16 The Saint Overboard

2

She had pulled off the green bathing cap, and her hair had tumbled to her shoulders in ,a soft disorder of chestnut rippled with spun gold. Her red mouth seemed to be of the quality that triumphs even over salt water; and the purely perfunctory covering of her attenuated bathing costume left room for no deception about the perfection of her slender sun-gilt figure. Her steady grey eyes held a tentative gleam of mischief, soberly checked at that moment and yet incorrigibly seeking for natural expression, which for one fleeting instant worked unpardonable magic on his breathing.

'A bit wet in the water to-night, isn't it?' he remarked coolly.

'Just a little.'

He pulled open a drawer and selected a couple of towels. As an afterthought, he detached a bathrobe from its hook and dropped that also on the couch.

'D'you prefer brandy or hot coffee?'

'Thanks.' The impulse of mischief in her eyes was only a wraith of itself, masked down by a colder intentness. 'But I think I'd better be getting back—to collect my bet. It was aw­fully good of you to—understand so quickly—and—and help me.'

She held out her hand, in a quick gesture of final friendliness, with a smile which ought to have left the Saint gaping dreamily after her until she was lost again in the night.

'Oh, yes.' Simon took the hand, but he didn't complete the action by letting go of it immediately as he should have done. He put one foot up on the couch and rested his forearm on his knee; and the quiet light of amusement that twinkled in his sea-blue eyes was suddenly very gay and disturbing. 'Of course, I did hear something about a bet——'

'It—it was rather a stupid one, I suppose.' She took her hand away, and her voice steadied itself and became clearer. 'We were just talking, about how easy it would be to get away with anything on a foggy night, and somehow or other it got around to my saying that I could swim to Dinard and back without them finding me. They'd nearly caught me when you pulled me on board. I don't know if that was allowed for in the bet, but——'

'And the shooting?'

Her fine brows came together for a moment.

'That was just part of the make-believe. We were pretending that I'd come out to rob the  ship——'

'And the shouting?'

'That was part of it, too. I suppose it all sounds very idiotic——'

The Saint smiled. He slipped a cigarette out of a packet on the shelf close by and tapped it.

'Oh, not a bit. I like these games myself—they do help to pass away the long evenings. Who did the shooting?'

'The man who spoke to you from the dinghy.'

'I suppose he didn't shoot himself by mistake? It was a most realistic job of yelling.' Simon's voice expressed nothing but gentle interest and approval; his smile was deceptively lazy. And then he left the cigarette in his mouth and stretched out his hand again. 'By the way, that's a jolly-looking gadget.'

There was a curious kind of thick rubber pouch strapped on the belt of her swim suit, and he had touched it before she could draw back.

'It's just one of those waterproof carriers for cigarettes and a vanity case. Haven't you seen them before?'

'No.' He took his foot down, again from the couch, rather deliberately. 'May I look?'

The note of casual, politely apologetic inquisitiveness was perfectly done. They might have been carrying on an idle con­versation on the beach in broad sunlight; but she stepped back before he could touch the case again.

'I—I think I'd better be getting back. Really. The others will be starting to worry about me.'

He nodded.

'Perhaps they will,' he admitted. 'But you can't possibly go swimming about in this mess. You don't know what a risk you're taking.