Forestalling any persuasion, he caught the ladder rungs screwed to the bulkhead, drew himself up, and opened it. After all he had been through already, his heart was too exhausted to turn any more somersaults; but the daze deepened round him as he hoisted himself out on to the deck and found no unconscious body laid neatly out in the lee of the coaming. They had been through the ship from stern to stem, and that hatchway was the last most desperate door through which Murdoch's not inconsiderable bulk could have been pushed away. If Orace hadn't dumped the man out there, he must have melted him and poured him down the sink, or ordered a fiery chariot from Heaven to take him away: the Saint was reaching a stage of blissful delirium in which any miracle would have seemed less fantastic than the facts.
He stretched down a hand and helped Vogel to follow him out. They stood together under the dimly luminous canopy of the masthead light, and Vogel extended his cigarette-case. There were only the ordinary shadows on the deck, and the one seaman sat patiently smoking his pipe in the cockpit of the speed tender tied up astern.
'I'm afraid my enthusiasm ran away with me,' said Vogel. 'I should never have asked you to show me round at this hour. But I assure you it's been worth it to me—in every way.'
He laid the faintest and most innocent emphasis on the last three words.
Simon leaned on the mast, with one arm curled round it, as if it had been a giant's lance. The stub of his old cigarette fizzed into the water.
'It's been no trouble at all,' he murmured courteously. 'What about one for the road?'
'Many thanks. But I've kept you up too late already.'
'You haven't.'
'Then I'll leave before I do.' Vogel waved a hand to his marine chauffeur. 'Ivaloff!' He smiled, and held out his hand. 'We'll look out for you, then, at St Peter Port?'
'I'll be there by tea-time, if we have any wind.'
The Saint sauntered aft beside his guest. Beyond all doubt, the stars in their courses fought for him. If he could have given vent to his feelings, he would have serenaded them with crazy carols. He thought about the munificent rewards which might suitably be heaped on the inspired head of Orace, when that incomparable henchman could be made to reveal the secrets of his wizardry.
His right hand trailed idly along the boom. And suddenly his whole body prickled with an almost hysterical effervescence, as if the two halves of some supernal seidlitz powder had been incontinently fused under his belt.
'Goodnight,' said Vogel. 'And many thanks.'
He watched the other step down into the tender and touch the starter. The seaman cast off; and the speedboat drew away, swung round in a wide arc, and went creaming away up the dark estuary.
Simon stood there until the blaze of its spotlight had faded into a brilliant blur, and then he put his hands on the companion rail and slid down below. First of all he poured himself out a large drink, and proceeded to absorb it with profound deliberation. Then he grasped Orace firmly by the front of his shirt and drew him forward.
'You god-damned old son of a walrus,' he said, with his voice torn between wrath and laughter. 'Men have been shot for less.'
'I couldn't think of nothink else, sir, sudding like,' said Orace humbly.
'But it makes the ship look so untidy.' Orace scratched his head.
'Yessir. But it was a bit untidy ter start wiv. Jremember the mains'l started to tear comin' dahn from St Helier? Well, when yer went orf to-night I thought I might swell do somefink abaht it. I sewed a patch on it while yer was awy, but I 'adn't 'ad time ter furl it agyne when yer came back. So when yer chucked that detective bloke at me——'
'You took him along to the hatch——'
'An' dreckly I sore yer go below, I
