16 The Saint Overboard

speak about 'going down' again, and gathered that Vogel himself was going to accompany Ivaloff, the complete and incontestable explanation had opened up in his mind like an exploding bomb. Loretta had told him-—-how many hundred years ago?—that Vogel must have some fabulous treasure-house some­where, where much of the proceeds of his astounding career of piracy might still be found, which Ingerbeck's had been seeking for five years. And now the Saint knew where that treasury was. He knew it as certainly as if he could have seen down through the thirty feet of stygian water over the side. Where else could it have been? Where else, in the name of all the sublime and extrav­agant gods of piracy, could Kurt Vogel, taking his loot from the trackless abysses of the sea, have found a more appropriate and inviolable depository for it than down there in the same vast lockers of Davy Jones from which it had been stolen?

And the Saint was going down there to find it. Vogel was going down with him to show him the last secret. And down there, in the heavy silence of that ultimate underworld, where no other soul could interfere, their duel would be fought out to its finish.

As they came to the companion, Simon was ripping off his tie and threading it through the trigger-guard of his automatic. He steadied the helmsman as they reached the lower deck.

'Hold my arm.'

The man looked at him and obeyed. The Saint's blue eyes held him with a wintry dominance that would not even allow the idea of disobedience to come to life.

'And don't forget,' added that smouldering undertone, which left no room for doubt in its audience that every threat it made would be unhesitatingly fulfilled. 'If they even begin to suspect anything, you'll never live to see them make up their minds. Move on.'

They moved on. The helmsman stopped at a door a little fur­ther up the alleyway and on the opposite side from the cabin in which Simon had been locked up, and opened it. Ivaloff and the two men who had dressed the Saint before were there, and they looked up in dour interrogation.

Simon held his breath. His forefinger took up the first pressure on the trigger, and every muscle in bis body was keyed up in terrible suspense. The second which he waited for the helmsman to speak was the longest he could remember. It dragged on through an eternity of pent-up stillness while he watched his inspiration trembling on a balance which he could do no more to control.

'The Chief says Templar is to go down again . . .'

Simon heard the words through a haze of relief in which the cabin swam round him. The breath seeped slowly back out of his thawing lungs. His spokesman's voice was practically normal—at least there was not enough shakiness in it to alarm listeners who had no reason to be suspicious. The Saint had been sent down once already; why not again?

Without a question, the two dressers got to their feet and stumped out into the alleyway, as the helmsman completed the order.

'He says you, Calvieri, see that there is a dress ready for him. He goes down himself also. He will be along in a few minutes— you are to be quick.'

'Okay.'

The two dressers went on, and Ivaloff was coming out to fol­low them when the helmsman stopped him.

'You are to stay here. You change into your shore clothes at once, and then you stay below here to see that none of the others come out on deck. No one except the engineer and his assistant must come out for any reason, he says, until this work is finished. Then you will go ashore with him.'

'Boje moy,' grumbled the other. 'What is this?'

The helmsman shrugged.

'How should I know? They are his orders.'

Ivaloff grunted and turned back, unbuckling his belt; and the helmsman closed the door on him.

It had worked.

The stage was set, and all the cues given. With that last order, the remainder of the crew were immobilised as effectively as they could have been by violence, and far more simply; while the one man whose unexpected appearance on deck would have blown everything apart was detailed to look after them. A good deal of jollification and whoopee might take place on deck while the authority of Vogel's command kept them below as securely as if they had been locked up—he had no doubt that a