve than to do. He wrestled with it for half the night,
pacing up
and down his room; but when he finally gave
up and lay down to
sleep, he had to admit that his brain
had only carried him around in as
many circles as his
feet,
and gotten him just as close to nowhere.

In the morning, as he was about to leave his
room,
something
white on the floor caught his eye. It was an
envelope
that had been slipped under the door. He
picked it up. It was sealed, but there was no writing on it. It was
stiff to his touch, as if it contained some kind
of card, but it was curiously heavy.

He opened it. Folded in a sheet of paper was
a piece
of thin bright metal, about three inches by two, which looked as if it
might have been cut from an ordinary tin
can, flattened out
and with the edges neatly turned under so that they would not be sharp. On it
had been
hammered an intricate symmetrical design.

Basically, a heart. The inside of the heart
filled with a precise network of vertical and horizontal lines, with a
single dot
in the center of each little square that they
formed. The outline
of the heart trimmed with a regularly scalloped edge, like a doily, with a
similar dot in each of the scallops. Impaled on a mast rising from the
upper V of
the heart, a crest like an ornate letter M, with
a star above and
below it. Two curlicues like skeletal
wings swooping out, one from each
shoulder of the
heart, and two smaller curlicues tufting from the bottom
point of
the heart, on either side of another sort of ver
tical mast projecting
down from the point and ending in another star—like an infinitely stylized and
painstaking
doodle.

On the paper that wrapped it was written, in
a careful
childish script:

Pour vous prot
é
ger.

Merci.

Sibao

Simon went on down to the dining room and
found
Atherton Lee having breakfast.

“This isn’t Valentine’s Day in Haiti,
is it?” asked the
Saint.

Lee shook his head.

“Or anywhere else that I know of.
That’s sometime in
February.”

“Well, anyhow, I got a valentine.”

Simon showed him the rectangle of embossed
metal.

“It’s native work,” Lee said.
“But what is it?”

“That’s what I thought you could tell me.”

“I never saw anything quite like
it.”

The waiter was bringing Simon a glass of
orange
juice. He stood frozen in the act of putting it down,
his eyes
fixed on the piece of tin and widening slow
ly. The glass rattled
on the service plate as he held
it.
 

Lee glanced up at him.

“Do you know what it is?”

“V
ê
ver,”
the man said.

He put the orange juice down and stepped
back, still
staring.

Simon did not know the word. He looked
inquiringly
at his
host, who shrugged helplessly and handed the token back.

“What’s that?”

“V
ê
ver,”
said the waiter. “Of
Maîtresse Erzulie.”

“Erzulie is the top voodoo
goddess,” Lee ex
plained. “I guess that’s her symbol, or some sort of
charm.”

“If you get good way, very good, said
the waiter ob
scurely. “If you no should have, very bad.”

“I believe I dig you, Alphonse,”
said the Saint; “And
you don’t have to worry about me. I got it
the good
way.” He showed Lee the paper that had enclosed it.
“It
was slid under my door sometime this morning. I guess
coming from her makes it pretty
special.”

“Congratulations,” Lee said.
“I’m glad you’re officially protected. Is there anything you particularly
need to be
protected from?”

Simon dropped the little plaque into the
breast pocket
of his shirt.

“First off, I’d like to be protected
from the heat of
Port-au-Prince. I’m afraid I’ve got to go back down
there. May
I borrow the jeep again?”

“Of course. But we can send down for
almost any
thing you want.”

“I hardly think they’d let you bring
back the Public
Library,” said the Saint. “I’m going to wade
through
everything they’ve got on the subject of voodoo. No, I’m
not going
to take it up like Netlord. But I’m just crazy
enough myself to lie
awake wondering what’s in it for
him.”