Patricia Perseveres
“Well,” remarked Simon Templar, breaking a long silence as lightly as
he could, “where do we go from here, old Pat?”
She disengaged her hand and sat down again; and he shifted his own
chair round so that they were knee to knee. She was chilled by the
definiteness with which he reverted to pure business, though later she
realised that he did so only because he was afraid of letting himself
go, and possibly incurring her displeasure by forcing the pace.
“I’ve also a story to tell,” she said, “and it came out only last
night.”
And she gave him a full account of Agatha Girton’s confession.
For such a loquacious man, he was an astonishingly attentive listener.
It was a side of his character which she had not seen before—the Saint
concentrating. He did not interrupt her once, sitting back with his
eyes shut and his face so composed that he might well have been
asleep. But when she had finished he was frowning thoughtfully.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said the Saint. “So Aunt Aggie is one of
the bhoys? But what in the sacred name of haggis could anyone
blackmail Aunt Aggie with? Speaking quite reverently, I can’t imagine
she was ever ravishing enough, even in her prime, to acquire anything
like a Past.”
“It does seem absurd, but——”
The Saint scratched his head.
“What do you know about her?”
“Very little, really,” Patricia replied. “I’ve sort of always taken
her for granted. My mother died when I was twelve—my father was killed
hunting three years before that—and she became my guardian. I never
saw much of her until quite recently. She spent most of her time
abroad, on the Riviera. She had a villa at Hyères. I stayed on at
school very late, and I was generally alone here during the holidays—I
mean, she was away, though I usually had school friends staying with
me, or I stayed with them. She didn’t do much for me, but my bills
were paid regularly, and she wrote once a fortnight.”
“When did she settle down in Baycombe, then?”
“When she came back from South Africa. About six years ago I had a
letter from her from Port Said, saying that she was on her way to the
Cape. She was away a year, and I hardly had a line from her. Then one
day she turned up and said she’d had enough of travelling and was
going to live at the Manor.”
“And did she?”
“She used to go abroad occasionally, but they were quite short trips.”
“When was the last expedition?”
She pondered.
“About two years ago, or a bit less. I can’t remember the exact date.”
“Now think,” suggested the Saint—“roughly, you hardly saw her at all
between the time she introduced herself as your guardian, when you
were twelve, until she came back from South Africa, when you were
sixteen or seventeen.”
“Nearer seventeen.”
“And in that time anything might have happened.”
She shrugged.
“I suppose so. But it’s too ridiculous. . . .”
“Of course it is,” agreed Simon blandly. “It’s all too shriekingly
ridiculous for words. It’s ridiculous that our Tiger should have
broken the Confederate Bank of Chicago and lugged the moidores over to
Baycombe to await disposal. It’s ridiculous to think that there are
some hundredweights of twenty-two carat gold hidden somewhere not two
miles from here. But there are. What we’ve got to assume is that on
this joy ride nothing is too ridiculous to be real. Which reminds
me—what do you know about the old houses in Baycombe? There must be
something conspicuously old enough for Fernando to have thought The
Old House was sufficient address.”
He was surprised at her immediate answer.
“There are two that’d fit,” she said. “One is just out of the village,
inland. It used to be an inn, and the name of it was The Old House.
It’s falling to bits now—the proprietor lost his licence in the year
Dot, and nobody took it over. It’s supposed to be haunted. The windows
are all boarded up, and a dozen men could live there without being
seen if they went in and out at night.”
The Saint smashed fist into palm, his eyes lighting up.
“Moonshine and Moses!” he whooped. “Pat, you’re worth a fortune to
this partnership! And I was just thinking we’d come to a standstill.
Why, we haven’t moved yet! . . . What’s the other one?”
“The island just round the point.” She waved her arm to the east. “The
fishermen call it the Old House, but you wouldn’t have noticed it
because it only looks like that from the sea. The sides are very
steep, and on one side it juts right out over the water, like those
old houses where the first floor is bigger than the ground floor.”
Simon jumped up and walked to the edge of the cliff, so that he could
see the island. It was about a mile from the shore—nothing but an
outcrop of rock thickly overgrown with bushes and stunted trees. He
came back jubilant.
“It might be either,” he said exultantly, “or it might be both—the
Tiger may have a home from home in your defunct pub, and he may have
parked the doubloons on the island. Anyway, we’ll draw both covers and
see. Thinking it over, I guess I’ve hit it. The Tiger’d want to have
the gold in some place he could ship it from easily—remember it’s got
to go to Africa. And by the same token . . . Here, hold on half a
sec.”
He disappeared into the Pill Box and came back in a moment with
field-glasses. Then he focused on the horizon and began to sweep it
carefully from west to east. He had covered three-quarters of the arc
when he stopped and stared for a full minute, suddenly rigid.
“And there she blows,” he muttered.
He handed her the binoculars and pointed north-east.
“See what you make of it.”
“It looks like a couple of masts sticking up.”
“Motor ship—no funnels,” he explained. “The Bristol shipping passes
here, but we’re back in a sort of big bay, and I don’t think they’d
stand in as near as that. But we’ll just make sure.”
He took the glasses from her again and went into the Pill Box, and she
followed. He fossicked about in the kitchen till he found a piece of
board, the remains of a packing-case, and this he settled in one of
the embrasures, truing it up level with little wedges of newspaper.
Then he put the field-glasses on it and took a sight on one of the
masts by means of a couple of pins stuck in the board.
“We’ll give her five minutes.”
She grasped his meaning at once.
“You think they’re waiting to come in after dark?”
“No less. Comrade Bloem hasn’t done all he’d like to with T. T. Deeps,
but he’ll have some weeks’ grace while the stuff’s getting to the
mine. And he daren’t let it lie around here any longer, in case my
luck holds and I don’t get bumped off according to schedule. I’ve
rattled the Tiger!”
He was keeping an eye on his watch, and the minutes ticked away very
slowly.
“Is Dr. Carn a detective?” she asked.
“That’s hit it in one,” affirmed the Saint. “But don’t let on you
know. It wouldn’t be sporting not to give the old boy a fair run.”
“Then aren’t you a detective?” she stammered in bewilderment. “I
thought you were friendly rivals—that was the only explanation I could
work out last night.”
The Saint smiled grimly.
“Rivals—more or less friendly—yes,” he said. “But I’m not a detective,
and never was. I’m playing for my own hand, with an enormous quantity
of ha’pence coming to me if I win, and everybody’s kicks if I lose.
Profession, gentleman adventurer: _i.e._, available for any job
involving plenty of money and plenty of trouble, suitable for a man
who doesn’t bother much about the letter of the law and who’s prepared
to take his licking without a yelp if he gets landed. That’s me. Like
this. I happened to find Fernando, and as soon as I’d got the thing
taped out I took a trip to Chicago and saw the boss of the
Confederate. ‘Here’s nearly a year since your strong room was busted,’
I said, ‘and the dicks haven’t brought you back one cent of the
almighties. Now suppose you let me have a shot. Terms, twenty per
cent. commission if I bring it off. Not a bean if I don’t. Me to work
on my lonesome, without reporting to anybody, and to take all the
blame if I’m run over.’ Well, that put them on something to nothing,
so they bit. And there you are.”
He was looking steadily at her, but she did not change colour. But the
Saint was never a faker, and this was his call to clean the whole
sheet, so that she could take it or leave it as she chose and would
never be able to say he hadn’t played square. He rubbed it in with
brutal directness.
“That’s the way I’ve lived for years. Pretty well, all things
considered, so that if this gamble turns up I’ll be able to retire and
settle down as soon as I like, and not have to stint myself anywhere.
In those years I’ve committed about half the crimes in the Calendar,
at the expense of crooks. It’s a sporting game—man to man, and devil
take the mug: and the police, for obvious reasons, aren’t invited to
interfere by either side. Bloem’s the first to break that rule; but
the Tiger isn’t a sportsman—he’s just a pot-hunter. Still, I doubt if
your friends would appreciate my success in that career. D’you still
want to be a partner in the firm?”
She sighed.
“Saint, you’re an ass,” she said. “And if you exhibit any symptoms of
virulent imbecility I shall fire you and become managing director
myself.”
“Hell’s bells,” ejaculated Simon, unwontedly moved, and swung away.
Very carefully, so as not to disturb the board, he took another sight
at the ship’s masts; and presently he straightened up with a light of
triumph breaking on his face.
“We’re in luck,” he said. “She hasn’t shifted a millimetre. Rotten bad
navigation. I’d have known the height of my masts to an inch, and the
height of the cliffs here ditto, and I’d have figured out my position
to six places of decimals. . . . But the Tiger’s loss is our gain!”
“They’ll start to come in at sunset,” she took him up excitedly.
“And——”
“And I’ll be there,” said the Saint. “It’s a moonlight swim for me
to-night. That’s great—to let the Tiger Cubs themselves lead me to the
cache! But the snag is . . . Holy Habbakuk . . . they’ll be waiting
for me.” She stared. “They know I’ll invite myself, bless it!”
“Why?”
“Because they know I’m wise to this Old House joke. I let on, like a
fool. That was a poisonous bad bloomer! I was ragging old Bloem about
Fernando, just seeing how much breeze I could put up him, and I
mentioned the Old House. They’ll think I knew exactly what and where
it was. Oh, crumbs and crutches! D’you mind kicking me as hard as you
can?”
She was as distressed as he was. It was in no half-hearted manner that
she had enlisted in the army of adventurers. A setback stung her as
much as anybody. She bit her lip.
“But they’re coming in,” she insisted.
“Yes—forewarned and forearmed to the teeth. If I happen to have been a
bit slow on the uptake, well and good. If I haven’t, and think I’ll
butt in, they’ll be ready for me. Maybe the Tiger’s patting himself on
the back right now, bucked to death with his dandy little scheme for
getting away with the oof and me too. Well, it’s up to me to hand him
the jar of his life. Sit tight a shake while I think.”
He dropped into a chair and lighted a cigarette, his brain reeling and
humming to encompass this new twist to the problem. Undoubtedly he had
sized it up right—the Tiger was giving himself a double chance. And
that move had got to be baulked somehow. But how? The Saint had only
to breathe a word to Carn, and the Tiger was dished. But then so was
the Saint. That put that out of bounds.
He was fully prepared to swim out to the Old House that night, with
Anna strapped to his arm, and trust to the inspiration of the moment
to show him a way of beating the gang, even if they were watching and
waiting for him. That was an honest toss-up with sudden death, and
Simon took risks of that stamp without turning a hair. But on the
other hand he liked to have at least a shadowy loop-hole for
emergencies—there was no point in chucking the game away for lack of a
little forethought. And how to provide that loop-hole? The Tiger’s
forces were large: the Saint could reckon on only Orace and the girl,
besides himself. And he didn’t want to push a slip of a girl into the
front line, however keen she might be to go. How to make three
people—or nearer two and a half—do the work of a platoon was a poser
worthy of the undivided attention of a great general. Manifestly, it
could not be done by any ordinary means. Therefore, there must be
subtlety.
And the Tiger had the added advantage of being the attacker. Simon’s
cigarette began to smoulder down in his fingers unnoticed. That was a
point! The Tiger was sitting high and dry in his den, hatching plots
and making raids and forays when the spirit moved him; while the Saint
had to sit on the fence with his eyes skinned, just parrying the
Tiger’s thrusts. And it became clear to the Saint that there was
something unfair about that arrangement. True, the Saint had made one
attack—but why let the offensive stop there? The enemy had an idea
that he would come lunging in again that night: well, so he might, if
it looked like a good tussle and he felt in the mood. But that didn’t
imply an armistice until zero hour, by any manner of means. Quite a
lot of skirmishing could take place before the big battle—and every
blow of it would bother the Tiger and help harrass his organisation
for the last rounds. There really was no earthly reason why the Tiger
should have it all his own way.
Where to launch the attack? The other Old House sprang to his mind at
once. They might be expecting him to turn up there, but they would
hardly anticipate his arrival in broad daylight. Which was just the
way he might catch them on the hop. Or the dilapidated inn might be a
false scent—in which case there was nothing but the state of his own
nerves to stop him paying a call on Bloem. The prospects began to look
brighter, and suddenly the Saint sat up with a broad grin illuminating
his face.
“I’ve very nearly got it,” he announced.
“Do let’s hear!”
She was flushed and eager, eyes sparkling, lips slightly parted, like
a splendid young Diana. She made a picture that in the abstract would
have delighted the pagan Saint, but in the concrete it brought him up
with a jerk. Next thing he knew, she’d be demanding to be allowed to
accompany him on the whole tour.
“Simply the germ of an idea to wallop the Tiger Cubs when they come in
for the spondulicks,” he lied, thinking furiously. “You see, gold’s
shocking weighty stuff, so they’ll have to ferry it to the ship in
small doses. That’ll mean they’ll have about three of the ship’s boats
running in relays—if they tried to take too big a load at once it’d
simply drop through the bottom. And the crew’ll be pretty small. A
motor ship doesn’t take much running, and they’d want to keep the
numbers down in any case, because the seaman who can be relied on not
to gossip in port is a rare bird. If we’re lucky, the skipper’ll be
ashore getting his orders from the Tiger, and that’ll make one less to
tackle. Otherwise, the Tiger’ll go aboard himself, and that’ll be one
more to pip—though the fish’ll be worth the extra trouble of landing.
In any event, the general idea is this: we’re going to have a stab at
pinching that hooker!”
The Saint was capable of surprising himself. That plan of campaign,
rigged out on the spur of the moment to put the girl off the main
trail, caught hold of his imagination even as he improvised it. He
ended on a note of genuine enthusiasm, and found that she was wringing
his hands joyfully.
“That’s really brilliant,” she bubbled. “Oh, Saint, it’s going to be
the most fearfully thrilling thing that ever happened—if we can only
bring it off!”
He gazed sadly down at her. There it was—a tank of mulligatawny big
enough to drown a brontosaurus, and he’d fallen right in before he
knew what was happening. He shook his head.
“Kid,” he said, “piracy on the low seas isn’t part of the curriculum
at Mayfield, is it?”
“I can swim a couple of miles any day of the week.”
“Can you climb eighteen feet of anchor chain at the end of it?”
objected the Saint. “Can you back yourself to put a man to sleep
before he can loose a yell? Can you make yourself unpleasant with a
belaying-pin if it comes to a riot? I hate to have to damp your
ardour, Pat, but a woman can’t be expected to play that game.”
She was up in arms at once.
“Saint, you’re trying to elbow me out again!” she accused. “Possibly
you’ve never met anybody like me before—I flatter myself I’m a bit out
of the ruck in some ways. And I won’t be packed up in cotton-wool!
Whatever you go into, I’m going with you.”
Then he let her have it from the shoulder.
“Finally,” he said in a level voice, “how d’you fancy yourself as a
prisoner on that tub, at the mercy of a bunch like the Tiger’s, if we
happen to lose? We might, you know. Think it over.”
“You needn’t worry,” she said. “I shall carry a gun—and save one
cartridge.”
The Saint’s fists clenched. His mouth had set in a hard line, and his
eyes were blazing. The Saintly pose had dropped from him like the
flimsy mask it was, and for the first and last-but-one time she saw
Simon Templar in a savage fury.
“And—you think—you, my girl, you——” The words dropped from his tense
lips like chips of white-hot steel. “You think I shall let
you—take—that chance?”
“Is there any logical reason, my man, why you shouldn’t?”
“Yes, there is!” he stormed. “And if you aren’t damned careful you’ll
hear it—and I don’t care how you take it!”
She tossed her head.
“Well, what is it?”
“This,” said Simon deliberately—“I love you.”
“But, you dear priceless idiot,” said Patricia, “hasn’t it occurred to
you that the only reason I’m in this at all is because I love you?”
For a space he stared. Then——
“Burn it,” said the Saint shakily, “why couldn’t you say so before?”
But after that there was only one thing to do. For a man so unversed
in the ways of women he did it exceedingly well.