The Last Laugh
“Things have gone very badly,” said the Tiger. “As Bittle said, Mr.
Templar, you have beaten us. I bear you no malice. Perhaps it was
ordained that it should end like this. You need not be afraid that I
shall kill you, as that man would have done—that would be profitless.
I might still have won, if I had had a fair chance, but the men I
trusted double-crossed me. Now the ship is going down, and all my work
is lost. I can fight no more. Fate has been against me from the
beginning, and I am very tired.”
He passed a hand across his eyes. The fatuous pose which went with the
character of Algy Lomas-Coper had fallen from his shoulders like a
discarded cloak, and it was an ordinary man who spoke. More than that,
it was a broken man. There was something which filled the Saint with a
sneaking sense of tragedy about this sudden transition from the
effervescent Algy to the grim, weary figure of the Tiger facing the
end.
“But you——”
The Tiger’s burning gaze raked over Bittle and Bloem and Maggs like a
searing iron. Once again the Tiger’s voice took on that biting tang of
steel, and the men cringed from the lash of it.
“But you—you treacherous dogs, you perfidious scum, you abject rats,
you shabby, contemptible, paltry vermin—against you I do bear malice.
I came down to meet you on the quay—do you remember?—and you shot me
down without a word. It was only a graze, but it stunned me, and to
make sure you shot me again in the body as I lay there. I found the
bullet afterwards and there was the bruise on my chest under my heart
to prove it. But I always wear a bullet-proof waistcoat—you couldn’t
know that. I lived, and swam out here with that girl to win back what
was mine. I might have done it, but I am not such a good swimmer as I
thought I was, and it took me a long time to recover after I got on
board. So I only arrived in time to hear your speeches, Bittle, and
hear Templar tell you how he had beaten you.”
The Tiger looked out at the sea.
“We are sinking quite slowly,” he said. “There will be plenty of time
for all of you to put off in the boats. I mean _you_.” He looked
around at the guard. “You at least are not traitors—you have simply
obeyed the orders of these three men, and it was not your place to
question them. I have no grudge against you. You are only the tools.
You may go.”
The men stared at each other and at the Tiger incredulously, as though
they could not believe their ears. The Tiger stepped out of the
doorway and waved them through, his lips curling contemptuously. One
by one they crept furtively past him, and, as they gained the deck,
made a rush for the companions to the boat level, casting fearful
backward glances as though they expected him to repent of his decision
and call them back. At last they had all gone.
The Saint stood up and stretched himself, and the ropes fell away from
his wrists and ankles. He even had time to enjoy and appreciate the
sensation which his escape act caused to everyone present.
“Quite a good curtain,” he remarked.
He looked at the Tiger, and smiled ruefully.
“I congratulate you, Algy—you had me guessing all the time. Well, it’s
been a good dust-up. . . . And now may I undo Orace?”
“Certainly.”
Simon walked up to Bittle and took Anna and Belle from the man’s
pockets. In a few quick slashes Orace was free and chafing his hands
and stamping up and down to restore the circulation.
Then the Saint replaced the knives in their sheaths and went over to
Patricia. He took her in his arms and kissed her; and, the reaction
coming at last, she clung to him like a child, and the Saint was
murmuring soothing and meaningless things to stop her trembling.
“Now, Mr. Templar,” said the Tiger, “you may take your friends and get
away in one of the boats. I am staying behind to settle accounts with
_my_ friends.”
Simon passed the girl over to Orace.
“I’ll follow in a moment.”
Patricia went, with Orace’s protecting arm around her, but the Tiger
stopped them at the door and took the girl’s hand.
“You will never be able to forgive me,” he said, “and I am only
thankful, now, that the power to do you any harm was taken away from
me. I am a bad man, and I have blood on my hands, but you are the
first woman who ever tempted me to forget my chivalry.”
He kissed her hand, and then Orace led her away.
The Tiger looked at Simon.
“It’s a queer whim,” he said—“but I should like to shake hands with
you.”
“You make it difficult for me,” answered the Saint. “I’m rather sorry
you’ve taken things so sportingly. But I’ll shake hands for that very
reason.”
The Saint held out his hand and smiled . . .
_Crack!_
The bullet actually grazed Simon’s arm, and he saw Algy’s eyes glaze
over suddenly. The Saint was still holding the Tiger’s hand. A great
silence followed the reverberation of the shot, and in that silence,
without a word, the Tiger swayed and toppled to the floor. He lay
there on his back, and above his heart, in the dark stuff of the
bathing costume which he still wore, a darker stain was
spreading. . . .
The Saint bent over him, but the man was dead.
Simon took in the situation out of the corner of his eye. Maggs and
Bloem were crouching back against the bulkhead, but Bittle stood up,
still holding the smoking revolver which he had snatched from the
floor while the Tiger’s attention was distracted.
The Saint straightened up, and in the same movement Anna flashed from
her sheath to his hand and whistled across the saloon like a humming
flake of light. It drove into Bittle’s exposed wrist, severing flesh
and sinew and grating on the bone, for the Saint could throw knives
with unerring accuracy. Bittle’s hand relaxed limply. He dropped the
revolver and flinched back, clawing at the knife which still hung from
his arm.
The Saint was standing across the Tiger’s body with both the Tiger’s
automatics trained on the little group.
“Treacherous to the last, Bittle,” said the Saint. “But I saw you, and
for that shot you will hang at Exeter in about three months’ time.”
And at that instant the ship was flooded with a blinding light. Over
the Saint’s shoulder, the three men could see, far astern, the
blinding eyes of two powerful searchlights which converged on the
ship.
“That will be Carn,” said Simon, without taking his gaze from his
prisoners, and at that moment Orace and Patricia returned, sick with
fear, for they had heard Bittle’s shot.
“Only scratched me,” the Saint reassured them. “But he got the Tiger.”
He passed the automatics over to Orace and went out on deck. The
pursuers were still a long way behind, but they were creeping up fast,
and the ship could not have hoped to escape them, with those great
beams of light turning darkness into day.
“This is the end of the adventure,” said the Saint, with his arm round
Patricia’s shoulders. “But, by the grace of God, it is also a
beginning.”
It was some minutes later that he remembered an important detail—he
was reminded of it by seeing the sea swelling up alarmingly close to
the starboard scuppers, and in the next second he nearly lost his
balance as the deck canted further over.
The Saint sprinted astern, sliding and stumbling all over the place.
The girl saw him disappear down a companion from the poop, and waited,
clinging to a handrail, for balance was becoming more and more
difficult. It was some time before he came back, and by then the
pursuit was barely a quarter of a mile away.
The Saint went into the saloon and found Orace braced against the
table for support, but still dutifully covering the now
terror-stricken trio. Simon used up the remains of the rope which had
been employed on Orace and himself, and at the end of the performance
Bittle and Bloem and Maggs were trussed hand and foot beyond all
possibility of escape. The Saint and Orace between them dragged the
men out on deck.
By then the ship had stopped altogether, and rolled low and sluggishly
in the oily billows. The pursuing boats were closing in on either
side, and the Saint climbed to the upper deck and stood in the full
glare of the searchlights. In a moment Carn’s voice hailed him through
a megaphone.
“What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“Marvellous!” Simon called back cheerfully. “We’ve got three prisoners
and one corpse waiting for you.”
“I’ll be on board in two minutes,” said Carn, and was as good as his
word.
He came up the rope ladder, and the Saint met him on the deck.
“You look as if you’d been wrecked,” were his first words. “We can
talk later—better hurry up and get everybody off before she goes
down.”
The Saint surprised Patricia as much as Carn.
“Wrecked nothing! I told Bittle and Co. we were going down, but we
aren’t. Orace and I just fixed the pumps and left ’em running so as to
run all the water out of the port ballast tank and fill up the
starboard one! I’ve just reversed the arrangement—see? She’s evening
up already.”
Simon showed Carn all the exhibits, and the detective was staggered.
“That Tiger had us all skinned,” he said.
They sat in the saloon and exchanged notes. Carn had been lucky enough
to find a couple of new submarine-chasing motor-boats lying at
Ilfracombe at the end of a trial run, and he was able to catch them
with his posse when they were on the point of returning to Bristol.
“All the same,” he remarked, “I should have been too late to be any
use to you. I take my hat off to you, Saint.”
“What was Lapping in this?” asked Patricia.
She told him about her interview that afternoon, and the detective
smiled.
“Lapping knew all about me, of course,” he said. “And I told him all
about how the Saint was trying to cut me out. I expect he thought you
were having a dab at pumping him for the Saint’s benefit.”
The Saint did not consider himself bound to say anything about Harry
the Duke. Before he let Harry go back to the past of Agatha Girton, he
had warned him about the dangers of private feuds, and Harry had seen
reason—the Saint had a means to control him.
“You can tell Lapping that Harry the Duke has decided to forgive him,”
he said enigmatically.
Carn was mystified, but Simon let him be puzzled, and passed on.
“Now we’re all satisfied,” murmured Simon. “You’ve got the villains of
the piece to take home with you, and I’ve got the gold.”
Carn goggled.
“I’d forgotten that—I was so worried about you and the Tiger,” he
said, and the Saint chuckled.
“I hadn’t forgotten it. I waited to start any ructions until they’d
got it all aboard for me—I couldn’t bear to think of all my work being
wasted.” The Saint looked steadily at the detective. “Shall we cry
quits, Carn? You know I’m straight, and I want to work this hooker
across to New York and return the ducats to the Confederate Bank’s
agents and collect my reward. It’ll just make enough for me to retire
on comfortably, and you get all the kudos out of the affair for
nabbing the Tiger. Is that a bet?”
Carn held out his hand, and they both smiled.
“Miss Holm goes with you, I suppose?”
“I’ll ask her,” promised the Saint. “It’ll be easy—these motor-ships
are dead simple to run, and Orace has as much expert knowledge as we
need. America’s a big place, anyway. We can’t miss it altogether, and
as soon as we strike the coast we’ll be able to find out where we are,
and probably get a navigator. We’ll only be able to run in daylight,
of course, so it won’t be a quick passage—but I can think of worse
honeymoons!”
One of the motor-boats had already been sent back in search of the
crew which the Tiger had allowed to go, and Algy and the three
prisoners were taken down into the other boat, and the armed men who
had swarmed all over the ship returned to their own little craft.
Carn was the last to go.
“Good-bye, Saint, and a good voyage,” he said.
“May you fill many prisons in the course of a prosperous career,”
returned the Saint piously.
It has already been recorded that Orace was in the habit of calling
his master every morning with a cup of tea, and commenting on the
beauty of the weather.
On a certain morning Orace came up a companion with a cup of tea in
each hand. He paused outside a door, and put the cups down so that he
could knock. But he did not knock. Instead, he scratched his chin and
argued within himself long and earnestly. Then he picked up the cups
again and went back to the galley and drank them himself.
Only one thing could upset Orace’s ingrained sense of discipline, and
that was his ingrained sense of the proprieties.
The End
Transcriber’s Note
This book was first published by Ward, Lock & Co. in 1928. This
transcription follows the text of a 1952 reprint by the same
publisher. However, where said text contained misspellings,
grammatical mistakes, or unambiguously erroneous phrasing (e.g. “in
the coarse of his duty”), the 1980 reprint by Charter Books was
consulted, and the corrected text was substituted. Any other seeming
inconsistencies have been preserved. (In particular, the inconsistent
use of spelling and apostrophizing in Orace’s dialogue have been left
unaltered.)