The Saint on the Spanish Main (4 page)

The Saint frowned. Having started to walk away, in a
rather effective exit, he could scarcely turn
back and say to the slim man, or even to Uckrose, “By the way, chum,
are
you some sort of gangster?” Besides, there was still
something not quite right with the picture. There
were
plenty of gangsters in the
Miami area, which had always
appealed
to them for the same reasons as it appealed to
any other class of wealthy vacationer; but Bimini had
only attracted them during Prohibition, when
cargoes of potable spirits could be assembled there under the tolerant
protection of the British flag, to be loaded on to fast
motorboats for a quick night run to the dry coast
of the
United States. Now the island
offered nothing either to enrich or entertain them. Anyhow, he saw no reason to
disbelieve the story that Mr. Uckrose came there from
Europe, not from the States. And somehow he could
not
exactly visualize Mr. Uckrose as
a gangster—not even of
the modern,
big-business, board of directors, crime syn
dicate chieftain type. Furthermore, if Uckrose had been
one of those, the Saint would almost certainly
have rec
ognized him.

No; he might have to take some of it back,
about the
“gangster” part. But the “bodyguard”
feature could not
be laughed away—or the fact that the blue-chinned war
rior
certainly hadn’t learned his methods in any lace-collar school.

Simon Templar took a leisurely shower, put on
a
clean pair of denim slacks and a shirt that could have
been used
to advertise an exotic flower show, and went
down to the bar to
buy himself a Dry Sack before din
ner.

He was halfway through his meal when the
Uckroses
and the slim droopy-eyed man came in and sat down at a
corner table on the other side of the dining room. If
Simon had given more
thought to it, he realized that he
might have expected that: the island
offered no variety
of first-class hotels for anyone to choose from. But in
the
overwhelmingly civilized atmosphere of a British ho
tel dining room,
even in such an unassuming outpost of the Empire, in the presence of
soft-footed waiters and a
handful of other conventional guests, a
situation that
might have been explosive seemed to be decisely dam
pened.
Clinton Uckrose and his bodyguard glanced at
him only once, and thereafter studiously
ignored him.
The conversation at their table
was inaudible, but
seemed to remain
at a commonplace desultory level, and the faces of the two men were
inexpressive, with the de
liberate
woodenness of poker players. Only Gloria kept on looking at the Saint, and
seemed to be paying little
attention
to the talk of her companions. She had
changed
into a low-cut white dress that provided a strik
ing contrast for her
brown skin and dark copper hair,
and which made
her superlative torso even more intrigu
ing than the bra top in which he
had first seen it. He
found her eyes on him
again and again, and her gaze did not waver when he discovered it. A kind of
secret smile
lurked around her mouth
and let him wonder whether it
was
meant for him to share or not.

He finished, and went out to the lounge,
where he
found the proprietor. They exchanged a couple of polite
trivialities, and Simon said:
“The younger of the two
men at the
corner table in there, with the show-stopper
in white—I feel I’ve met him somewhere before. Do you
know his name?”

The proprietor turned and picked up the
register.

“Mr. Vincent Innutio,” he said,
pointing to the entry.
“From Naples. He came here with Mr. and
Mrs.
Uckrose.”

“No bell.” Simon shook his head.
“I guess it must just
be a resemblance.”

Even the Saint could not know every minor
malefac
tor on two continents, but the name sounded as if it
would fit
very well on some subordinate hoodlum who
might have been
tagged as an undesirable alien and forc
ibly shipped home
from America to his native Italy,
where Mr. Uckrose could have found
him and adopted
him. But why Mr. Uckrose would want him was still
another question.

By this time, of course, the Saint knew very
well that
he had already reached the middle of another adventure
without
even having noticed the point at which it started
to close around him.
But he was quite happy to let it
continue to enmesh him, without rushing it.

Exactly as he would have done if nothing out
of the
ordinary had happened, he arranged for a native guide
with a
skiff to take him bonefishing early the next morn
ing, and went to
bed. As his one concession to the in
trinsic hazards of the situation, he
wedged the back of a
chair under his door knob, after assuring himself that
his window was reasonably inaccessbile from
outside; aside from that, he relied on his ability to sleep like a
watchdog
to protect him. He read
Time
for an hour,
turned out the light, and slept tranquilly until dawn. An
hour later, fortified with bacon and eggs and
coffee, he
was rigging a rod loaned
him by the hotel proprietor,
while a
cheerful displaced African ferried him down the
bay.

Again this is no occasion to detail his
morning’s stalk
ing of the elusive bonefish, which is esteemed to be the
spookiest and at the same time the fightingest thing that
swims. He
was well satisfied to put two in the boat, the
larger of which
would scale close to six pounds. By one o’clock his eyes ached from searching
the brilliant water,
he was hot and thirsty and getting hungry
again, and
most of the mud flats were high and dry; he was glad to
agree with his boatman that they should knock off until
the turn of
the tide.

As the boy started to row back across the
lagoon, Si
mon saw the
Colleen
coming through the inlet,
riding
high on her step with a creaming wave at her bow. In a
few
minutes she was snug at her berth, and almost at
once three figures
were walking away from her along the
pier. Even at that distance the
Saint’s keen eyes could identify them by their silhouettes, and he told his
boatman to change course towards the
Colleen
with the as
surance
that the Uckroses and Vincent Innutio would be
well out of the way by the time he got
there.

Patsy O’Kevin passed Des the hose with which
he had
been helping his mate to swab down, and gave Simon a
hand over the side with a big
grin.

“Faith, ‘tis a proud man I am to be
shakin’ the hand that pushed that spaghetti merchant into the drink. An’
if only
it’d pushed Uckrose in after him, I’d be kissin’ it.
As it is, ye can ask
me for anything except the
Colleen
herself.”

“How about a cold beer?” Simon suggested.

With the cool nectar freshening his mouth
and throat,
he said: “You hadn’t warned me about Innutio. Where
does he
fit in?”

“I niver met him before ayther. Uckrose
calls him his
secretary, but by the cut av his jib I’d say he’d be
handier
wid the
kind o’ typewriter that only prints three letters, R I P. As ye saw for
yerself!”

Simon nodded.

“Why would Uckrose need that kind of bodyguard?”

“I couldn’t be guessin’. Although ‘tis
likely enough
he’d always be givin’ someone the notion to be takin’ a
poke at
him. Now that ye’ve seen him in action, there’s
no more I can tell
ye.”

“He is really retired, is he? Or has he
ever said any
thing about still dabbling in business?”

“Accordin’ to him, the only jewelry he
iver wants to
see
again is what he can hang on his wife.”

“That’s nice hanging, now you mention
it. And the
stuff I saw her wearing last night wasn’t colored
glass.”

“Maybe he thinks he needs the wop to take care av it.”

“Insurance would cost a lot less,
unless she’s going
around with a maharani’s collection.”

“Maybe he can’t get insurance,”
O’Kevin said.

Simon took another prolonged swallow of beer.
He was feeling better all the time.

“What brought you back so early
today?” he asked.

“It was like a millpond when we set out,
which was
foine, an’ Uckrose caught a dolphin, about twelve
pounds.
Thin it started blowin’ just enough to ruffle the
water, so pretty soon
he says he’s got a headache an’ he
wants to go in—the way I told you it
always is.” Patsy
opened the fishbox aft and held up the dolphin. “But
just in case we niver catch anything else, I’m to
keep this
frozen, an’ this hardly enough for a good dinner, an’ if
it should be all he catches he’ll send it back to
Miami to
be stuffed.” He
dropped the fish back on the ice and
slammed
the lid of the box disgustedly. “Would ye have
a little appetite left, Simon? I got some conch
last night
an’ brewed a foine pot o’ chowder for the Uckroses’
lunch, but His Lardship wouldn’t eat while we were
out,
an’ it’s just goin’ to
waste.”

“We can’t let it do that,” said the
Saint.

It was a good chowder, rich and creamy, with
plenty
of chewy conch meat in it.

“If Uckrose had et some av it, he might
o’ made
Gloria a lot happier,” O’Kevin said as he finished his
bowl.

There is a widespread belief in those parts
that the
flesh of that giant species of marine snail possesses
aphrodisiac
properties far exceeding those of the traditionally
respected oyster,
which was doubtless what
O’Kevin was alluding to. His thoughts seemed to con
tinue along that track, for he went on as if it
were in the
most natural sequence:
“If ye don’t give her the benefit
av it yourself, ye’re not the man
I’ve heard tell ye are.”

“What makes you think she’d be so
amenable?” Si
mon asked amusedly.

“Because she’s gettin’ thoroughly tired
of Uckrose, as
anyone can see. Already today she’s sayin’ how bored she
is wid his way o’ fishin’. But he won’t hear o’ me
takin’ her out alone
if it’s too rough for him. So she tells him she’s a mind to go right back to
Nassau where she could do things an’ have fun. She’s as ripe an’ ready for
trouble as
a woman ever will be, Simon me b’y, an’ if ye
don’t take advantage
av it it’s a disillusioned owld man
I’ll be.”

Simon accepted a cigarette and a cup of
coffee, and
then headed back to the hotel. By that time the
cumulative
effect of the food and beer on top of the long
sun-drenched morning
was making the ancient tropical
custom of a siesta seem remarkably
intelligent and invit
ing. He took a cold shower, closed the
jalousie shutters
enough to produce a restful twilight, and stretched out
naked on
the bed to relax and think.

Somewhere near by, some aspiring native
Crosby with
a guitar was rehearsing an apocryphal calypso:

“Oh, le’ we go down to Bimini
—

You never git a lickin’ till you go down to

Binini
…”

Simon wondered idly what historic rhubarb was com
memorated
in that quaint refrain.

“Bimini gal is a rock in de harbor
—

You never git a lickin’ till you go down to

Bimini!”

And that also could provide sustenance for
extensive speculation.

Ta-tap … ta-ta-tap!

The knocks were on his door, very softly yet
quite
distinctly. In a flash he was on his feet, pulling on his
trousers
through their stealthiness he detected a certain
flippancy in their
odd little rhythm, a kind of con
spiratorial gaiety that was persuasively
reassuring. It
would have taken an almost incredible Machiavelli of an
assassin
to have put that subtle touch into a knock. Simon was practically sure of what
he would see as he
turned the door knob.