16 The Saint Overboard

himself from the settee. He came up like the backlash of a cracked whip, and his fist hit Murdoch under the jaw with a clean crisp smack that actually forestalled the slight thud of the gun hitting the carpet. Murdoch's eyes glazed mutely over, and Simon caught him ex­pertly as he straightened up on his feet.

'Ahoy, Corsair!'

'Ahoy to you,' answered the Saint.

The communicating door at the end of the saloon was opening, and Orace's globular eyes peered over his moustache through the gap. There was no need of words. Simon heaved Murdoch's inanimate body towards him like a stuffed dummy, with a dozen urgent commands sizzling voicelessly on his gaze, and followed it with the glass from which Murdoch had been drinking. And then, without waiting to assure himself that Orace had grasped the situation to the full, he snatched up his gun and leapt for the companion in one continuous movement, slipping the automatic into his hip pocket as he went.

He started with lightning speed, but he emerged into the after cockpit quite leisurely; and everything else had been packed into such a dizzy scintilla of time that there was no undue hiatus between the first hail and his appearance. He turned unhurriedly to the side; and Kurt Vogel, standing up in the speedboat, looked up at him with his sallow face white in the dim light.

'Hullo,' said the Saint genially.

'May I come aboard for a moment?'

'Surely.'

Simon reached out an arm and helped him up. Again he exper­ienced the peculiar revulsion of the other's strong clammy grip.

'I'm afraid this is a most unseemly hour to pay a visit,' said Vogel, in his suave flat voice. 'But I happened to be coming by, and I hoped you hadn't gone to bed.'

'I'm never very early,' said the Saint cheerfully. 'Come on below and have a drink.'

He led the way down to the saloon, and pushed the cigarette-box across the table.

'D'you smoke?' Vogel accepted; and Simon raised his voice. 'Orace!'

'As a matter of fact, I only called in in case you'd made up your mind about to-morrow,' said Vogel, taking a light. 'Per­haps you didn't take my invitation seriously, but I assure you we'll be glad to see you if you care to come.'

'It's very good of you.' Simon looked up as Orace came in, 'Bring another glass, will you, Orace?'

He put the match to his own cigarette and lounged back on the opposite berth while Orace brought the glass. He rested his finger-tips on the edge of the table and turned his hand over with a perfectly natural movement that brought his thumb downwards. With his back turned to Vogel, Orace set down the glass. His face was always inscrutable, and the fringe of his luxu­riant moustache concealed any expression that might ever have touched his mouth; but without moving another muscle of his features he drooped one eyelid deliberately before he retired, and the Saint felt comforted.

'I would rather like to come,' said the Saint frankly, as he poured out the whisky.

'Then we'll expect you definitely. Loretta is coming, too.'

'Who's coming?'

'You know—Miss Page——'

Simon eased a drop of liquid from the neck of the bottle on to the rim of the glass with a hand as steady as a rock, and looked up with a smile.

'I'm afraid I don't,' he murmured. 'Who is the lady?'

'She was with us—— I beg your pardon,' Vogel said quickly.

'My memory is playing me tricks—I had an idea she was with us when we met this morning. Perhaps you will meet her in Guernsey.'

'If she's as pretty as her name, I hope I do,' said the Saint lightly.

He passed the glass over and sat down again, feeling as if his stomach had been suddenly emptied with a vacuum pump.