The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

a perfectly normal invitation in itself, but if Mr. Nilder was revealing a little more astuteness than the Saint had credited him with . . . And then the morn­ing breeze wafted over to him the fragrance of Ronald Nilder's breath, and Simon realized that the man was more than a little drunk.

'It's quite a coincidence that we should meet again so soon, isn't it?' Nilder remarked suddenly, as the engines picked up again and the one-man crew took the wheel. 'I had an excellent view of you in my driving mirror yesterday.'

His close-set eyes were fixed on the Saint with the peculiarly rigid stare of mild intoxication, and Simon understood in a flash that Ronald Nilder had oiled himself up to the exact stage of tiddliness at which a man becomes conscious of a verve and brilliance which no one else can perceive and which he himself never knew he possessed.

Simon returned the man's stare coolly. He had set out that morning with no intention of doing anything desperate, but he was always ready to adapt his style to circumstances. And Ronald Nilder was being so frantically and unnecessarily clever that he was asking for a suitable retort with both hands.

'Why, yes-it does seem odd, doesn't it?' mur­mured the Saint.

He tapped the helmsman gently on the shoulder, and the man half turned. In that position, the point of his jaw offered itself to the Saint's fist as a target that could not in common politeness be ignored. Simon duly obliged- gracefully, accurately, and with a detonating release of energy that lifted the helmsman clear onto the balls of his feet before he dropped.

'Perfectly priceless weather, isn't it?' murmured the Saint, conversationally.

He spun the wheel hard over, so that the Seabird heeled to starboard and came about in a flat skid. Simon straightened her up smoothly and let her run south, away from the river mouth.

His eyes returned to Nilder's face with a blue chal­lenge of devilment to match his smile. It was on such moments of inspired unexpectedness that the Saint's greatness was founded. Looking at Ronald Nilder, he saw that the tipsy courage which had induced the man to take such a recklessly incalculable bull by the horns had wheezed down like a punctured tire. There was a kind of panic in Ronald Nilder's face, and he was trying clumsily to draw a gun.

Simon took it away from him quite good-humouredly and dropped it over the side.

'You know, that's another mistake, Ronald,' said the Saint calmly. 'Respectable yachtsmen never pull guns when their crew are assaulted. They just go mauve in the frontispiece and say: 'What the devil, sir, is the meaning of this outrage ?' '

Nilder stared at him whitely; and the Saint de-clutched the engine and allowed the Seabird to lose way.

'And now that the audience has gone to sleep, Ronald,' he remarked, 'I'll tell you a secret. While I was sitting out here hoping that some young fish who'd never heard of my reputation would accept one of my worms, I thought to myself what a useful base this would be for anyone who didn't want to advertise his cargo.' He saw Nilder crouch a little, and did not smile. 'I'm afraid several girls must have been sorry they accepted an invitation to go yachting with you. But what do you bring back with you on the return journey, Ronald ?-that's what worries me.'

Nilder licked his lips and did not answer.

Then a hand like steel gripped his arm, and a brown face that had lost all its geniality looked down into his.

'Shall we go and look?' said the Saint.

He thrust Nilder through the door that led into the saloon aft. There were a couple of wicker hampers on the table, and Simon surveyed them thoughtfully. That, of course, was the simplest way of bringing any reasonably sized cargo ashore.

'Champagne and caviare sandwiches?' drawled the Saint. 'That's just what the doctor ordered for me.'

He pushed Nilder onto one of the sofa berths and snapped up the lid of one of the baskets.

He was not quite sure what he expected to find, but it was certainly not what he saw. He looked at it in silence for several seconds, and then he raised the lid of the other hamper. The contents of that one were the same.

'So it's Tommy guns, is it?' he said quietly. 'I wondered when that was coming. And how long have you known Tex Goldman?'

Still Nilder did not answer.

Without losing sight of him for an instant, Simon carried out the hampers one by one and dumped them overboard into the deepest part of the Solent. He came back and lifted Nilder off the sofa by his collar.

'I asked you a question, you horrible little scab,' said the Saint. 'How long have you known Tex Goldman?'

Nilder shook his head in a dumb travesty of stub­bornness. And the Saint's fist crashed into his mouth and knocked him back against the bulkhead.

'If you don't talk now you won't smile for months,' said the Saint equably. 'It'll be too painful. I don't like you, and I loathe your trade. How long have you known Tex Goldman?'

Nilder wiped his bleeding lips.

'I don't know him, I tell you. What right have you --'

But in three more minutes he was glad to talk.

'I knew him six years ago, before he went to America. He was flying kites-passing bad checks. He got to know something about a girl I-I found a job for. She was only fifteen, but how was I to know ? It wasn't my fault. ... He was deported. Then when he came back he made me help him. It was blackmail. I didn't want to do it --'

'That's nearly all I want to know,' said the Saint. 'How many trips have you made so far?'

'This is the first-I swear it is --'

Simon flung him back into a corner.