Gallipolis picked up the bill and tucked it away. He tilted back his head, pinched his lower lip, and studied Simon's flawless Savile Row tailoring.
'My Indian's named Charlie Halwuk, and the last time I saw him he told me he was a hundred and two years old, which may be stretching it a bit-it's a Seminole trick. What I'm trying to tell you is this. If he sees you in that rig-up, instead of starting out on any heap big hunting party, he'll want to take you down to an Indian village and marry you to a squaw.'
Simon looked down at his night club costume, 'Have you got anything else?'
'I've got some things a guy left here on account and never came back. He was about your size. Come along with me.'
The Greek strode off down the hallway of the houseboat, past the darkened poker room, and turned into a stateroom on the left. He lighted a match and touched the wick of an oil lamp. A locker disgorged high leather boots, heavy woollen socks, khaki pants and shirt. Gallipolis tossed them on a bunk.
'They look like hell, but I had 'em washed. Suppose you try 'em on. They'll be more comfortable where you're going, anyhow.'
The Saint changed, while Gallipolis went back to the bar. The fit was not at all bad. Perhaps the boots were a trifle large, but that was better than having them too small. Simon strapped on his shoulder holster again, and found a shabby hunting coat to put on over the gun.
There was a newspaper among the other litter on the bunk, and Simon picked it up and found that it was dated that evening. He had to turn to the second page to find a follow-up story on the tanker sinking. The reason for that was plain enough, for nothing new had developed. He realised that there was no reason why anything ever should, and he began to wonder if by a fortunate fluke the explosion had been just a little too sudden for the ungodly; and he was tempted to be glad that he had never said anything about the submarine. The plot should have called for at least one survivor to spike the theory that the disaster was due to spontaneous combustion, which seemed to be the accepted explanation pending the verdict of a Commission of Inquiry. After his own capture of the planted lifebelt, the loss with all hands must have been one of those unforeseen accidents to which the best conspiracies were subject.
The only additional information was that the tanker was sailing under the American flag, but had loaded with oil at Tampico and cleared for Lisbon-it was presumed that she had been working up the coast for the shortest possible dash across the ocean. It was a minor point, but it helped to round out the picture and dispose of another lurking obscurity. There had to be at least a good superficial reason for a British submarine to have done the sinking; and beyond Lisbon was Spain, at the back of France, with Franco responding to the strings pulled in Rome, where Mussolini's wagon careered behind the maniac star of Berlin. It could all be plausible . . . And the Saint wondered whether it was right that he should ruthlessly call it good fortune that no man had come out alive from that latest sacrifice to the ravening ambition of the hysterical megalomaniac who was putting out the lights of Europe as a screaming guttersnipe would break windows . . .
He went back to the bar room and found Gallipolis regarding Hoppy with a despairing frown.
'That cricket outfit is going to wow the Indians,' he told Simon apprehensively. 'But I gave you the only things I've got that 'd come near fitting him. Maybe he can swap it for a blanket. Anyhow it'll help keep the rattlesnakes away.'
'We're goin' out huntin', ain't we?' argued Mr Uniatz. 'I buy dese sport clothes in Times Square, so dey can't be nut'n wrong wit' dem.'
Gallipolis gave it up and pushed back the bar.
'When I'm walking wide-eyed into trouble, I like my chopper,' he explained. He took his Tommy gun out of the floor cavity, picked up a can of cartridges, and weighted down another pocket with a heavy automatic. A powerful flashlight followed. Simon was keyed for treachery like a taut violin string, but there was no sign of it. Gallipolis turned down the lamp until it flickered out, shone the flashlight against the door, and said: 'Come on.'
They followed the path across the palmetto land, with the Greek leading the way. There were small fleecy clouds playing tag with the moon, but the stars gave a steady glimmer of illumination that relieved the fluctuating dark. A frog barked in the canal, and the night was full of the gabble and screech of insects.
Simon stopped for a moment to examine Mr Uniatz's Lincoln again under the flashlight.
'This is what you came in, I suppose,' he said.
'Dat's it, boss,' assented Mr Uniatz unblushingly. 'I borrow it from de clip jemt, on account of I t'ink I am goin' back.'
'We'd better move it out-it's probably on the air by now. I'll stop about a mile up the road, and you can park it and get in with us.'
He started the Cadillac and let it go, and braked again after they had been on the highway about eighty seconds and the last of Miami had fallen behind. While the lights of the following car went out, and he waited for Hoppy to join them, he took another look at the Greek.
'I don't want you to misunderstand anything, comrade,' he murmured, 'but there's one other side to that grand I promised you. If I can buy you, I expect anybody else can. But you ought to remember one thing before you go into the auction market. Hoppy and I are both a little quick on the trigger sometimes. If we thought you were going to try to be clever and turn that perforator of yours the wrong way, your mother might have to do her job all over again.'
Gallipolis gave him the full brilliance of his limpid black eyes.
'I never met a big shot like you before, mister.' he said curiously. 'Does anybody know just what your angle is?'
'Believe it or not, I've done most of my killings for the sake of peace,' said the Saint cryptically.
The Cadillac swept on again until the speedometer touched seventy, eighty, eightyfive and crept towards ninety. Bugs battered shatteringly against the windshield and disintegrated in elongated smears. Simon's face was a mask of cold graven bronze with azure eyes. Then the world about them disappeared entirely, and they were roaring through mist westward on the Tamiami Trail.
3 A single light showed like a puffball through the fog and rocketed up to meet them.
This is Ochopee,' said the Greek, and touched Simon's arm.
The Cadillac slowed down. The light turned out to be a single bulb over a pump in front of a darkened filling station. It was the only sign of life in the shrouded town.
'Boss,' said Mr Uniatz from the back seat, in a voice of glum foreboding, 'dey pulled in de sidewalks. If dey's a bar open now it's because somebody forgot to lock up.'
Gallipolis said: 'Charlie Halwuk lives on a dredge about half a mile on the other side of town.'
'What sort of dredge?' Simon asked.
'There's a lot of 'em around here. They used 'em to build the road, and then left 'em. Now they're nothing but skeletons with most of the planking gone. Keep straight ahead.'
Simon drove on. Above the whisper of the engine, the night emphasised its silence with the clatter of crickets and a throaty chorus of bullfrogs. It sounded like a thunderclap when the Greek said 'Turn here.' Simon pulled over and saw the headlights glisten on two lines of milky water.
'There's sand underneath it,' said Gallipolis. 'Go on.'
They followed the ruts for a tenth of a mile or more, and then Simon stopped again. A great flat boat, with grinning ribs at the stern topped with a crazy superstructure, showed starkly in the double glare of the headlights. The Saint switched on the spotlight and played it from side to side.
Gallipolis called 'Charlie!' musically, and said: 'Blow your horn.'
The howl of the klaxon rasped through the cheeping stillness, and when Simon took his hand from the button the bullfrogs had stopped their oratorio. Close beside them on the left, the air was suddenly beaten to tatters with a deafening whirr like the wings of a thousand invisible angels. White shapes floated upwards, loomed briefly in the headlight beams, and were gone.
'Birds,' said Gallipolis mechanically. 'We frightened them away.'
In the back, Mr Uniatz said pessimistically: 'I bet de jernt has been padlocked.'
The Greek reached down beside him, turned around, and magnanimously presented Hoppy with a fresh quart of shine.
'I'm charging this stuff to you at a buck a bottle,' he told Simon. 'It's a good thing I brought some
