'auled 'im aht an' laid 'im on the boom an' folded the mains'l over 'im. I couldn't think of nothink else, sir,' said Orace, clinging to his original defence.
Words failed the Saint for a while. And then, with a slow help-less grin dragging at his mouth, he brought up his fist and pushed Orace's chin back.
'Go up and fetch him in again, you old humbug,' he said. 'And don't play any more tricks like that on me, or I'll wring your blessed neck.'
He threw himself down on the settee and began to think again. Murdoch still remained to be dealt with: and the Saint feared that he might not have been made any more amenable to reason by the sock on the jaw which had unfortunately been obliged to interrupt their conversation. Not that Murdoch could have been called an unduly sympathetic listener before that . . . Probably it made very little difference; but the original problem remained. There was also the question arising in his mind of whether Orace's manoeuvres with the mainsail had passed unnoticed by the seaman who had stayed in the speedboat—which would be even more difficult to determine. And the Saint's attention was busily divided between these two salient queries when he looked up and discovered that Orace had returned to the saloon and was gaping at him with a peculiarly fish-like expression in his eyes.
Simon Templar regarded the spectacle thoughtfully for one or two palpitating seconds. Orace's rounded eyes goggled back at him with the same trout-like intensity. The fringes of Orace's moustache waved in the draught of his breathing like the ciliated epithelium of a rabbit's oviduct. It became increasingly apparent to the Saint that Orace had something on his mind. 'Are you laying an egg?' he inquired at length. 'E's—e's
4
Simon got up slowly. Of all the spectacular things he had done that evening, he was inclined to estimate that restrained and dignified uprising as the supreme achievement. It was a crowning triumph of mind over matter for which he felt justly entitled to take off his hat to himself, afterwards, and when wearing a hat.
'He's gorn, has he?' he repeated.
'Yessir,' said Orace hollowly.
Simon moved him aside and went up on to the deck. The disordered mainsail, draped sloppily away from the boom, offered its own pregnant testimony to the truth of Orace's conjecture. Simon strolled round it and prodded it with his toe. There was no deception. The lump that had been Steve Murdoch, which he had felt under his hand as he walked by with Vogel, hadn't simply slipped off its insecure perch and buried itself under the folds of canvas. Murdoch had taken it on the hoof.
' 'E must 've woke up while yer was talkin' to me an' 'opped overboard,' said Orace gloomily.
The Saint nodded. He scanned the surrounding circle of black shining water, his hands in his pockets, listening with abstracted concentration. He could hear dance music still coming from one of the casinos, a waif of melody riding over the liquid undertones of the harbour; that was all. There was no sight or sound to tell him where Murdoch had gone.
'You have the most penetrating inspirations, Orace,' he murmured admiringly. 'I suppose that's what must have happened. But we shan't get him back. It's nearly low tide, and he's had time to reach the shore by now. I hope he catches his death of cold.'
He smoked his cigarette down with remarkable serenity, while Orace fidgeted uncomfortably round him. Certainly the problem of what to do with Steve Murdoch was effectively disposed of. The problem of what Steve Murdoch would now be doing with himself took its place, and the question marks round the problem were even more complicated and more disturbing. But the doubt of how much Kurt Vogel knew stayed where it was—intensified, perhaps, by the other complication.
'Do you think anyone saw you parking our friend up here?' he asked.
Orace sucked his teeth.
'I dunno, sir. I brought 'im aht soon's I sore yer go in an' lugged 'im along on me stummick. It didn't take arf a tick to lay 'im aht on the boom an' chuck the sile over 'im, an' the other bloke was lightin' 'is pipe an' lookin' the other way.' Orace frowned puzzledly. 'Yer don't think them thunderin' barstids came back an' took 'im orf, do yer?'
'No, I don't think that. I watched them most of the way home, and they wouldn't have had time to get back here and do it. If they saw you, they may come back later. Or something. The point is—were you seen?'
Simon's brow creased over the riddle. If the seaman had observed Orace's manoeuvres, he might have been clever enough to give no sign. He would have told Vogel on their way
