16 The Saint Overboard

'I'm sorry, kid.'

As they had fallen, his lips were an inch from hers. He bent his head, so that his mouth touched them. She fought him wildly, but the kiss clung against all her fighting; and then suddenly she was passive and bewildering in his arms.

Simon got up and switched on the lights.

3

'I'm Loretta Page,' she said.

She sat wrapped in his great woolly bathrobe, sipping hot coffee and smoking one of his cigarettes. The Saint sat opposite her, with his feet up and his head tilted back on the bulkhead.

'It's a nice name,' he said.

'And you?'

'I have dozens. Simon Templar is the only real one. Some people call me the Saint.'

She looked at him with a new intentness.

'Why?'

'Because I'm so very, very respectable.'

'I've read about you,' she said. 'But I never heard anything like that before.'

He smiled.

'Perhaps it isn't true.'

'There was a Professor Vargan who—got killed, wasn't there? And an attempt to blow up a royal train and start a war which went wrong.'

'I believe so.'

'I've heard of a revolution in South America that you had something to do with, and a plot to hijack a bullion shipment where you got in the way. Then they were looking for you in Germany about some crown jewels. I've heard that there's a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard who'd sell his soul to pin some­thing on you; and another one in New York who thinks you're one of the greatest things that ever happened. I've heard that there isn't a racket running that doesn't get cold shivers at the name of a certain freelance vigilante——'

'Loretta,' said the Saint, 'you know far too much about this life of sin.'

'I ought to,' she said. 'I'm a detective.'

The immobility of his face might have been carved in bronze, when the light-hearted mockery left it and only the buccaneer remained. In those subtle transformations she saw half his spell, and the power that must have made him what he was. There was a dance of alertness like the twinkle of a rapier blade, a veneer of flippant nonchalance cored with tempered steel, a fine humour of unscrupulousness that demoralised all conventional criterions.

And then his cigarette was back in his mouth and he was smil­ing at her through a haze of smoke, with blue eyes awake again and both wrists held out together.

'When arrested,' he said, 'the notorious scoundrel said: 'I never had a chance. My parents neglected me, and I was led astray by bad companions. The ruin of my life is due to Night Starvation.' Where are the bracelets?'

She might not have heard him. She sprang up, stretching her arms so that the sleeves of the bathrobe fell back from her wrists.

'Oh, no! ... It's too perfect. I'm glad!' The mischief was in her eyes again, matching his own, almost eclipsing it for that moment of vibrant energy. 'You're telling the truth, I know. The Saint could only have been you. You would go out and take on any racket with your hands. Why didn't you tell me at once?'

'You didn't ask me,' answered the Saint logically. 'Besides, modesty is my long suit. The threat of publicity makes me run for miles. When I blush——'

'Listen!'

She wheeled and dropped on the berth beside him; and he listened.

'You've stolen, haven't you?'