The Saint in Miami

dark planking.

The horrific but at least integral face of Mr Uniatz rose dripping over the side of the pier into full view.

Dat son of a bitch,' said Mr Uniatz, in a voice hoarse with righteous fury. 'He's takin' us for a ride all de time. I got such a toist, boss, I can't wait no longer. So I drink a pint of dat slop before I find out it ain't what he has in de bottles. Dis ain't de pool we are lookin' for at all!'

VIII How Simon Templar Fought the Last Round, and Heinrich Friede Went His Way

'If we get out of here,' said the Saint, 'I'll give you a lake of it. If we get out.'

But he spoke so quickly that the line didn't waste an instant. He knew quite simply what that single shot meant, on their side and the other. But there was no use in arguing about it. It had saved everything and blown everything to hell, with one catastrophic explosion. And that was that.

'Get back behind those storehouses-everybody,' he snapped. 'Charlie, get moving.'

He stooped, and in one flowing movement shoved the motorboat away, snatched up the sub-machine-gun that had tumbled out of the Greek's lifeless hands and raced after Karen and Hoppy towards the clump of small buildings at the end of the pier. He crouched there with them in partial shelter, and jerked his automatic out of its holster to give it to Karen Leith.

'You said you could use it,' he reminded her. 'Now show me. The fat's in the fire, but I think we can create a diversion while the boat gets clear.'

From out in the anchorage came sounds of disorganised movement and some confused shouting. To the right of them, a door of the lodge was flung open, flinging a long strip of pallid illumination across the open shore; and Simon remem­bered the second lighted window which he had not waited to investigate after he had located Gilbeck and Justine. But only one man came plunging out, and then stopped uncertainly while he tried to orient himself to the disturbance.

He stayed in the beam of light from the doorway just one instant too long, Hoppy's Betsy snorted in its earsplitting bass, and the man's arms and legs seemed to whirl wide of his body like the limbs of a spun marionette before he fell to the ground. He kicked twice after he was down, and then he was quite still.

Mr Uniatz lowered the gun which he had been holding poised for a finishing shot.

'Chees, boss,' he said disgustedly. 'I ain't been gettin' enough practice. I t'ought I was gonna hafta waste anudder sinker on him.'

Simon thought he saw a dim alteration in the silhouette of the submarine's conning tower, as if something might be emerging from it In any case, an extra shot would not be wasted if it kept the general attention centered in their direction and away from the water. He plugged a bullet somewhere in the right direction, and heard it ricochet whining into the night.

Nobody else had come out of the lodge, and it seemed a fair chance that there had been no one else in it.

'Spread out that way,' he directed Hoppy. 'They don't know what sort of a raid they're up against yet, and we may as well give them something to think about.'

Mr Uniatz still lingered for a moment, nursing his cosmic grievance.

'I don't get it, boss,' he complained. 'If dis ain't de Pool, what de hell are dey beefin' about?'

'Maybe they were fond of Gallipolis,' Simon told him. 'You never can tell We'll talk about it some other time. Slide!'

'Okay.'

Mr Uniatz edged away. His idea of stealth was rather like that of a prowling bison, but it was adequate for the circum­stances. And at least it needed no more detailed instructions. The Hoppy Uniatz who struggled in leviathan agony with the coils and contortions of the Intellect, and the Hoppy Uniatz of the life of direct action and efficient homicide, were two men so different that it was hard to associate their responses with the same individual. But it was in such situations as this that Mr Uniatz came into his precarious kingdom. Simon tried to follow him with his eyes and ears, lost him for a while, and then felt a weird tingle as something like a deliriously gaudy snake reached into the wedge of light from the lodge doorway and drew back quickly with the gun that the dead man lying there had dropped clutched in its maw. It was a half instant before he realised that the jazzy colouration was due to the sleeve of the Seminole chief's shirt which Hoppy still proudly wore. Thus having augmented his arma­ment, Mr Uniatz let off another shot which drew an answering shriek from somewhere out in the bay.

The babble of incoherent voices that came over the water was dying away as a new crisper and harsher voice began to dominate them with a rattle of commands.

'Friede,' said the Saint inclemently, and felt the girl's left hand in the crook of his elbow.

'I only wish we could spot him,' she said. Somehow there was nothing that jarred him in the cold­blooded way she said it.

Abruptly, a searchlight on the upper deck of the March Hare sizzled into life, thrusting a white spear over the tree-tops below the lodge. It swung high and wild for a moment, and then dipped towards the waterfront and began to sweep towards them, cutting a blinding arc out of the bay.

Simon raised the machine-gun, settling his fingers on the grips; but before he had chosen his aim the gun that he had given Karen spat twice, shatteringly, across his right ear­drum. At the second shot, the white blade of light shrank suddenly back into a small red eye that faded and went out A faint tinkle stole over the pool, belatedly, to confirm the visual evidence.

'At this range, darling,' said the Saint respectfully, 'I'll admit you've shown me.'

'I used to be pretty good,' she said.

Friede's voice began barking fresh orders, but it was too far for the guttural German to be distinguishable. However, dim figures could be seen moving on the March Hare's lighted decks, and Simon lifted the Tommy gun again.

'It won't do any harm to keep them busy,' he remarked, and hosed a short burst along the length of the yacht.

As the clatter of the Tommy gun died away, and its echoes went dwindling across the startled Everglades, one or two hoarse yells floated back to suggest that the expenditure of precious ammunition might have shown another small profit. There were also four or five answering shots, aimed at the fiery flickering of the machine-gun's muzzle. They were born out of tiny sparks that blossomed on the yacht's deck, and spanged to extinction among the corrugated-iron shelters to left and right The darkness gave them a curious impersonality, making them seem as unfrightening as the first heavy drops of a thunder shower or a June bug banging against a lighted window.

Then all the lights on the March Hare went out as somebody pulled a master switch.

'I was afraid they'd think of that,' Simon said conversationally.

He strained his eyes to penetrate the obscurity of the bay. The moon had risen higher, thinning the darkness of the sky; there was enough light for him to see the pale beauty of Karen Leith's face beside him, watching with the same intentness as his own. But over the water, against the sombre unevenness of the opposite river bank, the illumination was deceptive and full of shadows that seemed to take form from imagination and then disappear. Yet he could see nothing that looked like the motorboat in which he had sent off Char­lie Halwuk and Justine and Lawrence Gilbeck. He had not kept track of the time, but it seemed as if they should have had almost enough leeway, with the current helping them, to steal far enough down river to be safe. Certainly he had heard none of the outcry or shooting that should have an­nounced their discovery.

Karen was thinking the same thoughts.

She said: 'Do you really think they can make it?'

'Once they get clear,' said the Saint, 'it's in the bag. I've done some travelling with that dried-up Seminole, and I can't think of any place I wouldn't back him to make in this country.'

It seemed quite natural that there was nothing to say about themselves. They were there. Without a guide, the jungle at their backs held them as securely as a prison wall.

'I wish you could have done something about your friends,' she said.

'They may get a chance to do something about themselves in the excitement,' he said, and they both knew that they were just talking. 'They're wonderful people for getting themselves out of trouble.

He was still listening. In a few more seconds, if nothing had gone wrong, it would be time to hear the motorboat en­gine starting its racket somewhere in the distance to the southwest. But it had not come yet. The jungle seemed to have fallen unearthly still, for the owl had departed to more peaceful glades, and not more than