The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

'That's as much of your voice as I can stand, Ronald -really.'

He went and found the small cramped engine room, and drained every drop of oil out of the sumps into an empty two-gallon can which he found. In instalments, he poured it away over the side, without letting Nilder see what he was doing; and then he returned to the saloon.

'I expect you'll be leaving the country as soon as you can,' he said. 'If it will help you to see the indications for a spot of travel, I may tell you that if I ever see you again the rest of your travelling will be done behind two black horses with flowers round you. And you won't make any complaints about this little voyage before you go, because if I were arrested I should feel fearfully talkative.'

'You'll pay for this, you dirty bully!' snarled Nilder furiously. 'Goldman will have something to say to you --'

'I shouldn't be surprised,' said the Saint contemp­tuously. 'Tex has the guts to say it, which you haven't.'

He climbed out of the saloon by the after door and hauled up his own motorboat.

Thirty seconds later he was creaming up the river towards Bursledon, while the Seabird drifted on down the Solent on the falling tide.

CHAPTER VI HE was back at Warsash in another twenty minutes, and as he stepped out of his car beside the inn he was just able to catch a sight of the Seabird turning to race up towards the Hamble. Even while he paused to watch it for a moment, the bow wave sank down and the ship's bows began to yaw round as she lost way. Simon grinned happily to himself and went through to the dining room.

He twitched his nostrils appreciatively at the aroma of crisping bacon which greeted him. Three hours in the fresh sea air after the sketchy meal he had swallowed at six a.m., plus a certain amount of useful exercise, had done their full share towards setting up his appetite to its ordinary matutinal proportions.

'I'll have two fried eggs, lots of bacon, and about a quart of coffee,' he said to the waitress who had already served him with one breakfast that day. 'After that, I might be able to toy with three more eggs, a pound of mushrooms, and a lot more bacon. Go out and tell them to kill the pig, Gladys.'

While at least part of his order was being executed he went to the telephone and put another call through to Patricia.

'Hullo, darling,' he said. 'This is very late for you to be up.'

'I have been to bed,' said the girl.

'So have I,' murmured the Saint breezily. 'But not for long. I don't think this early rising is healthy- the prospect of it takes such a lot of kick out of the night before, and I hate having my morning tea by moonlight.'

'How did the fishing go?'

'Pretty well.' Simon glanced round him cautiously, but there was no one within earshot. 'When last ob­served, Brother Ronald was running into a lot of trouble. I ran all the oil out of his engines, and unless he thought of greasing them with his own perspiration they've seized up in a way that'll take days to unstick. The Seabird won't be making any more voyages for a while.'

Patricia laughed softly.

'When are you coming home, boy?'

'Well-this is Friday, isn't it? I seem to remember that we have a date for lunch with Claud Eustace Teal. I'll meet you at the Bruton at twelve-thirty.'

He went back to his second breakfast with the con­tented knowledge that another and very different conversation must have been seething over the London wire at about that time, and he was right.

Ronald Nilder did not think it expedient to go into details.

'The Saint caught me in the Solent, Goldman. He didn't say it was him, but it couldn't have been anyone else. He threw the guns overboard and beat me up.'

Tex Goldman had the gift of not wasting time on use­less bad language.

'Get back here as quick as you can,' he said grimly. 'I'll have something waiting for the Saint.'

Simon Templar, however, had an equally valuable gift which had stood him in good stead before. On that Friday morning it worked at full pressure. He had a very clear conception of Tex Goldman's psychology. Wherefore he drove back to London by way of Leather-head and Epsom, and Ted Orping waited for him at the end of the Portsmouth Road in vain.

It was a minute or two before twelve-thirty when he entered the doors of Lansdowne House, but Patricia was waiting for him. The Saint ordered cocktails and told her the detailed history of his early-morning escapade.

'If you came back by a roundabout way, I expect Nilder's got home about the same time,' she said, and Simon smiled.

'I doubt it, old darling,' he said calmly. 'I stuck my penknife through both his back tires and the spare for luck, so he could either wait for someone to repair the damage or catch a train that won't get him in for another quarter of an hour. That'll make it a bit too much of a rush for him to catch the two o'clock via Boulogne, so he can either make a dash for the four o'clock Dover-Calais or wait for the eight-twenty via Dieppe or the nine o'clock via Havre-my familiarity with these timetables is remarkable,' said the Saint modestly. 'In any case, he'll have to go to his bank first, and that's all I'm interested in.'

The girl looked at him curiously.

'There was a time when he wouldn't have got off so lightly,' she said.

Simon leaned back with his long legs stretched out in front of him and watched the smoke from his ciga­rette curling towards the ceiling.

'I know. But we weren't so businesslike in those days, and the income tax wasn't five bob in the pound. Besides which, the activities of the great Claud Eustace weren't quite so near the mark. No, Pat-in the autumn of his life this young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of subtler things, which includes ingenious methods of getting his dirty work done for him. And I think I know a far, far neater way.'