16 The Saint Overboard

That seemed the most unlikely chance of all. The Saint mod­estly reckoned himself to be something unique in his profession; and there was a sober possibility that Vogel would not think of his peculiar brand of interference at all—unless he had already been identified. Simon slept with his hand on his gun and this debatable chance in mind; but he woke for the first time in the early morning. Yet this uninterrupted sleep gave him nothing more definite to work on. It was still possible that Vogel had stayed away for fear of being expected.

Over breakfast he had had to make his own decision, and his crew glared at him incredulously.

'Yer must be barmy,' was Orace's outspoken comment.

'Maybe I am,' admitted the Saint. 'But I've got to do it. If I don't keep that date this morning, I'm branded. An innocent man would keep it, even if he had caught a burglar during the night. Even a policeman would keep it—and that card may be worth holding for another few hours, though it won't last much longer.'

'It's that perishin' girl,' said Orace morosely.

Simon paused in the act of fastening a strap around his leg just below the knee—a strap which supported the sheath of the slim razor-sharp knife, Belle, which in his hands was almost as deadly as any firearm. He looked up at Orace sardonically, then ruefully; and he smiled.

'She's not perishing, Orace. Not while I'm still on my feet.'

'Yer won't be on yer feet fer long, any'ow,' said Orace, as if the thought gave him a certain gloomy satisfaction. 'And wot the 'ell 'appens to my job when yer feedin' the shrimps like that bloke I 'it last night?' he added, practically.

'I expect you could always go back to your old job as an artist's model,' said the Saint.

He straightened his sock and stood up, smiling that curiously aimless and lazy smile which only came to him when he was shaking the dice to throw double or quits with death. His hand dropped on Orace's shoulder.

'But it won't be so bad as that. I'll put the cards in the port­hole for Mr Conway or Mr Quentin to look you up during the day, and they'll see you don't starve. And I'll be having the time of my life. I'll bet Birdie is just hoping and praying that I'll plant myself by not showing up. Instead of which, it'll take all the wind out of their sails when I step on board, bright and beautiful as a spring morning, as if I hadn't one little egg of a wicked thought on my mind. It ought to be a great moment.'

In its way, it had been quite a great moment; but it had suf­fered from the inherent brevity of its description.

Simon watched the play of light on the water, the swiftly-changing lace of the foam patterns swirling and spawning along the side, and recalled the moment for what it was worth. It was the first time he had found any of the signs of human strain on Vogel's face. Even so, his practised eyes had to search for them; but they were there. A fractionally more than ordinary glaze of the waxen skin, as if it had been drawn a shade tighter over the high prominent cheekbones. An extra trace of shadow under the black deep-set eyes. Nothing else. Vogel was as spotlessly turned out as usual, his handshake was just as cold and firm, his genial­ity no less smooth-flowing and urbane.

'A perfect morning, Mr Tombs.'

'A lovely morning after a gorgeous night before,' murmured the Saint.

'Ah, yes! You enjoyed our little evening?'

'And the bed-time story.'

Vogel lifted his dark eyebrows in tolerant puzzlement—and the Saint could just imagine how well that gesture of polite per­plexity must have been rehearsed.

Simon smiled.

'There must be something catching about this harbour thief business,' he explained, with the air of a man in the street who is simply bursting with his little adventure and is trying to ap­pear blase about it. 'I had a caller myself last night.'

'My dear Mr Tombs! Did you lose anything valuable?'

'Nothing at all,' said the Saint smugly. 'We caught him.'