The Saint and the People Importers

1

Highway A13 out of London follows the northside curves of the widening Thames where the river opens its mouth to the North Sea. The Dartford Tunnel, on the eastern rim of the city, is the last man-made spanning of the estuary. From there on the water is free of all traffic except boats, fish, and seagulls, though its banks are burdened with the giant chimneys of power stations and the cranes of dockyards — skeletal forests like burnt-out woodlands with the smokey haze of their extinction still hanging over them.

Even though the river soon becomes so broad that it would be better called a gulf, and half an hour farther east expands so far as to become indistinguishable from the sea, the smokestacks of the power stations remained a constant landmark down to the Saint’s right as he drove along the highway. At first they dominated the landscape entirely. They were supplanted by their monstrous stepsons, great towers of steel which carried the high tension powerlines across the countryside on their shoulders.

But even those ventured only as occasional stragglers very far from the complex that spawned them. Huge lorries rolled on across Essex, but the countryside gradually turned less commercial. Oil storage tanks looked lost in open fields amongst signs offering NEW LAID EGGS and HOME GROWN POTATOES. There was a Donkey Derby at One Tree Hill, and a more hopeful signal in the form of a beat-up old boat in somebody’s front garden.

“How far do we have to go before we take to the water?” Tammy asked the Saint.

She sounded admirably calm, but he noticed that her fingers kept fiddling with the leather strap of the binoculars he had brought from his house in Upper Berkeley Mews before they left London.

“No farther than we have to,” he said. “But we’ve all day, and we might as well enjoy it. How are we looking on the chart?”

“There’s a picture of a sailboat at South Benfleet,” she told him, tracing their route on a map of southeast England. It’s not far off this road.”

“That’s probably where Fowler’s boat stops over on these runs,” Simon remarked. “But I don’t think he’ll be there himself as early as this. Keep your fingers crossed, though.”

“Turn right at Great Tarpots,” said Tammy.

They negotiated a roundabout south of Basildon and drove through an area heavily built up with houses. But down on the right they could see the marshy banks of the last official few miles of the Thames. The water even then no longer looked like a river: it was a broad expanse glaring in the light of the low sun.

The Saint slowed down. Great Tarpots might once have been conspicuous enough to merit its grandiose name, but now it appeared to have been lost in the general spread of dwellings and shops between Basildon and Thundersley. The turn to South Benfleet was marked not only by an appropriate roadsign, but also by the more ominous presence on the corner of ALDEN & SONS, FUNERALS AND MEMORIALS.

“That’s promising,” Tammy observed.

“Maybe we should make advance reservations for Fowler and Kalki,” was the Saint’s more optimistic reply. “But on second thoughts it’d be cheaper to give the fish a treat.”

It was the time of the mid-morning break now, and the residential streets were full of schoolgirls in uniform skirts and jackets and boy-style neckties. But within a mile or so the unwelcome dampness of the river’s tidal banks kept homes at a distance. The fenced premises of the Benfleet Yacht Club were an encouraging sight, even though its vessels were for members only.

Simon slowed down. Just ahead was a swing bridge, and the creek it crossed was lined with half-floating sail- and motor-boats. The tide was fairly low. Simon could only hope that it was coming in rather than going out. Otherwise the creek looked barely navigable.

He managed to find a place to park his car just off the road, and he and Tammy walked to the nearest of several establishments along the creek which dealt in boats. It was a barren place, with grassy mud flats crisscrossed with shallow reeking ditches where shellfish must have spent at least half their lives dying at low tide. The wooden building looked no friendlier, and neither did the boaty type who stepped out with a one-eyed mongrel dog at his side to meet the Saint and his companion.

“I’d like to hire a sailboat,” Simon told him after a cautious exchange of greetings.

The Saint stood with his hands in his pockets while the other man mulled over the question.

“It’s not easy to hire a boat around here.”

“There seem to be plenty of them,” Simon rejoined.

As the man answered, it seemed that he was more reserved than unfriendly.

“You’d be better off around at Thorpe Bay or someplace like that,” he said. “We’ve had bad luck hiring boats to people in these tidal waters. The creek’ll be two foot deep in one spot and twenty foot deep in another, and when the tide goes out they’ll run aground and walk off and leave the boat, and then the tide comes in and the boat turns up floating on the Canvey front and we’ve got to go and fetch it.”

At least he had not said no.

“You don’t have to worry,” Simon said. “I won’t run aground and I won’t abandon your boat.”

“How long do you want it for?”

“A few hours — most of the day, probably.”

The boatman looked out across the mud and water. The sky was clear and bright, with only a few small clouds above the distant smokestacks and their windblown plumes of white steam.

“Should be a nice day.” He sampled the crustacean-scented atmosphere with his nose. “But it’s not very warm. Not much of a time for being out on the water.”

“We’re hardy types,” the Saint assured him. “We belong to the Polar Bear Club. We take a dip in the sea every Christmas Day.”

The man facing him huddled down inside several layers of sweaters and a duffle coat.

“You’re welcome to it,” he said. “But you’d be better off around at Thorpe Bay or someplace.”

“How much does it cost to hire a boat when you do hire one?” Simon interrupted.

The man paused to ponder how much he might get.

“Two pounds an hour for a boat big enough to be even halfway safe out there this time of year.” He shook his head. “But I just don’t want to take a chance. I’m sorry.”

Simon had already spotted a likely looking if weather-beaten craft in the water near the wooden building.

“How much would that cost?” he asked.

“I told you—”

“I mean how much would it cost if I just took it out and sank it — which I don’t intend to do, incidentally.”

“It’s not for sale, but if it was I reckon it might bring two hundred quid.”

Simon did not bat an eye at the vast overestimate. He reached inside the weatherproof tan jacket he was wearing and pulled out a wallet. From the wallet he counted fifteen ten pound notes.

“Deposit,” he said, offering them to the other man, who had been watching with rapidly expanding interest. “That should make it worth your while even if you had to go down to Canvey to fetch it — which you won’t.”

The man looked at the money and then at the Saint.

“You really mean it?”

“Take it,” Simon said.

The man took it, took his customers into the building, and laboriously wrote out a receipt. Then he started getting the boat rigged with sails, all the while giving directions for negotiating the creek which would have appalled a Mississippi riverboat captain.

“You’re lucky the tide’s coming in,” he said. “Makes it a little easier.”

“I’ll go fetch our lunch,” Simon said.

He set off back to the car for the picnic provisions which he had thoughtfully packed in Upper Berkeley Mews — some cold tongue and ham, bread and butter, apples, cans of beer in a thermal bag full of ice cubes, and a flask of martinis. Tammy followed him.

“Don’t you think we should get one with a motor on it?” she muttered. “I mean, we’ve got a pistol and binoculars and a flashlight, but not water wings. I’d hate to have to swim back.”

“We’ve got to look innocent,” Simon said. “In a sailboat, we can drift about and tack around the fort in all directions, without looking as if it was our special target. But at the first sign that we’re not a couple of lovebirds enjoying a sail, we’ll become a couple of sitting ducks in a shooting gallery.”

The boat owner was busy with the sails when they returned with their burdens. Tammy gazed pessimistically at the boat, which bore the name Sunny Hours. It appeared to have seen many a sunny hour, and many a stormy one as well. Possibly it would look bright and new after its winter renovation, but right now it looked fit for piecemeal consumption on a fireplace.

It floated, however. Simon took the tiller, Tammy got herself more or less comfortably installed beside him, and the owner waded out in boots to get the craft into deeper water.

“Well,” said Simon as the southerly breeze caught the sails. “Wish us bon voyage.”

“Good luck,” the boatman said dubiously.

It was a long awkward run that they made down the variable waters of the creek, but the channel widened after a while, and at last the Sunny Hours spread her wings in the open river. She had no company except wheeling gulls and a long barge churning its way slowly in the opposite direction towards London.

“I don’t see any forts,” Tammy said, peering ahead.

“They’re out there somewhere,” Simon assured her. “We’re still in the river until we get abeam of Southend. Just enjoy yourself. We’ve got a long way to go yet.”

“And when the sun sinks in the west, so do we?”

Simon smiled at her.

“Think positively. It’s Fowler who’s going to get sunk. Relax.”

The dead forest of smokestacks lay small in the haze behind them. The mouth of the creek from which they had entered the Thames was lost in the dwindling line of the shore. There was no need for tacking. The wind was almost on the starboard beam, growing fresher. The pressure of the sail strained hard against Simon’s hand and as the boat’s speed increased the water gurgled and coiled away from the rudder in a thin white wake. There was a perceptible rolling when they encountered bigger waves farther from the shore.

“Cor,” Tammy said. “I wish the wind would let up a bit.”

“Don’t say things like that,” the Saint warned her. “We seafaring men are notoriously superstitious. All we need to scuttle the whole operation is to get ourselves becalmed.”

“Fat chance of that,” Tammy said, clinging to the side of the boat as it swung skittishly from a swell to a trough.

“Speaking of fat, I wonder how Abdul’s getting along,” Simon said.

“What can go wrong?” Tammy asked.

“Abdul can,” the Saint replied. “He’s got the moral fibre of a three-week-old stick of celery.”

“Well, there’s no point worrying about that. We’ve not only crossed the Rubicon — we’re right in the middle of it.” She stopped suddenly and pointed towards the horizon. “What’s that over there?”

Simon pulled a maritime chart out of one of the large pockets of his windbreaker and with Tammy’s help spread it on his knees.

“It is one of the forts,” he said after a moment. “But it’s the wrong one. Too close in. The one we want has to be somewhere off Shoeburyness. That would be at least thirteen miles from where we started.”

“How lucky,” Tammy commented.

Simon adjusted his course slightly. They were far from the nearest land now. To the north, the Essex coastline was almost parallel to their course. Kent, to the south, curved sharply away into the distance, but was mostly lost in a yellowish mist that seemed absent over the water itself. The fort they had seen was scarcely more than a darkish silvery point, and they drew no closer to it.

For a long time they sailed on. After a while it was like being on the open sea, but their rate of travel was becoming slower. The sheet was tugging less forcefully against Simon’s hand. He tensely endured the slackening of the wind for almost half an hour before saying anything.

“You’ve done it,” he said to Tammy at last.

“Done what?”

“Wished us into trouble. The wind is dropping. We are about to become the victims of light airs.”

“What are they?” she asked anxiously.

“They are airs of insufficient velocity to move a boat with any rapidity through the water. In short, if things get much worse we could be sitting here watching on some very wet sidelines while Fowler does what he pleases.”

Tammy put one of her hands into the water and watched the surface break around it.

“We’re still moving,” she said.

“About half as fast as we were before you jinxed the wind,” he retorted.

The sail became slacker. It had carried them less than half the distance to the island when Tammy tested the relative motion of the water again. There wasn’t any.

“We’ve stopped,” she said meekly.

The sail hung from the mast with dejected limpness. The erstwhile waves had become oily swells.

“I told you we should have had something with an engine,” she said.

“We’ve got something better: we’ve got martinis,” said the Saint cheerfully. “Since we can’t anchor out here, this seems a good time to have lunch. There must be a certain amount of current from the flow of the river, so we still ought to be drifting in the right direction. Fowler isn’t supposed to make his pick-up till late in the afternoon, and this calm won’t last forever unless you do some more reckless wishing.”

Without the wind, the sun was warm enough for the Saint to enjoy taking off his shirt, and for Tammy to peel off her jeans and sit in the short shorts which she had providently worn underneath. The martinis, lunch, and cold beer made a happy interlude that was only incongruous when either of them had a recollection of the mission that had brought them out there, of what had preceded it and what grim climax could be waiting at the end of the day. But Simon Templar could enjoy any pleasurable intermission for itself alone, and for him there was unalloyed pleasure in contemplating the sunlight on Tammy’s shapely legs, and the spontaneous expressions that chased over her impish face.

They were far enough north of the main navigation channels to be untroubled by the regular passage of lighters, freighters, tankers, and an occasional passenger steamship bound in and out of the Port of London. A few small sailboats, to the north, attempted to offer canvas to the unseasonable lull, but most of their potential masters and crew seemed to be less hardy souls who were already trending towards their regular autumnal retreat. A speedboat of two creamed ostentatiously over the inshore mud flats... And after many long lulls, Tammy suddenly cried “Look!”

She was gesturing towards a new silvery point in the water. Simon had missed seeing it before because he had not been urgently looking for it, and in any case the sail had been in his way. He let his craft come about into the weakly reviving wind while he focused his binoculars on the object. It was near the eastern horizon, and he half expected it to be another boat. But a combination of tide and current must have carried them farther than he would have estimated. What he was looking at was distinctly not a boat, even though it bobbed so much in his field of view because of his own motion that he could not make out any details.

“That must be it,” he said after consulting his chart again. “Now all we have to do is get there.”

He looked at the position of the sun as he got the boat under control again. There would still be plenty more daylight. It now seemed possible — if the wind did not give out again — that he could reach the fort before Fowler did, or at least before he left with his cargo. Assuming that Shortwave was right when he said that Fowler would not make his coastal landing before dark. But there were still plenty of dicey unknowns in the equation: one was that Fowler might already be there, and the other was that he might arrive by fast boat while the Sunny Hours was manoeuvring for a landing.

“Do you know how to sail?” Simon asked Tammy.

“I can do anything,” Tammy said. “Why? Are you tired?”

“No, but I was thinking that no matter when we get to Fowler’s halfway house you’re going to have to take over. If I’d come alone I’d just have set the boat adrift when I got to the fort and either tracked it down later or lost my hundred and fifty pounds. But now you can take it over when we get there and then move off to a safe distance while I become a one-man boarding party.”

“I don’t think I like that idea very much.”

“Would you rather assume Fowler is so shortsighted that he won’t see a sailboat tied up to his own hideout?”

“I’d rather come with you.”

“We’ll see when we get there,” he said. “Meanwhile, you may be the greatest female sailor in the world, but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to freshen up your technique.”

He handed over the tiller and sheet, and it was only after she had turned the boat completely around twice without making head way in any direction that he intervened.

“I thought you said you could do anything,” he said blandly. “It’s a good thing there isn’t much wind or you’d have swamped us.”

“I meant I could learn to do anything,” she said. “I didn’t say I knew how already.”

“We’d better have some lessons then. Just try to stay directly between the sun and the fort. In case somebody’s out there with binoculars or a telescope the glare will keep him from making out too many details.”

The slowly rising breeze was fitful but still powerful enough to fill the sails, and for an hour Tammy learned the rudiments of handling a small boat on a very big body of water. Her studies were cut shorter than they might have been when the Saint caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye which was not the slowly growing fort on the horizon. He turned quickly and saw that it was a small speedboat racing towards them from the west. Without wasting time to explain, he took the tiller and sail away from Tammy and turned the bow of the Sunny Hours away from the fort, and also away from the approaching speedboat.

“What have I done now?” she demanded angrily. “I was just getting the idea.”

“You see that boat? Take a look at it through the binoculars and tell me all about it.”

“You don’t think it’s somebody after us?” she asked in alarm.

“There’s no harm in finding out before they get here,” Simon replied. “Take a look.”

The boat was a mile or more away, and Tammy had to look for some time, adjusting the focus, before she felt certain enough of anything to start giving a report.

“It’s not a very big boat but it’s moving fast,” she said. “It’s open. No roof. I think there’s... one man. Just one.” She brought the eyepieces of the binoculars away from her eyes and looked at the Saint. “Do you think it’s Fowler?”

“You tell me. I’m busy making like an agonised amateur trying to sail around the world backwards.”

The girl squinted through the glasses again.

“Oh no,” she breathed.

“Fowler?”

“No. I can’t really make out his face, but I’ve got a strong feeling... I’m sure it is: Kalki!”

“Ah, the Flying Hindu,” Simon said. “And he’s alone?”

At the same time, he was quietly taking his automatic out of an inner pocket of his discarded windbreaker, and double-checking its load and readiness for action.

“There’s nobody with him,” Tammy said. “That’s something anyway. Perhaps Fowler’s already on the fort — or coming out later.”

“Isn’t he headed for us?” Simon asked, turning to look for himself.

“No. I don’t think so. He’s curving around in the direction of the fort.”

“That’s good news.” He tucked his gun back under the folded jacket. “But now we can’t risk getting too near the fort in full daylight. I’ll make a long sweep around and come up on it towards sunset from the southwest, when the sun will be right in their eyes.” He was talking as much to himself as to Tammy. “I seem to have thought of everything except bringing a couple of false beards for us to disguise ourselves if anyone starts watching us with a good pair of glasses.”

“May I practise some more?” Tammy asked.

He offered her the tiller.

“Be my guest. Keep the fort well to your left, and try to keep your face turned away from it. Not that it isn’t a pretty face, but why give the Ungodly a treat they don’t deserve?”

“Aye-aye, Commodore.”

“I’ll stand watch... from here.”

And with that the Saint stretched out on the bottom of the boat with his head on a lifejacket, and to all appearances fell promptly fast asleep.

2

The insignificant white form of a sailboat off his starboard side did not even remotely influence the rush of Kalki’s thoughts as he bore down on the fort. Fowler would be infuriated to see him racing out in broad daylight, but there was no choice. When the giant wrestler had learned that the Saint was free and on his trail — undoubtedly, Kalki’s inaccurate imagination told him, with a sizeable entourage of newspaper reporters and policemen — his first impulse after venting his rage in the execution of Shortwave was to run for his life.

One thing in particular stopped him: the cash which he and Fowler had stored at the fort. It amounted to the proceeds from the last several shipments of immigrants. As long as things had been going smoothly there had been no need for either him or Fowler to distrust the other; it was too profitable to both of them to continue their partnership. But now that crisis was upon them, the cash, in several national currencies, suddenly became very important. Kalki liked fine clothes and expensive Soho ladies. He was not a thrifty man. If he was to fly away to some haven across the sea, perhaps in the West Indies, he would need his share of that money. He would also have to be sure that no evidence — say in the form of a dozen talkative Indians and Pakistanis — was left wandering about the littoral to further threaten his future.

He was not particularly worried about Fowler’s running away with all the money for a very simple reason: both men, by mutual understanding, had deposited with their separate lawyers in sealed envelopes small but damning sheets of paper on which incriminating facts about the opposite partner were detailed. Each lawyer had instructions to open the envelope in his possession in the event of the death of his client through other than unmistakable natural causes. While full of hazards, the arrangement had given some stability to an otherwise even more touchy situation.

But like all such arrangements it had its limitations, and Kalki saw this as the get-out point.

When he piloted his outboard up to the fort there was no trace of life on the big platform. The deck of the structure rested on six huge round supports which were sunk into the sea bottom. Even at high tide the water level did not ever approach the platform, and at this stage of rising tide a foot or so of barnacles still showed on the round legs. The shelters on top of the platform looked as disused as they were supposed to be. Their metal walls were etched with red rust where the greyish silver paint had chipped away.

Kalki cut the boat’s engine and drifted up against one of the steel legs of the fort. A series of ladder steps, towel-rack style, were welded on to the leg. He made the bow line of bis boat fast to one of the rungs, let the boat swing round under the shadow of the platform, and then hauled his great bulk up the ladder to the platform.

Fowler stepped from beside the wall of a metal shed.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled.

“The Saint is loose,” Kalki said without preface. “Shortwave told him you were coming out here.”

The two of them stood back against the wall while Fowler delivered himself to some choicely worded opinions of Shortwave, the Saint, and the nature of the universe in general. Kalki filled him in on such parts of the story as he could.

Fowler grated his bottom teeth against the top ones and looked at the lowering sun.

“I don’t know,” he said tensely. “If it was dark... or we had a fog... What the devil am I going to do with that cargo in there? I can’t run them to shore now.”

Kalki had already pondered that problem.

“We got to get rid of them,” he said.

Fowler snorted.

“You’re the magician, then. Go right ahead and make the whole lot disappear in a puff of smoke.”

“Put them in your boat and take them out and sink it,” Kalki said. “It is too dangerous to take them ashore or to leave them here. Nobody will ever know what happened if you sink them in the sea.”

Fowler’s mind, which had long ago adjusted itself to an essential killing here and there, as long as somebody else did it and he was not around, was so unprepared for the thought of mass murder that he automatically began to protest.

“You listen to me!” Kalki interrupted, bringing his face down close in front of Fowler’s. “You can stay here and be a nanny to them if you want to, but I want my half of the money and I want to get out of here before the Saint shows up.”

Fowler glanced towards the sun again. There was a bank of haze and clouds coming to meet it from the west, turning the sky a deep yellow-red.

“All right,” he said in total desperation. “It’ll have to be done that way. Go watch for anything coming this way while I get the men in my boat.”

“Now?” Kalki asked, following Fowler’s eyes towards the sun.

“Now. I’ll lock them below and tell them we’ll go ashore as soon as it’s dark.”

“But you will take them out now?”

“Not unless we see trouble coming. I’d still rather wait until after dark. Keep an eye open for any fast boats coming this way. As soon as it’s dark I’ll run them out while you follow in the outboard. You pick me up as soon as I’ve made a good-sized hole in the hull.”

Kalki followed him towards the door of the shed.

“You’d better watch out for boats,” Fowler told him again..

“I want my half of the money.”

“And to leave me stuck in a sinking ship? I’ll take it all out with me. You’ll be right behind. We’ll divvy it up when we’ve got this job finished.”

Fowler’s hand was in his blazer pocket, and Kalki knew that Fowler would not let the price of some invisible mending keep him from firing through the fabric and putting a very visible hole in Kalki.

“All right,” the Pakistani said. “I’ll stay out here.”

“And I’ll go tell these twelve poor buggers they’re bound for the Promised Land...”

3

“Simon...” Tammy said. “Simon?”

The Saint lifted his head from his makeshift pillow and looked at her. He had never been in a deep sleep. He had been continuously aware of the gradations of changing light which had now left the sky grey with the dusk.

“How are we doing?”

“I think the breeze is getting stronger.”

“It’s probably just the backwash from a passing seagull.”

“No, seriously, it is.”

He sat up and moved to take over control of the sailboat. The fort was only a few hundred yards away, marked with dim red warning lights.

“I don’t see how you can relax at a time like this,” Tammy said petulantly. “What if they’d got away?”

“You’d have told me. But our relaxing hours are over now. I’m heading straight in to the stronghold of the evildoers. I’m just surprised no other boat has come out there.”

“Why?”

“Well, I assumed that Fowler must already be there. Otherwise why would Kalki be dashing out in the middle of the afternoon just to sit around and wait until nightfall.” As the Saint was speaking he was setting the Sunny Hours on a direct course for the fort. He would bear to the north of it and come in against the wind. “But if Fowler’s out there, why isn’t there a bigger boat? That pea pod that Kalki went out in isn’t big enough to carry the owl and the pussy cat in addition to Kalki and Fowler — much less a mixed bag of assorted grown men.”

“Perhaps somebody else brings the boat out after dark.”

“Possibly. But why would Fowler bother to go out — assuming somebody gave him a lift to the fort and left him — without his boat? It sounds very inefficient.” The Saint had often found that the way to find answers was to think the unthinkable. The technique worked now. “Unless the boat is there.”

“Wouldn’t we have seen it through the binoculars? And wouldn’t it be too dangerous for him to risk somebody seeing it? A lot of boats pass here during the day.”

“We’ll see when we get there,” Simon said. “Which won’t be long now.”

The sailboat cut quietly through the smooth swell. The wind was freshening, but still not enough to raise a chop on the surface of the estuary. The Saint did not say so, but he was worried now — worried that he might be too late. If Fowler had a boat concealed at the fort there was nothing to stop him from leaving almost immediately.

The dark shape of the metal monster that was their goal loomed against the sky only a hundred yards away. Suddenly Simon pushed the tiller hard a-lee.

“Get down,” he snapped at Tammy.

The swinging boom missed her head, but just barely.

“What’s the matter?” she asked angrily.

“I think I saw something move along the rail up there. They’ll be watching. I can’t risk taking this boat right up under their noses. I’m going to sail past the fort, and roll over the side as we go by. Don’t worry when you don’t see me come up — I’ll be swimming under water.”

He leaned forward, wanting somehow to push the boat along faster by sheer force of will. Precious moments were ticking by with each gurgle of water that passed the Sunny Hours’ prow.

“Wrap this pistol in that plastic bag for me, would you?” he said. “And here’s what you do when I’m over the side: it’ll take me a few minutes to swim to the fort.”

“How’ll you get on it? It’s standing up on those high stilts.”

“There must be a way. When you figure I’m getting near it, make some noise. Bang something on the bottom of the boat, as if you’d dropped it. And turn on the flashlight. Don’t let the light get on your face or reflect on it. Just aim it up at the top of the sail as if you think something’s gone wrong there. You should be a goodish way from the fort by that time, so they can’t possibly recognise you or think you’re somebody after them. But with someone around they’ll wait a bit before leaving. I’d try distracting them now, but I don’t want them to get too interested too soon.”

It took only a few more minutes for Simon to get his small boat into position. The last glow of the sunset had disappeared, but he had a feeling that even in the darkening twilight the eyes which watched from the fort might have detected the dirty white sail against the dark water.

He let go the tiller, and the boat came up into the wind, the sail starting to flutter.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “This is it. As soon as I’ve gone, head in towards those lights on the shore. In about three minutes stop just the way I’ve done and perform your little act with the flashlight Then put out the light and keep going towards the coast. Let them know then that you’re not interested in the fort.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be busy. Stay off at a safe distance — especially if you hear a boat starting up. I’ll give you a shout, or come and find you. Stay out between those lights and the fort so I know the general area you’re in.”

“What if...”

“What if what?”

“What if you don’t shout or come and find me?”

He pointed north in the direction of the Essex shoreline.

“There’s a lot of England thataway. You couldn’t miss it if you tried. And when you run aground, it’ll only be a muddy but easy walk to dry land.”

“Good luck,” she said, touching his hand.

“Thanks.” He zipped the pistol into his jacket, lying full length along the gunwale. “Man overboard.”

Then he rolled off horizontally into the icy water and struck out for the fort without surfacing. After covering a sufficient distance, he let his head come up just long enough to take a breath, to see that Tammy was under way again, and to relocate the fort. Then he slid back under the low swells like a seal and swam submerged with all the power he could command until his lungs were close to their limit of endurance.

When he came up again, he found that he was actually under the fort, having passed between two of the pilings it stood on without touching them. He was looking up from almost directly under the edge of the platform, which was fifteen feet or so above his head: only about thirty feet away from where Kalki’s boat was tied to the bottom ladder rung on one of the great cylindrical supports of the structure.

Then he heard a clattering noise behind him, and pulled his way into hiding around the nearest column and looked back. A light danced on the sail on the Sunny Hours some two hundred yards away.

Above, he could hear footsteps on the metal deck of the platform.

“Wait a minute!” a muffled voice called. “There’s that boat out there.”

The voice, he was certain, was Kalki’s. There were other hurried foot thumps on another part of the deck. He could not make out the words of the interchange that followed, but there was some very excited consultation going on. Simon took advantage of the distraction to swim swiftly but silently over to the leg of the fort where Kalki’s motorboat was moored. There was, he decided, no need to climb up on to the platform of the fort itself: he could wait there and make his move when the other men came down. On the ladder rungs, with their backs to him, they would be at the disadvantage.

“I think it’s going away.”

“Can you see?”

“It’s going away. They couldn’t be looking for us. It’s some fool who doesn’t know how to sail.”

Kalki and Fowler were speaking in voices of normal volume now that they no longer feared an immediate attack. The Saint looked over Kalki’s boat as he listened to the conversation.

“You have an axe on board?” Kalki was asking.

“Yes,” Fowler answered. “Don’t worry about the way I do my part. And I’ve got a rubber raft and flares. If you ran out on me I might not spend a comfortable night, but I’d survive — and in that case I can promise you I’d survive a lot longer than you will.”

“Do you threaten me,” Kalki replied in a haughty voice.

“Just be sure you get up alongside before I sink.”

“Don’t worry,” Kalki said. “The money would sink with you.”

Fowler’s rejoinder might have been edifying, but the Saint was now more interested in a little scheme he had conceived, involving the rope and heavy anchor which were perched on the bow of Kalki’s boat. He busied himself cutting the rope loose while the men above him made their last-minute preparations for leaving.

A moment later he heard a new sound above him. He lowered himself back into the cold water, clinging to the side of the speedboat. A very large sliding panel in the bottom of the platform was sliding back, and a dim shielded light showed him just enough to explain Fowler’s means of getting to and from the fort, and why it had not been visible from the Sunny Hours.

Above the opening in the bottom of the platform swung a cabin cruiser in a cradle. It could have been that the whole installation had been built into the original fort. Or it could have been that Fowler had managed to rig it up himself. In any case, the boat was there, and to the creak of pulleys and the metallic grinding of a winch it began to sink down through the opening and descend towards the surface of the water.

The Saint quickly dived under the hull of Kalki’s smaller boat and re-emerged on the far side, keeping his head well down in the water. He heard the cradle and keel of Fowler’s boat settle into the sloshing swells of the estuary, and the which overhead ground to a stop.

“Right!” Fowler’s voice called from just a few feet away. “I’ll get going. Follow my lights as soon as you can — but lock up first. We might want to use this place again when Templar’s out of the way.”

Simon heard the platform’s sliding panel groaning back into place, and over it the engine of Fowler’s cruiser, as it spat and coughed and grumbled into full life. He heard it pull away slowly, scraping lightly against one of the far legs of the fort, before it began to pick up speed.

Up above, Kalki was wasting no time. Simon heard him slam a metal door, rattle something, and then run across the metal deck. A moment later his large feet appeared on the topmost rung of the ladder.

The Saint was waiting in the water when Kalki reached the bottom of the ladder and stretched out a leg to grope for the side of his boat. Simon’s actions were lightning-swift and simple: he had formed the end of the anchor rope into a noose.

He slipped the loop around Kalki’s ankle, jerked it tight, and swung several half-hitches around the giant’s leg.

Kalki was taken so completely by surprise that he could only bellow, kick, and try to climb back up the ladder. Which only pulled the knots tighter.

“Give up?” Simon asked. “If you’re a good boy I’ll just tie you up and leave you for the cops.”

In time he saw Kalki’s fist stretch out from his body, clutching a small revolver. The Saint’s next act was even more deadly in its simplicity than the looping of the rope: he grasped the anchor and pulled it out over the side into the water. At the same moment as its weight came on the rope, he added his own weight to it.

The sudden shock of the combination jerked Kalki’s hand and foot clean away from the ladder, With a howl he sailed over Simon’s head, and splash of the anchor was followed by the splash of Kalki. The howl was instantly swallowed up too, and there was only the sound of the water washing against the piers of the fort.

Simon hoisted himself with lithe agility into the speed-boat and waited for a minute or two with his automatic in hand to see if Kalki’s great strength would be enough to overcome about fifteen kilos of iron ballast. The seconds passed. Simon quietly put the gun back into the pocket of his dripping trousers. Kalki would break no more bones.

The Saint found a black slicker and hat in the boat. He put them on, started the motor, and cast off in pursuit of Fowler.

It was not a long chase. The lights of Fowler’s cruiser came into sight far ahead of him in the open water. It was simple then to follow, but it was important not to come too close. If Fowler should turn a spotlight on him and recognise that it was not his partner, Kalki, in the following boat, things would become considerably more complicated. He would have to time his approach carefully, coming up to Fowler when Fowler’s attention was diverted.

They churned on out to sea, Simon’s boat two hundred yards behind Fowler’s. Finally the Saint found the distance between himself and the bigger craft narrowing. The cruiser had stopped. He cut his own power, holding back. Over the splashing waves he heard a new, sharp sound: the smashing of an axe into wood. Fowler was hacking a hole in his boat’s hull just below the waterline.

Simon was already less than a hundred yards away. As he came closer he heard another sound: the yells and screams of the captive passengers below deck who now must see the axe blade and water breaking into the cabin where they were imprisoned.

The Saint pushed his throttle forward and bore down on the bigger boat at full speed, keeping his face hidden behind the black hat he was wearing. He turned on his own searchlight — a movable light that could be manipulated by the pilot at the wheel. In the beam he saw Fowler, a shotgun at the ready, facing the door from the cockpit and shouting over his shoulder:

“Hurry up! They’re breaking out! Get me off here!”

The Saint obliged, and as he continued to race the last yards towards Fowler’s listing boat he saw the doors burst open, wood splintering as the panic-stricken immigrants hurled themselves against it with a terror-inflamed vigour that Fowler had completely underestimated. Simon’s timing was such that he managed to ram the cruiser at just the instant that Fowler pulled the trigger of his shotgun. The blast went harmlessly into the air instead of into the Indians and Pakistanis who now swarmed frantically and furiously over Fowler like ants from a disturbed nest.

“I’m a friend!” the Saint shouted to them. “Some of you can get in my boat. And throw over the rubber dinghy on the cabin trunk — you know, the roof. Keep calm! There’s plenty of time for you all to get off.”

Simon was trying to hold his own confiscated craft alongside the cruiser. The foreign passengers paused, confused and uncertain. Fowler was prostrate. Somebody appeared to be standing on his arm.

“I didn’t exactly mean you’ve got all night,” Simon called. “Come on — get that dinghy launched!”

There was a babble of English and other languages. Two of the men climbed over into the speedboat while others untied and pulled down the already inflated Zodiac. They shoved it headlong off the deck, making it ship a few gallons of water, but fortunately it was by nature unsinkable unless punctured in several places.

Then Fowler made a bad mistake: he rolled over and tried to recover his shotgun, which had fallen nearby. Simon had just time to prove the validity of his good intentions to the Indians and Pakistanis by levelling his pistol at Fowler, but he did not have to use it. Dark forms pounced in the dancing glare of the spotlight, and three knives entered Fowler’s body almost simultaneously.

4

Fowler’s boat was listing heavily stern down, but before the water began to spill into the cockpit the Zodiac was ready loaded. If badly overcrowded, it at least floated. Nine men were in it, and three in the outboard with Simon.

“What happened?” one of the frightened passengers asked him. “Where are we?”

“The man who was supposed to take you ashore got frightened and decided to kill you instead.”

He got his party organised, tying the raft behind so that he could tow it. Then he set out at a low speed towards the coast.

A shout went up, and he turned to look back. The lights of Fowler’s cruiser had just disappeared beneath the waves, and the sea all around was dark except for the bead strings of lights along the distant shore.

Most of the way back to the vicinity of the fort was taken up by Simon’s explanations to the smuggled aliens of just what had gone wrong to destroy their hopes — and almost to destroy them.

“Are you the police?” one of them asked.

“No.”

“Where are we going? What can we do? Must we go to jail?”

“I’m afraid you must go back home,” Simon told them. “As long as you don’t go inside the territorial limits of Great Britain you haven’t broken any laws. I’m going to leave you off at the fort you just came from. I’ll arrange transportation so you can get back to the continent. You’re on your own from there.”

“I have no money!” one of them cried.

There was a scramble in the front of the boat.

“What is this?”

“I found it!”

The Saint’s voice carried invincible authority.

“Give it to me,” he ordered.

The packet which had caused the commotion was passed to him.

“It came from the man in the big boat,” one said.

Simon looked inside. He did not need to count. The great thickness of the package was enough.

“What is it?” someone asked.

“How much did you pay for this outing?” the Saint asked.

“Five hundred pounds,” one of them said.

“Four hundred,” said another.

“Seven hundred!”

Simon interrupted.

“Before the bidding gets any higher, I am authorised by this packet to announce that your fares will be returned — at five hundred pounds a head, just to be equitable about it — on condition that you use part of the money to get back home and don’t try any reverse colonisations in this direction in the future.”

He kept the packet to himself until they arrived back at the fort. Then he sent all but the one most articulate of the men up the ladder from the boats.

“I’m going to give your comrades five hundred pounds for each of you,” he said as they left. “Share it out equally, no matter what you paid to get here.”

As he counted out the money from Fowler’s package he told the Indian who had remained with him to assure the others that someone would come to take them away before noon the next day.

“Thank you, sahib.” He looked wistfully towards the lights of the shore. “So that is all I shall ever see of England.”

“Maybe you’ll come back honestly some day. Or treat yourself to a two-week tour.”

“Thank you, sahib.”

He took the money, shook Simon’s hand, and climbed up the ladder.

The Saint set the Zodiac adrift so that no overenterprising immigrants could still use it to reach the coast, and scarcely had time to get the speedboat cast off and under way again when he heard a voice across the water.

“Ahoy there!”

The sail of the Sunny Hours was a white smear against the dark sky, cutting down swiftly towards him.

“Ahoy!” Simon said. “How do you know I’m not Fowler, about to put a bullet through your head?”

“I have faith in my Simon,” Tammy called back. She steered to within a dozen yards of him, turning to luff into the wind. “When I heard the outboard coming back I knew it must be you. What happened?”

The Saint used a foot to fender their sides as the two boats drifted together.

“Kalki and Fowler are down among the dead men. Their clients just managed not to go with them. I’ll tell you all about it on the way back.”

“I’ll race you,” she said.

He looked at the luminous dial of his watch.

“I’ll give you a tow,” he said. “It’ll save a lot of time, and old Nautical William back at South Benfleet is probably having kittens already about his precious scow. Besides, I’m starting to feel hungry for a real dinner... Curry, anybody?”