The Saint in Miami

that his throat was parched from the salt air and the neat whisky he had swallowed. The melodious sounds of tiny icebergs in cold fluid were almost more than his resolution could resist; but he knew that those amenities had to wait He started back towards the bow with the flowing stealth of a cat.

The seaman at the rail had not moved, and did not move as Simon crept up to him on noiseless rubber soles. The Saint studdied his position scientifically, and tapped him on the shoulder.

The man spun round with a hiccup of startlement With his mouth hanging open, he had time to glimpse the sheen of a shaded deck light on crisp black hair, the chiselled leanness of devil-may-care lines of cheekbone and jaw, a pair of mocking blue eyes and a reckless mouth that completed the pic­ture of a younger and streamlined reincarnation of the privateers who once knew those coasts as the Spanish Main. It was a face which by no stretch of imagination could have belonged to any ally of his, and the seaman knew it intuitively; but his reactions were much too slow. As he reached defensively for a belaying pin socketed in the rail near by, a fist that seemed to be travelling with the weight and velocity of a power-diving aeroplane struck him accurately on the point of the chin, which he had carefully placed in the exact position where Simon had planned for him to put it.

Simon caught him neatly as he fell.

An open hatch just forward of the deckhouse gave him a view down a narrow companion into a lighted alleyway. Simon hitched the unconscious man on to his shoulder and carried him down.

The alley contained four doors labelled with neatly sten­cilled letters. The inscription on one door said STORES. Open, it revealed a dark locker which exhaled an odour of paint and tar. It took exactly three minutes to truss the victim, gag him with his own socks and handkerchief, and tuck him away inside. After which Simon examined the other resources of that very conveniently located storeroom.

He returned to the deck with a length of rope and a stout piece of wood slotted at each end, known to seafaring persons as a bosun's chair. He moved along the rail until he was directly over the Meteor, rigged the chair, and lowered it over the side.

A jacketed steward came out on deck amidships, carrying a tray, and turned aft. Simon crouched like a statue by the rail and watched him go. The steward had not even glanced in that direction when he emerged; but there was some slight difficulty in judging how long he would be gone, and on the return trip he could hardly help noticing Simon's operations at the bow.

Hoppy gave a couple of tugs at the rope to signal that the cargo was ready to load.

There was still no sign of the steward returning.

'Well,' said the Saint, to his guardian angel, 'We've got to take a chance some time.'

He took a fresh grip on the rope and began to haul. The burden swung free at first, then bumped dully against the side as it came higher. The Saint threw all the supple power of his back and shoulders into the task of speeding its ascent, while he breathed a prayer that no member of the crew had been in a position to notice the thud and scrape of its contact. After what seemed like a year the lolling head of the body came in sight above the edge of the deck.

And then the Saint's tautly vigilant ears caught the scuff of the steward's returning footsteps.

Holding tightly to the rope, Simon stepped rapidly back­wards until the deckhouse concealed him. There he fastened the rope to a handy stanchion with a couple of quick half-hitches.

The steward's footsteps pattered along the deck, slackened hesitantly, and shuffled to a dubious stop. The Saint held his breath. If the steward raised an alarm from where he stood, he might as well take a running dive over the side and hope for the best . . . But the steward's nerves where under phlegmatically good control. His footsteps picked up again, approaching stolidly, as he came on forward to investigate for himself.

Which was an unfortunate error of judgment on his part.

He came past the corner of the deckhouse into Simon's field of vision and stood still, looking down movelessly at the lifeless head of the boy dangling against the bottom of the rail. And Simon stepped up behind him like a phantom and enclosed his neck in the crook of an arm that was no more ghostly than a steel hawser . . .

The steward became gradually limp, carrying his perplex­ity with him into the land of dreams; and Simon picked him up and transported him over the same route that he had taken with the deck hand. He also treated him in exactly the same way, binding and gagging him and pouring him into the store locker with his still sleeping fellow crewman. The only distinction he made was to remove the steward's trim white jacket first. The Saint's humanitarian instincts made him reflect that the atmosphere of the store room might grow warmer later with its increasing population; and furthermore another use for that article of clothing was beginning to suggest itself to him.

It was a little short in the sleeves, but otherwise it fitted him fairly well, he decided as he shrugged himself into it on his way back to the deck.

He had an instant of alarm when he returned towards the dangling body and saw a ham-sized hand groping with very lifelike activity above the level of the deck. A moment later he had identified it. He grasped it, and assisted the perspiring Mr Uniatz to heave himself over the rail.

'I ought to push you back into the drink,' he said severely. 'I thought I told you to wait in the boat.'

'De stiff stops goin' up,' explained Hoppy, 'so I t'ought dey mighta gotcha. Anyhow, dey ain't no more drink. I finish de udder bottle while I'm waitin'.' He became aware of the uniform jacket which was now buttoned tightly over the Saint's torso, and stared at it with dawning comprehension. 'I get it, boss,' he said. 'We're gonna raid de bar an' get some more.'

He beamed at the prospect like an ecstatic votary at the gates of Paradise. Simon Templar had long been aware of the fact that Mr Uniatz's nebulous notions of an ideal after life were composed of something like floating out through eternity in an illimitable sea of celestial alcohol; but for once the condition of his own palate left him without the heart to crush the manifestations of that dream.

'I've heard you bring up a lot of worse ideas, Hoppy,' he admitted. 'But first of all we'd better finish lugging in the stiff, before somebody else comes along.'

A brisk exploration along the starboard side disclosed that the door from which the steward had emerged gave into an alley athwartships from which a lounge opened forward, a dining saloon aft, and a broad stairway descended to the accommodations provided for the owner and his guests. Simon stood at the head of the staircase and listened. No sound came from below. While he stood there, Hoppy Uniatz caught up with him, with the body draped over one herculean shoulder.

Simon beckoned him on.

'We'll take him below,' he said in a low voice. 'Stay far enough behind me so that if anything blows up you'll be in the clear.'

He stepped quietly down to the bottom and inspected the broad alleyway in which he found himself. He felt no partic­ular anxiety at that point. Randolph March would have no reason to suspect that his yacht was in the hands of a board­ing party. From the sounds Simon had heard on deck, Mr March was probably engrossed in a pleasant tete-a-tete which would effectively distract his attention from all such ideas. And all the crew who had not gone ashore were probably asleep, except the watchman who had already been disposed of, and the steward detailed to attend to Mr March's alco­holic requirements, who had encountered a similar doom but who could at a suitable moment be interestingly re­placed . . .

The elements of the idea took firmer hold on his imagina­tion as he tiptoed over the carpet. His shoes sank two inches into the resilient pile. He reached the door of a stateroom, lis­tened for a moment, and opened it A pencil flashlight from his hip pocket discovered sycamore panelling and the silken covers or a double bed.

'This'll do, Hoppy,' he said, and stood aside while Mr Uniatz brought his burden in.

He closed the door and switched on the lights.

'Put him in the bed and tuck him in,' he said. 'He deserves a bit of comfort now.'

Hairbrushes and other personal toilet gadgets on the dressing-table suggested that the cabin might be in current occupation. Simon looked through a couple of drawers, and found a suit of rainbow silk pyjamas. He threw them on the bed as Hoppy pulled down the covers.

'Fix him up nicely,' he said. 'He's a guest of the management . . .' Another thought crossed his mind, and he went on speaking more to himself than to any audience. 'Maybe he's been here before. And I wonder what he was then . . .'

He stood guard by the door while Hoppy carried out his commission, kindling a cigarette and keeping one ear alertly cocked for any sound of human movement in the alleyway outside. But there was none. So far, the adventure couldn't have gone more smoothly if it had been mounted on roller bearings. He began to feel a glutinous and