Enter the Saint

"Certainly. And then I fired him-with some home truths in lieu of notice. I patched it up and took him back for this job because he's a darned useful man. But that doesn't say he's forgiven and forgotten."

"You think he's out to double-cross you and get his own back and salve his vanity?"

"It's not impossible."

"But-"

She interrupted with an impatient movement. "You don't get the point. I thought I'd made it plain. Apart from anything else, Hilloran seems to think I'd made a handsome ornament for his home. He's been out for that lay ever since I first met him. He was particularly pressing to-night, and I sent him away with several large fleas in each ear. I'll admit he was well oiled, and I had to show him a gun-"

Dicky's face darkened. "As bad as that?"

She laughed shortly. "You needn't be heroic about it, Dicky. The ordinary conventions aren't expected to apply in our world. Being outside the pale, we're reckoned to be frankly ruddy, and we usually are. However, I just happen to be funny that way-Heaven knows why. The point is that Hilloran's as sore and spiteful as a coyote on hot tiles, and if he didn't know it was worth a quarter of a million dollars to keep in with me-"

"He might try to sell you?"

"Even now," said the girl, "when the time comes, he mightn't be content with his quarter share."

Dicky's brain was seething with this new spate of ideas. On top of everything else, then, Hilloran was playing a game of his own. That game might lead him to laying information before the police on his own account, or, far more probably, to the conception of a scheme for turning the entire proceeds of the "big job" into his own pocket. It was a factor which Tre­mayne had never considered. He hadn't yet ab­sorbed it properly. And he had to get the main lines of it hard and clear, get the map of the situation nailed out in his mind in a strong light, before- Zzzzzzzz . . . zzzzzzzz . . . "What's that?"

"The front door," said the girl, and pointed. "There's a buzzer in my bedroom. See who it is."

Dicky went to a window and peered out from behind the curtains. He came back soberly. "Hill­oran's back again," he said. "Whatever he's come about, he must have seen my car standing outside. And it's nearly four o'clock in the morning." She met his eyes. "Shall we say it's-difficult."

She understood. It was obvious, anyway. "What would you like me to do?" asked Dicky.

The buzzer sounded again-a long, insistent summons. Then the smaller of the two telephones on the desk tinkled. The girl picked up the receiver. "Hullo. . . . Yes. He can come up." She put down the instrument and returned to her armchair. "Another cigarette, Dicky."

He passed her the box and struck a match. "What would you like me to do?" he repeated.

"Anything you like," she said coolly. "If I didn't think your gentlemanly instincts would be offended, I'd suggest that you took off your coat and tried to look abandoned, draping yourself artistically on the arm of this chair. In any case you can be as objection­able as Hilloran will be. If you can help him to lose his temper, he may show some of his hand."

Dicky came thoughtfully to his feet, his glass in his hand. Then the girl raised her voice, clearly and sweetly. "Dicky-darling-"

Hilloran stood in the doorway, a red-faced giant of a man, swaying perceptibly. His dinner jacket was crumpled, his tie askew, his hair tousled. It was plain that he had had more to drink since he left the house. "Audrey-"

"It is usual," said the girl coldly, "to knock."

Hilloran lurched forward. In his hand he held something which he flung down into her lap. "Look at that!"

The girl picked up the cards languidly. "I didn't know you were a proud father," she remarked. "Or have you been taking up art yourself?"

"Two of 'em!" blurted Hilloran thickly. "I found one pinned to my door when I got home. The other I found here-pinned to your front door-since I left! Don't you recognize it-the warning. It means that the Saint has been here to-night!"

The girl's face had changed colour. She held the cards out to Dicky. Hilloran snatched them viciously away. "No, you don't!" he snarled. "I want to know what you're doing here at all, in this room, at this hour of the morning."

Audrey Perowne rose. "Hilloran," she said icily, "I'll thank you not to insult my friend in my own house." .

The man leered at her. "You will, will you? You'd like to be left alone with him, when you know the Saint's sitting round waiting to smash us. If you don't value your own skin, I value mine. You're supposed to be the leader-"

"I am the leader."

"Are you? . . . Yes, you lead. You've led me on enough. Now you're leading him on. You little-"

Tremayne's fist smashed the word back into Hilloran's teeth. As the man crashed to the floor, Dicky whipped off his coat. Hilloran put a hand to his mouth, and the same came away wet and red. Then he shot out a shaky forefinger. "You-you skunk-I know you! You're here making love to Audrey, crawling in like a snake-and all the time you're planning to squeal on us. Ask him, Audrey!" The pointing finger stiffened, and the light of drunken hate in the man's eyes was bestial. "Ask him what he knows about the Saint!"

Dicky Tremayne stood perfectly still. He knew that the girl was looking at him. He knew that Hilloran could have no possible means of substantiating his accusation. He knew also how a seed sown in a bed of panic could grow, and realized that he was very near death. And he never moved. "Get up, Hilloran," he said quietly. "Get up and have the rest of your teeth knocked out."

Hilloran was scrambling to his feet. "Yes, I'll get up!" he rasped, and his hand was making for his pocket. "But I've my own way of dealing with rats-" And there was an automatic in his hand. His finger was trembling over the trigger. Dicky saw it distinctly.

Then, in a flash, the girl was between them. "If you want the police here," she said, "you'll shoot. But I shan't be here to be arrested with you."

Hilloran raved. "Out of the way, you-"

"Leave him to me," said Dicky. He put her aside, and the muzzle of the automatic touched his chest. He smiled into the flaming eyes. "May I smoke a cigarette?" he asked politely.

His right hand reached to his breast pocket in the most natural way in the world. Hilloran's scream of agony shattered the silence. Like lightning, Dicky's right hand had dropped and gripped Hilloran's right hand, at the same instant as Dicky's left hand fas­tened paralyzingly on Hilloran's right arm just above the elbow. The wrench that almost broke Hilloran's wrist was made almost in the same movement.

The gun thudded into the carpet at their feet, but Tremayne took no notice. Retaining and strengthen­ing his grip, he turned Hilloran round and forced him irresistibly to his knees. Tremayne held him there with one hand. "We can talk more comfortably now," he remarked. He looked at the girl, and saw that she had picked up the fallen automatic. "Before we go any further, Audrey," he said, "I should like to know what you think of the suggestion-that I might be a friend of the Saint's. I needn't remind you that this object is jealous as well as drunk. I won't deny the charge, because that wouldn't cut any ice. I'd just like your opinion."

"Let him go, first."

"Certainly."

With a twist of his hand, Dicky released the man and sent him toppling over onto his face. "Hilloran, get up!"

"If you-"

"Get up!"

Hilloran stumbled to his feet. There was murder in his eyes, but he obeyed. No man of his calibre could have challenged that command. Dicky thought. "A crook-and she can wear power like a queen. ..."

"I want to know, Hilloran," observed the girl frostily, "why you said what you said just now."

The man glared. "He can't account for himself, and he doesn't look or behave like one of us. We know there's a squeaker somewhere-someone who squealed on Handers-and he's the only one-"

"I see." The contempt in the girl's voice had the quality of concentrated acid. "What I see most is that because I prefer his company to yours, you're ready to trump up any wild charge against him that comes into your head-in the hope of putting him out of favour."

"And I see," sneered Hilloran, "that I'm the one who's out of favour-because he's taken my place. He's-"

"Either," said the girl, "you can walk out on your own flat feet, or you can be thrown out. Take your choice. And whichever way you go, don't come back here till you're sober and ready to apologize."

Hilloran's fists clenched. "You're supposed to be bossing this gang-"

"I am," said Audrey Perowne. "And if you don't like it, you can cut out as soon as you like."

Hillorn swallowed. "All right-"

"Yes?" prompted Audrey silkily.

"One day," said Hilloran, staring from under black brows, "you're going to be sorry for this. We know where we are. You don't want to fire me before the big job, because I'm useful. And I'll take every­thing lying down for the present time, because there's a heap of money in it for me. Yes, I'm drunk, but I'm not too drunk to be able to see that."

"That," said the girl sweetly, "is good news. Have you finished?"

Hilloran's mouth opened, and closed again delib­erately. The knuckles showed whitely in his hands. He looked at the girl for a long time. Then, for a long time in exactly the same way, he looked at Tre­mayne, without speaking. At last. "Good-night, "he said, and left the room without another word.

From the window, Tremayne watched him walk slowly up the street, his handkerchief to his mouth. Then Dicky turned and found Audrey Perowne be­side him. There was something in her eyes which he could not interpret. He said: "You've proved that you trust me-"

"He's crazy," she said.

"He's mad," said Dicky. "Like a mad dog. We haven't heard the last of this evening. From the moment you step on board the yacht, you'll have to watch him night and day. You understand that, don't you?"

"And what about you?"

"A knowledge of ju-jitsu is invaluable."

"Even against a knife in the back?"

Dicky laughed. "Why worry?" he asked. "It doesn't help us."

The grey eyes were still holding his. "Before you go," she said, "I'd like your own answer-from your own mouth."

To what question?"

"To what Hilloran said."

He was picking up his coat. He put it down and came towards her. A madness was upon him. He knew it, felt everything in him rebelling against it; yet he was swept before it out of reason, like a leaf before the wind. He held out his hand. "Audrey," he said, "I give you my word of honour that I'd be burnt alive sooner than let you down."

The words were spoken quite simply and calmly. The madness in him could only prompt them. He could still keep his face impassive and school the intensest meaning out of his voice. Her cool fingers touched his, and he put them to his lips with a smile that might have meant anything-or nothing. A few minutes later he was driving home with the first streaks of dawn in the sky, and his mouth felt as if it had been seared with a hot iron. He did not see the Saint again before they left for Marseilles.

Chapter IV THREE days later, Dicky Tremayne, in white trous­ers, blue reefer and peaked cap, stood at the star­board rail of the Corsican Maid and stared moodily over the water. The sun shone high overhead, turn­ing the water to a sea of quicksilver, and making of the Chвteau d'If a fairy castle. The Corsican Maid lay in the open roadstead, two miles from Marseilles Harbour; for the Countess Anusia Marova, ever thoughtful for her guests, had decided that the docks, with their grime and noise and bustle, were no place for holiday-making millionaires and their wives to loiter, even for a few hours. But over the water, from the direction of the harbour, approached a fussy little tender. Dicky recognized it as the tender that had been engaged to bring the millionaires, with their wives and other baggage, to the countess's yacht, and watched it morosely.

That is to say that his eyes followed it intently; but his mind was in a dozen different places. The situation was rapidly becoming intolerable-far too rapidly. That, in fact, was the only reflection which was seriously concerned with the approach of the tender. For every yard of that approach seemed, in a way, to entangle him ten times more firmly in the web that he had woven for himself.

The last time he had seen the Saint, Dicky hadn't told him the half of it. One very cogent reason was that Dicky himself, at the time, hadn't even known the half well enough to call it Dear Sir or Madam. Now, he knew it much too well. He called it by its first name now-and others-and it sat back and grinned all over its ugly face at him. Curse it. ...

When he said that he might fall in love with Au­drey Perowne, he was underestimating the case by a mile. He had fallen in love with her, and there it was. He'd done his level best not to; and when it was done, he'd fought for all he was worth against admit­ting it even to himself. By this time, he was begin­ning to see that the struggle was hopeless.

And if you want to ask why the pink parrakeets he should put up a fight at all, the answer is that that's the sort of thing men of Dicky Tremayne's stamp do. If everything had been different-if the Saint had never been heard of-or, at least, if Tremayne had only known him through his morning newspaper- the problem would never have arisen. Say that the problem, having arisen, remains a simple one-and you're wrong. Wrong by the first principles of psychological arithmetic.

The Saint might have been a joke. The press, at first, had suggested that he must be a joke-that he couldn't, reasonably, be anything else. Later, with grim demonstrations thrust under their bleary eyes, the press admitted that it was no joke. In spite of which, the jest might have stood, had the men carry­ing it out been less under the Saint's spell.

There exists a loyalty among men of a certain type which defies instinct, and which on occasion can rise above the limitations of mere logic. Dicky Tremayne was of that breed. And he didn't find the problem simple at all. He figured it out in his own way.

"She's a crook. On the other hand, as far as that goes, so am I-though not the way she thinks of it. She's robbing people who can afford to stand the racket. Their records, if you came to examine them closely, probably wouldn't show up any too clean. In fact, she's on much the same ground as we are ourselves. Except that she doesn't pass on ninety per cent of the profits to charity. But that's only a private sentimentality of our own. It doesn't affect the main issue. Hilloran isn't the same proposition. He's a real bad hombre. I'd be glad to see him go down.

"The snag with the girl is the late John L. Mor­ganheim. She probably murdered him. But then, there's not one of our crowd that hasn't got blood on his hands. What matters is why the blood was shed. We don't know anything about Morganheim, and action's going to be forced on me before I've time to find out. In a story, the girl's always innocent. Or, if she's guilty, she's always got a cast-iron reason to be. But I'm not going to be led away. I've seen enough to know that that kind of story is mostly based on vintage boloney, according to the recipe. I'm going to look at it coldly and sanely, till I find an answer or my brain busts. Because- "Because, in fact, things being as they are, I've as good as sworn to the Saint that I'd bring home the bacon. Not in so many words, but that's what he assumes. And he's got every right to assume it. He gave me the chance to cry off if I wanted to-and I turned it down. I refused to quit. I dug this perish­ing pitfall, and it's up to me to fight my own way out-and no whining. ..."

Thus Dicky Tremayne had balanced the ledger, over and over again, without satisfying himself. The days since the discomfiture of Hilloran had not made the account any simpler.

Hilloran had come round the next morning and apologized. Tremayne had been there-of course. Hilloran had shaken his hand heartily, boisterously disclaimed the least animosity, declared that it had been his own silly fault for getting canned, and taken Dicky and Audrey out to lunch. Dicky would have had every excuse for being deceived-but he wasn't. That he pretended to be was nobody's busi­ness.

But he watched Hilloran when he was not being watched himself; and from time to time he surprised in Hilloran's eyes a curiously abstracted intentness that confirmed his misgivings. It lasted only for a rare second here and there; and it was swallowed up again in a fresh flood of open-handed good humour so quickly that a less prejudiced observer might have put it down to imagination. But Dicky under­stood, and knew that there was going to be trouble with Hilloran.

Over the lunch, the intrusion of the Saint had been discussed, and a decision had been reached- by Audrey Perowne. "Whoever he is, and whatever he's done," she said, "I'm not going to be scared off by any comic-opera threats. We've spent six thousand pounds on ground bait, and we'd be a cheap lot of pikers to leave the pitch without a fight. Besides, sooner or later, this Saint's going to bite off more than he can chew, and this may very well be the time. We're going to be on the broad Mediterra­nean, with a picked crew, and not more than twenty per cent of them can be double-crossing us. That gives us an advantage of four to one. Short of pulling out a ship of their own and making a pitched battle of it, I don't see what the Saint can do. I say we go on-with our eyes twice skinned." The argument was incontestable.

Tremayne, Hilloran and Audrey had left London quietly so as to arrive twelve hours before their guests were due. Dicky had spent another evening alone with the girl before the departure. "Do you believe in Hilloran's apology?" he had asked.

She had answered, at once: "I don't."

"Then why are you keeping him on?"

"Because I'm a woman. Sometimes, I think, you boys are liable to forget that. I've got the brain, but it takes a man to run a show like this, with a crew like mine to handle. You're the only other man I'd trust it to, but you-well, Dicky, honestly, you haven't the experience, have you?"

It had amazed him that she could discuss a crime so calmly. Lovely to look upon, exquisitely dressed, lounging at her ease in a deep chair, with a cigarette between white fingers that would have served the most fastidious sculptor for a model, she looked as if she should have been discussing, delightfully- anything but that. Of his own feelings he had said nothing. He kept them out of his face, out of his eyes, out of his voice and manner. His dispassionate calm rivalled her own. He dared hold no other pose. The reeling tumult of his thoughts could only be masked by the most stony stolidness. Some of the turmoil could inevitably have broken through any less sphinx-like disguise.

He was trying to get her in her right place-and, in the attempt, he was floundering deeper and deeper in the mire of mystification. There was about her none of the hard flashiness traditionally sup­posed to brand the woman criminal. For all her command, she remained completely feminine, gen­tle of voice, perfectly gracious. The part of the Coun­tess Anusia Marova, created by herself, she played without effort; and, when she was alone, there was no travesty to take off. The charmingly broken En­glish disappeared-that was all. But the same woman moved and spoke.

If he had not known, he would not have believed. But he knew-and it had rocked his creed to its foundations. There had only been one moment, that evening, when he had been in danger of stumbling. "If we bring this off," she had said, "you'll get your quarter share, of course. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand pounds of your money. You need never do another job as long as you live. What will you do?"

"What will you do with yours?" he countered.

She hesitated, gazed dreamily into a shadowy corner as though she saw something there. Then: "Probably," she said lightly, "I'll buy a husband."

"I might buy a few wives," said Dicky, and the moment was past. Now he looked down into the blue Mediterranean and meditated that specimen of repartee with unspeakable contempt. But it had been the only thing that had come into his head, and he'd had to say something promptly. "Blast it all," thought Dicky, and straightened up with a sigh.

The tender had nosed up to the gangway, and Sir Esdras Levy, in the lead, was helping Lady Levy to the grating. Mr. George Y. Ulrig stood close behind. Dicky caught their eye. He smiled with his mouth, and saluted cheerily.

He ought to know them, for he himself had been the means of introducing them to the house in Park Lane. That had been his job, on the Continent, under Hilloran, for the past three months-to travel about the fashionable resorts, armed with plenty of money, an unimpeachable wardrobe and his natural charm of manner, and approach the Unapproacha­bles when they were to be found in holiday moods with their armour laid aside.

It had been almost boringly simple. A man who would blow up high in the air of addressed by a perfect stranger in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, London, may be addressed by the same stranger with perfect impunity in the lounge of the Heliopolis Hotel, Biarritz. After which, to a man of Dicky Tremayne's polished worldliness, the improvement of the shining hour came automatically. Jerking himself back to the realities of immediate impor­tance, he went down to help to shepherd his own selected sheep to the slaughter.

Audrey Perowne stood at the head of the gang­way, superbly gowned in a simple white skirt and coloured jumper-superbly gowned because she wore them. She was welcoming her guests inimita­bly, with an intimate word for each, while Hilloran, in uniform, stood respectfully ready to conduct them to their cabins.

"Ah, Sir Esdras, ve 'ardly dare expec' you. I say, ' 'E vill not com' to my seely leetle boat.' But 'e is nize, and 'e com' to be oncomfortable to pleasse me. . . . And Lady Levy. My dear, each day you are more beautiful." Lady Levy, who was a fat fifty, glowed audibly. "And Mrs. Ulrig. Beefore I let you off my boat, you shall tell me 'ow eet iss you keep zo sleem." The scrawny and faded Mrs. George Y. Ulrig squirmed with pleasure. "George Y.," said the Countess, "I see you are vhat zey call a sheek. Ozairvize you could not 'ave marry 'er. And Mrs. Sankin ..."

Dicky's task was comparatively childish. He had only to detach Sir Esdras Levy, Mr. George Y. Ulrig, and Matthew Sankin from their respective spouses, taking them confidentially by the arm, and murmur that there were cocktails set out in the saloon.

Luncheon, with Audrey Perowne for hostess, could not have been anything but a success. The afternoon passed quickly. It seemed no time before the bell rung by the obsequious Hilloran indicated that it was time to dress for dinner.

Tremayne went below with the rest to dress. It was done quickly; but the girl was already in the saloon when he arrived. Hilloran also was there, pretending to inspect the table. "When?" Hilloran was asking.

"To-morrow night. I've told them we're due at Monaco about half-past six. We shan't be near the place, but that doesn't matter. We'll take them in their cabins when they go below to change."

"And afterwards?" questioned Dicky.

"We make straight across to Corsica during the night, and land them near Calvi the next morning. Then we make round the south of Sicily, and lose ourselves in the Greek Archipelago. We should ar­rive eventually at Constantinople-repainted, rechristened, and generally altered. There we sepa­rate. I'll give the immediate orders to-morrow after­noon. Come to my cabin about three."

Hilloran turned to Dicky. "By the way," he said, "this letter came with the tender. I'm afraid I forgot to give it to you before."

Dicky held the man's eyes for a moment, and then took the envelope. It was postmarked in London. With a glance at the flap, he slit it open. The letter was written in a round feminine hand.

DARLING: This is just a line to wish you a jolly good time on your cruise.

You know I'll miss you terribly. Six weeks seems such a long time for you to be away. Never mind. I'm going to drown my sorrows in barley-water.

I refuse to be lonely. Simple Simon, the man I told you about, says he'll console me. He wants me to go with a party he's taking to the Aegean Islands. I don't know yet if I shall accept, but it sounds awfully thrilling. He's got a big aeroplane, and wants us to fly all the way.

If I go, I shall have to leave on Saturday. Won't you be jealous?

Darling, I mustn't pull your leg any more. You know I'm always thinking of you, and I shan't be really happy till I get you back again.

Here come all my best wishes, then. Be good, and take care of yourself.

It's eleven o'clock, and I'm tired. I'm going to bed I to dream of you. It'll be twelve by the time I'm there. My eyes are red from weeping for you.

You have all my love. I trust you.

PATRICIA.

Tremayne folded the letter, replaced it in its en­velope, and put it in his pocket.

"Does she still love you?" mocked Audrey Perowne, and Dicky shrugged.

"So she says," he replied carelessly. "So she says."

Chapter V MUCH later that night, in the privacy of his cabin, Dicky read the letter again. The meaning to him was perfectly obvious. The Saint had decided to work his end of the business by aлroplane. The reference to the Aegean Islands, Tremayne decided, had no bearing on the matter-the Saint could have had no notion that the Corsican Maid's flight would take her to that quarter. But Saturday-the next day- was mentioned, and Dicky took that to mean that the Saint would be on the lookout for signals from Saturday onwards. "Take care of yourself," was plain enough.

The references to "eleven o'clock" and "twelve" were ambiguous. "It'll be twelve by the time I'm there" might mean that, since the aлroplane would have to watch for signals from a considerable dis­tance, to avoid being betrayed by the noise of the engines, it would be an hour from the time of the giving of the signal before the Saint could arrive on the scene. But why "eleven o'clock" and "twelve" instead of "twelve o'clock" and "one"-since they had previously arranged that signals were to be made either at midnight or four o'clock in the morn­ing? Dicky pondered for an hour; and decided that either he was trying to read too much between the lines, or that a signal given an hour before the ap­pointed time, at eleven o'clock instead of twelve, would not be missed.

"My eyes are red from weeping for you." He interpreted that to mean that he was to signal with a red light if there seemed to be any likelihood of their having cause to weep for him. He had a pocket flash-lamp fitted with colour screens, and that code would be easy to adopt.

It was the last sentence that hit him fairly between the eyes. "I trust you." A shrewd blow-very shrewd. Just an outside reminder of what he'd been telling himself for the past three days. Simon couldn't possibly understand. He'd never met Au­drey Perowne. And, naturally, he'd do his level best to keep Dicky on the lines.

Dicky crumpled the paper slowly into a ball, roll­ing it thoughtfully between his two palms. He picked up the envelope and rolled that into the ball also. Hilloran had steamed open that envelope and sealed it again before delivering the letter-Dicky was sure of that. He went to the porthole and pitched the ball far out into the dark waters.

He undressed and lay down in his bunk, but he could not compose his mind to sleep. The night was close and sultry. The air that came through the open porthole seemed to strike warm on his face, and to circulate that torrid atmosphere with the electric fan was pointless. He tried it, but it brought no relief. For an hour and a half he lay stifling; and then he rose, pulled on his slippers and a thin silk dressing-gown, and made his way to the deck.

He sprawled in a long cane chair and lighted a cigarette. Up there it was cooler. The ghost of a breeze whispered in the rigging and fanned his face. The soft hiss and wash of the sea cleft by the passage of their bows was very soothing. After a time, he dozed. He awoke with a curious sensation forcing itself through his drowsiness. It seemed as if the sea were rising, for the chair in which he lay was lurch­ing and creaking under him. Yet the wind had not risen, and he could hear none of the thrash of curling waves which he should have been able to hear.

All this he appreciated hazily, roused but still half asleep. Then he opened one eye, and saw no rail before him, but only the steely glint of waters under the moon. Looking upwards and behind him he saw the foremast light riding serenely among the stars of a cloudless sky.

The convulsive leap he made actually spread-eagled him across the rail; and he heard his chair splash into the sea below as he tumbled over onto the deck.

Rolling on his shoulder, he glimpsed a sea-boot lashing at his head. He ducked wildly, grabbed, and kept his hold. All the strength he could muster went into the wrench that followed, and he heard the owner of the boot fall heavily with a strangled oath. An instant later he was on his feet-to find Hilloran's face two inches from his own. "Would you!" snapped Dicky.

He slipped the answering punch over his left shoulder, changed his feet, and crammed every ounce of his weight into a retaliatory jolt that smacked over Hilloran's heart and dropped the man as if his legs had been cut away from beneath him.

Dicky turned like a whirlwind as the man he lad tripped up rose from the ground and leaped at him with flailing fists.

Scientific boxing, in that light, was hopeless. Dicky tried it, and stopped a right swing with the side of his head. Three inches lower, and it would probably have put an end to the fight. As it was, it sent him staggering back against the rail, momentarily dazed, and it was more by luck than judgment that his shoulder hunched in the way of the next blow. He hit back blindly, felt his knuckles make contact, and heard the man grunt with pain.

Then his sight cleared. He saw the seaman re­cover his balance and gather himself for a renewed onslaught. He saw Hilloran coming unsteadily off the deck, with the moonlight striking a silvery gleam from something in his right hand. And he under­stood the issue quite plainly.

They had tried to dump him overboard, chair and all, while he slept. A quiet and gentle method of disposing of a nuisance-and no fuss or mess. That having failed, however, the execution of the project had boiled down to a free fight for the same end. Dicky had a temporary advantage, but the odds were sticky. With the cold grim clarity of vision that comes to a man at such moments, Dicky Tremayne realized that the odds were very sticky indeed.

But not for a second could he consider raising his voice for help. Apart from the fact that the battle was more or less a duel of honour between Hilloran and himself-even if Hilloran didn't choose to fight his side single-handed-it remained to be assumed that, if Hilloran had one ally among the crew, he was just as likely to have half a dozen. The whole crew, finally, were just as likely to be on Hilloran's side as one. The agreement had been that Audrey, Hilloran and Dicky were to divide equally three-quarters of the spoil, and the crew were to divide the last quar­ter. Knowing exactly the type of men of which the crew was composed, Tremayne could easily reckon the chance of their felling for the bait of a half share to divide instead of a quarter, when the difference would amount to a matter of about four thousand pounds per man.

And that, Tremayne realized, would be a pretty accurate guess at the position. He himself was to eliminated as Audrey Perowne's one loyal supporter and a thorn in Hilloran's side. The quarter share thus saved would go to bribe the crew. As for Hill­oran's own benefit, Audrey Perowne's quarter share . . .

Dicky saw the whole stark idea staring him in the face, and wondered dimly why he'd never thought of it before. Audrey Perowne's only use, for Hilloran, had been to get the millionaires on board the yacht and out to sea. After that, he could take his own peculiar revenge on her for the way she had treated him, revenge himself also on Tremayne for similar things, and make himself master of the situation and a half a million dollars instead of a quarter. A charm­ing inspiration. . . . But Dicky didn't have to think it all out like that. He saw it in a flash, more by intuition than by logic, in the instant of rest that he had while he saw also the seaman returning to the attack and Hilloran rising rockily from the ground with a knife in his hand. And therefore he fought in silence.

The darkness was against him. Dicky Tremayne was a strong and clever boxer, quicker than most men, and he knew more than a little about ju-jitsu; but those are arts for which one needs the speed of vision that can only come with clear light. The light he had was meagre and deceptive-a light that was all on the side of sheer strength and bulk, and all against mere speed and skill.

He was pretty well cornered. His back was against the rail. Hilloran was on his left front, the huge seaman on his right. There was no room to pass between them, no room to escape past either of them along the rail. There was only one way to fight: their own way. The seaman was nearest, and Dicky braced himself. It had to be a matter of give and take, the only question being that of who was to take the most. As the seaman closed in, Tremayne judged his distance, dropped his chin, and drove with a long left.

The sailor's fist connected with Dicky's forehead, knocking back his head with a jar that wricked his neck. Dicky's left met something hard that seemed to snap under the impact. Teeth. But Dicky reeled, hazed by the sickening power of the two tremendous blows he had taken; and he could hardly see for the red and black clouds that swam before his eyes.

But he saw Hilloran and dropped instinctively to one knee. He rose again immediately under Hill­oran's knife arm, taking the man about the waist. Summoning all his strength, he heaved upwards, with some mad idea of treating Hilloran to some of his own pleasant medicine-or hurling the man over the rail into the glimmering black sea. And almost at once he realized that he could not do it-Hilloran was too heavy, and Dicky was already weakened. Nor was there time to struggle, for in another mo­ment Hilloran would lift his right arm again and drive the knife into Dicky's back. But Tremayne, in this desperate effort, had Hilloran off his feet for a second. He smashed him bodily against the rail, hoping to slam the breath out of him for a momen­tary respite, and broke away.

As he turned, the seaman's hands fastened on his throat, and Dicky felt a sudden surge of joy. Against a man who knows his ju-jitsu, that grip is more than futile: it is more than likely to prove fatal to the man who employs it. Particularly was this fact proven then. For most of the holds in ju-jitsu depend on getting a grip on a wrist or hand-which, of course, are the hardest parts of the body to get a grip on, being the smallest and most swiftmoving. Dicky had been hampered all along by being unable to trust himself to get his hold in that light, when the faintest error of judgment would have been fetal. But now there could be no mistake.

Dicky's hands went up on each side of his head, and closed on the seaman's little fingers. He pulled and twisted at the same time, and the man screamed as one finger at least was dislocated. But Dicky went on and the man was forced sobbing to his knees. The surge of joy in Dicky's heart rose to something like a shout of triumph-and died. Out of the tail of his eye, he saw Hilloran coming in again.

Tremayne felt that he must be living a nightmare. There were two of them, both far above his weight, and they were wearing him down, gradually, re­lentlessly. As fast as he gained an advantage over one, the other came to nullify it. As fast as he was able temporarily to disable one, the other came back refreshed to renew the struggle. It was his own stamina against their combined consecutive staminas-and either of them individually was superior in brute strength to himself, even if one left the knife out of the audit. Dicky knew the beginning of despair.

He threw the seaman from him, sideways, across Hilloran's very knees, and leapt away. Hilloran stumbled, and Dicky's hands shot out for the man's knife wrist, found its mark, twisted savagely. The knife tinkled into the scuppers.

If Dicky could have made a grip with both hands, he would have had the mastery, but he could only make it with one. His other hand, following the right, missed. A moment later he was forced to release his hold. He swung back only just in time to avoid the left cross that Hilloran lashed out at his jaw. Then both Hilloran and the sailor came at him simultaneously, almost shoulder to shoulder.

Dicky's strength was spent. He was going groggy at the knees, his arms felt like lead, his chest heaved terribly to every panting breath he took, his head swirled and throbbed dizzily. He was taking his licking. He could not counter the blows they both hurled at him at once. Somehow, he managed to duck under their arms, with some hazy notion of driving between them and breaking away into the open, but he could not do it. They had him cold.

He felt himself flung against the rail. The sailor's arms pinioned his own arms to his sides; Hilloran's hands were locked about his throat, strangling him to silence, crushing out life. His back was bent over the rail like a bow. His feet were off the ground.

The stars had gone out, and the moon had fallen from the sky. His chest was bound with ever-tightening iron bands. He seemed to be suspended in a vast void of utter blackness, and, though he could feel no wind, there was the roaring of a mighty wind in his ears.

And then, through the infinite distances of the dark gulf in which he hung, above even the great howling of that breathless wind, a voice spoke as a silver bell, saying: "What's this, Hilloran?"

Chapter VI DICKY seemed to awake from a hideous dream.

The fingers loosened from his throat, the iron cage that tortured his chest relaxed, the rushing wind in his ears died down to a murmur. He saw a star in the sky; and, as he saw it, a moon that had not been there before seemed to swim out of the infinite dark, back to its place in the heavens. And he breathed.

Also, he suddenly felt very sick. These things happened almost immediately. He knew that they must have been almost immediate, though they seemed to follow one another with the maddening slowness of the minute hand's pursuit of the hour hand round the face of a clock. He tried to whip them to a greater speed. He could not pause to savour the sensations of this return to life. His brain had never lost consciousness. Only his body was dead, and that had to be forced back to activity without a pause.

One idea stood out distinctly from the clearing fog that blurred his vision. Audrey Perowne was there, and she had caused an interruption that was saving him, but he was not safe yet. Neither was she.

She slept, he remembered, in a cabin whose porthole looked out onto the very stretch of deck where they had been fighting, and the noise must have roused her. But, in that light, she could have seen little but a struggling group of men, unless she had watched for a time before deciding to intervene-and that was unlikely. And she must not be allowed to know the true reason for the distur­bance.

Tremayne now understood exactly how things were, if Hilloran was prepared to dispose of him, he was prepared to dispose of the girl as well-Dicky had no doubt of that. But that would require some determination. The habit of obedience would re­main, and to break it would require a conscious effort. And that effort, at all costs, must not be stimulated by any provocation while Hilloran was able to feel that he had things mostly his own way.

All this Dick Tremayne understood, and acted upon it in an instant, before his senses had fully returned. His feet touched the deck; and he twisted and held the seaman in his arms as he himself had been held a moment earlier. Then he looked across and saw Audrey Perowne.

She stood by a bulkhead light, where they could see her clearly, and the light glinted on an automatic in her hand. She said again: "Hilloran-" And by the impatient way she said it, Dicky knew that she could not have been waiting long for her first question to be answered.

"It's all right," said Dicky swiftly. "One of the men's gone rather off his rocker, and he was trying to chuck himself overboard. Hilloran and I stopped him, and he fought. That's all."

The girl came closer, and neither Hilloran nor the seaman spoke. Now it was all a gamble. Would they take the lead he had offered them, and attest the lie? Or, rather, would Hilloran?-for the other man would take the cue from him.

It was a pure toss-up-with Audrey's automatic on Dicky's side. If Hilloran had a weapon-which he probably had-he would not dare to try and reach it when he was already covered, unless he had a su­preme contempt for the girl's intelligence and straight shooting. And Dicky had surmised that the man was not yet prepared for open defiance. . . .

But there was a perceptible pause before Hilloran said: "That's so, Audrey."

She turned to the sailor. "Why did you want to throw yourself overboard?"

Sullenly, the man said. "I don't know, miss."

She looked closely at him. "They seem to have been handling you pretty roughly."

"You should have seen the way he struggled," said Dicky. "I've never seen anyone so anxious to die. I'm afraid I did most of the damage. Here-"

He took the man's hand. "I'm going to put your finger back," he said. "It'll hurt. Are you ready?" He performed the operation with a sure touch; and then he actually managed a smile. "I should take him below and lock him up, Hilloran," he remarked. "He'll feel better in the morning. It must have been the heat. ..."

Leaning against the rail, he watched Hilloran, without a word, take the man by the arm and lead him away. He felt curiously weak, now that the crisis was past and he hadn't got to fight any more. The blessing was that the girl couldn't see the bruises that must have been rising on his forehead and the side of his head. But something must have shown in his face that he didn't know was showing, or the way he leaned against the rail must have been rather limp, for suddenly he found her hand on his shoul­der.

"It strikes me," she said softly, "that that man wasn't the only one who was roughly handled."

Dicky grinned. "I got some of the knocks, of course," he said.

"Did Hilloran?" she asked quietly.

He met her eyes, and knew then that she was not deceived. But he glanced quickly up and down the deck before he answered. "Hilloran took some knocks, too," he answered, "but it was a near thing."

"They tried to bump you off."

"That, I believe, was the general idea."

"I see." She was thoughtful. "Then-"

"I was trying to sleep on deck," said Dicky sud­denly. "Hilloran was here when I arrived. We saw the man come along and try to climb over the rail-"

He broke up as Hilloran's shadow fell between them. "I've locked him up," said Hilloran, "but he seems quite sensible now."

"Good," said the girl casually. "I suppose you'd got the better of him by the time I came out. We'll discuss what's to be done with him in the morning. Dicky, you might take a turn round the deck with me before we go back to bed." She carried off the situation with such an utter naturalness that Hill­oran was left with no answer. Her arm slipped through Dicky's, and they strolled away.

They went forward, rounded the deck-house, and continued aft, saying nothing; but when they came to the stern she stopped and leaned over the taffrail, gazing absorbedly down into the creaming wake.

Dicky stopped beside her. Where they stood, no one could approach within hearing distance without being seen. He took cigarettes and matches from his dressing-gown pocket. They smoked. He saw her face by the light of the match as he held it to her cigarette, and she seemed rather pale. But that might have been the light.

"Go on telling me about it," she ordered.

He shrugged. "You've heard most of it. I woke up when they were about to tip me over the side. There was some trouble. I did my best, but I'd have been done if you hadn't turned up when you did."

"Why did you lie to save them?"

He explained the instinctive reasoning which had guided him. "Not that I had time to figure it out as elaborately as that," he said, "but I'm still certain that it was a darned good guess."

"It's easily settled," she said. "We'll put Hilloran in irons-and you'll have to do the best you can in his place."

"You're an optimist," said Dicky sardonically. "Haven't I shown you every necessary reason why he should have the crew behind him to a man? They aren't the kind that started the story about honour among thieves."

She turned her head. "Are you suggesting that I should quit?"

He seemed to see his way clearly. "I am. We haven't an earthly-short of outbribing Hilloran, which 'ud mean sacrificing most of our own shares. We aren't strong enough to fight. And we needn't bank on Hilloran's coming back into the fold like a repentant sheep, because we'd lose our bets. He's got nothing to lose and everything to gain. We've served our purpose. He can handle the hold-up just as well without us, and earn another quarter of a million dollars for the shade of extra work. I don't say I wouldn't fight it out if I were alone. I would. But I'm not alone, and I suspect that Hilloran's got a nasty mind. If he's only thinking of taking your money-I'll be surprised."

She said coolly: "In that case, it doesn't look as if we'd gain anything by quitting."

"I could guarantee to get you away."

"How?"

"Don't ask me, Audrey. But I know how."

She appeared to contemplate the glowing end of her cigarette as though it were a crystal in which she could see the solution of all problems. Then she faced him. She said: "I don't quit."

"I suppose," said Dicky roughly, "you think that's clever. Let me tell you that it isn't. If you know that the decision's been framed against you right from the first gong, you don't lose caste by saving yourself the trouble of fighting."

"The decision on points may have been framed against you," she said, "but you can get round that one. You can win on a knockout."

"Possibly-if that were the whole of it. But you're forgetting something else, aren't you?"

"What's that?"

"The Saint."

He saw the exaggerated shrug of kimono'd shoul­ders. "I should worry about him. I'll stake anything he isn't among the passengers. I've had the ship searched from end to end, so he isn't here as a stowaway. And I haven't taken many chances with the crew. What is he going to do?"

"I don't know. But if the people he's beaten before now had known what the Saint was going to do- they wouldn't have been beaten. We aren't the first people who've been perfectly certain they were safe. We aren't the only clever crooks in the world."

Then she said again: "I've told you-I don't quit."

"All right-"

"This is the biggest game I've ever played!" she said, with a kind of savage enthusiasm. "It's more- it's one of the biggest games that ever has been played. I've spent months preparing the ground. I've sat up night after night planning everything out to the smallest detail, down to the last item of our getaways. It's a perfect machine. I've only got to press the button, and it'll run from to-morrow night to safety-as smoothly as any human machine ever ran. And you ask me to give that up!"

A kind of madness came over Dicky Tremayne. He turned, and his hands fell on her shoulders, and he forced her round with unnecessary violence. "All right!" he snapped. "You insist on keeping up this pose that you think's so brave and clever. You're damned pleased with yourself about it. Now listen to what I think. You're just a spoilt, silly fool-"

"Take your hands off me!"

"When I've finished. You're just a spoilt, silly little fool that I've a good mind to spank here and now, as I'd spank any other child-"

The moonlight gleamed on something blue-black and metallic between them. "Will you let me go?" she asked dangerously.

"No. Go ahead and shoot. I say you ought to be slapped, and, by the Lord . . . Audrey, Audrey, why are you crying?"

"Damn you," she said, "I'm not crying."

"I can see your eyes."

"Some smoke-"

"You dropped your cigarette minutes ago."

His fierce grip had slackened. She moved swiftly, and flung off his hands. "I don't want to get senti­mental," she said shakily. "If I'm crying, it's my own business, and I've got my good reasons for it. You're quite right. I am a fool. I want that quarter of a million dollars, and I'm going to have it-in spite of Hilloran-in spite of you, too, if you want to take Hilloran's side-"

"I'm not taking Hilloran's side, I'm-"

"Whose side are you taking, then? There's only two sides to this."

The moment had passed. He had chanced his arm on a show of strength-and failed. He wasn't used to bullying a girl. And through the dispersal of that shell-burst of madness he was aware again of the weakness of his position. A barefaced bluffer like the Saint might still have carried it off, but Dicky Tre­mayne couldn't. He dared not go too far. He was tied hand and foot. It had been on the tip of his tongue to throw up the game then-to tell the truth, present his ultimatum, and damn the consequences. Prudence-perhaps too great a prudence-had stopped him. In that, in a way, he was like Hilloran. Hilloran was in the habit of obedience; Tremayne was in the habit of loyalty; neither of them could break his habit on the spur of the moment. "I'm taking your side," said Dicky. And he wondered, at the same time, whether he oughtn't to have given way to the impulse of that moment's loss of temper.

"Then what's the point of all this?" she demanded.

"I'm taking your side," said Dicky, "better than you know. But we won't go into that any more-not just now, anyway. Let it pass. Since you're so clever-what's your idea for dealing with the situa­tion?"

"Another cigarette."

He gave her one, lighted it, and turned to stare moodily over the sea. It was a hopeless dilemma. "I wonder," he thought bitterly, "why a man should cling so fanatically to his word of honour? It's sheer unnatural lunacy, that's what it is." He knew that was what it was. But he was on parole, and he would have no chance to take back his parole until the following night at the earliest.

"What do you think Hilloran'll do now?" she asked. "Will he try again to-night, or will he wait till to-morrow?"

The moment was very much past. It might never have been. Dicky tried to concentrate, but his brain seemed to have gone flabby. "I don't know," he said vaguely. "In his place, I'd probably try again to­night. Whether Hilloran has that type of mind is another matter. You know him better than I do."

"I don't think he has. He's had one chance to­night to make the stand against me, and he funked it. That's a setback, psychologically, that'll take him some time to get over. I'll bet he doesn't try again till to-morrow. He'll be glad to be able to do some thinking, and there's nothing to make him rush it."

"Will you have any better answer to-morrow than you have now?"

She smiled. "I shall have slept on it," she said carelessly. "That always helps. . . . Good-night, Dicky. I'm tired."

He stopped her. "Will you promise me one thing?"

"What is it?"

"Lock your door to-night. Don't open to anyone-on any excuse."

"Yes," she said. "I should do that, in any case. You'd better do the same."

He walked back with her to the cabin. Her hair stirred in the breeze, and the moon silvered it. She was beautiful. As they passed by a bulkhead light, he was observing the serenity of her proud lovely face. He found that he had not lost all his madness.

They reached the door. "Good-night, Dicky, "she said again.

"Good-night," he said. And then he said, in a strange strained voice: "I love you, Audrey. Good­night, my dear." He was gone before she could answer.

Chapter VII DICKY dreamed that he was sitting on Hilloran's chest, with his fingers round Hilloran's throat, bang­ing Hilloran's head on the deck. Every time Hill­oran's head hit the deck, it made a lot of noise. Dicky knew that this was absurd. He woke up lazily, and traced the noise to his cabin door. Opening one eye, he saw the morning sunlight streaming in through his porthole.

Yawning, he rolled out of the bunk, slipped his automatic from under the pillow, and went to open the door. It was a white-coated steward, bearing a cup of tea. Dicky thanked the man, took the cup, closed the door on him, locking it again.

He sat on the edge of the bunk, stirring the tea thoughtfully. He looked at it thoughtfully, smelt it thoughtfully, got up thoughtfully, and poured it thoughtfully out of the porthole. Then he lighted a cigarette. He went to his bath with the automatic in his dressing-gown pocket and his hand on the au­tomatic. He finished off with a cold shower, and returned to his cabin to dress, with similar caution, but feeling better.

The night before, he had fallen asleep almost at once. Dicky Tremayne had an almost Saintly faculty for carrying into practice the ancient adage that the evil of the day is sufficient thereto; and, since he reckoned that he would need all his wits about him on the morrow, he had slept. But now the morrow had arrived, he was thoughtful.

Not that the proposition in front of him appeared any more hopeful in the clear light of day. Such things have a useful knack of losing many of their terrors overnight, in the ordinary way-but this particular specimen didn't follow the rules.

It was true that Dicky had slept peacefully, and, apart from the perils that might have lurked in the cup of tea which he had not drunk, no attempt had been made to follow up the previous night's effort. That fact might have been used to argue that Hill­oran hadn't yet found his confidence. In a deter­mined counter-attack, such trifles as locked doors would not for long have stemmed his march; but the counter-attack had not been made. Yet this argu­ment gave Dicky little reassurance.

An estimated value of one million dollars' worth of jewelry was jay-walking over the Mediterranean in that yacht, and every single dollar of that value was an argument for Hilloran-and others. Audrey Perowne had described her scheme as a fool-proof machine. So it was-granted the trustworthiness of the various cogs and bearings. And that was the very snag upon which it was liable to take it into its head to seize.

The plot would have been excellent if its object had been monkey-nuts or hot dogs--things of no irresistible interest to anyone but an incorrigible collector. Jewels that were readily convertible into real live dollars were another matter. Even then, they might have been dealt with in comparative safety on dry land. But when they and their owners were more or less marooned in the open sea, far beyond the interference of the policeman at the street corner, with a crew like that of the Corsican Maid, each of those dollars became not only an argument but also a very unstable charge of high explosive.

Thus mused Dicky Tremayne while he dressed, while he breakfasted and while he strolled round the deck afterwards with Sir Esdras Levy and Mr. Matthew Sankin. And the question that was upper­most in his mind was how he could possibly stall off the impending explosion until eleven or twelve o'clock that night.

He avoided Audrey Perowne. He saw her at breakfast, greeted her curtly, and plunged im­mediately into a discussion with Mr. George Y. Ulrig on the future of the American South-a point of abstract speculation which interested Dicky Tre­mayne rather less than the future of the Patagonian paluka. Walking round the deck, he had to pass and repass the girl, who was holding court in a shady space under an awning. He did not meet her eye, and was glad that she did not challenge him. If she had, she could have made him feel intolerably foolish.

The madness of the night before was over, and he wondered what had weakened him into betraying himself. He watched her out of the tail of his eye each time he passed. She chattered volubly, joked, laughed delightfully at each of her guests' clumsy sallies. It was amazing-her impudent nerve, her unshakable self-possession. Who would have im­agined, he asked himself, that before the next dawn she was proposing that those same guests that she was then entertaining so charmingly should see her cold and masterful behind a loaded gun?

And so to lunch. Afterwards-It was hot. The sun, a globe of eye-aching fire, swung naked over the yard-arm in a burnished sky. It made the tar bubble between the planks of the open deck, and turned the scarcely rippling waters to a sheet of steel. With one consent, guests and their wives, replete, sought long chairs and the shade. Conversation suf­focated-died.

At three o'clock, Dicky went grimly to the ren­dezvous. He saw Hilloran entering as he arrived, and was glad that he had not to face the girl alone.

They sat down on either side of the table, with one measured exchange of inscrutable glances. Hilloran was smoking a cigar. Dicky lighted a cigarette.

"What have you done about that sailor?" asked Audrey.

"I let him out," said Hilloran. "He's quite all right now."

She took an armchair between them. "Then we'll get to business," she said. "I've got it all down to a time-table. We want as little fuss as possible, and there's going to be no need for any shooting. While we're at dinner, Hilloran, you'll go through all the cabins and clean them out. Do it thoroughly. No one will interrupt you. Then you'll go down to the galley and serve out-this."

She held up a tiny flash of a yellowish liquid. "Butyl," she said, "and it's strong. Don't overdo it. Two drops in each cup of coffee, with the last two good ones for Dicky and me. And there you are. It's too easy-and far less trouble than a gun holdup. By the time they come to, they'll be tied hand and foot. We drop anchor off the Corsican coast near Calvi at eleven, and put them ashore. That's all."

Dicky rose. "Very neat," he murmured. "You don't waste time."

"We haven't to do anything. It all rests with Hill­oran, and his job's easy enough."

Hilloran took the flask and slipped it into his pocket.

"You can leave it to me," he said; and that re­minder of the favourite expression of Dicky's friend, Roger Conway, would have made Dicky wince if his face hadn't been set so sternly.

"If that's everything," said Dicky, "I'll go. There's no point in anyone having a chance to notice that we're both absent together." It was a ridiculous excuse, but it was an excuse. She didn't try to stop him.

Hilloran watched the door close without making any move to follow. He was carefully framing a speech in his mind, but the opportunity to use it was taken from him.

"Do you trust Dicky?" asked the girl.

It was so exactly the point he had himself been hoping to lead up to that Hilloran could have gasped. As it was, some seconds passed before he could trust himself to answer. "It's funny you should say that now," he remarked. "Because I remember that when I suggested it, you gave me the air."

"I've changed my mind since last night. As I saw it-mind you, I couldn't see very well because it was so dark-but it seemed to me that the situation was quite different from the way you both described it. It seemed," said the girl bluntly, "as if Dicky were trying to throw you overboard, and the sailor was trying to stop him."

"That's the truth," said Hilloran blindly.

"Then why did you lie to save him?"

"Because I didn't think you'd believe me if I told the truth."

"Why did the sailor lie?"

"He'd take his tip from me. If I chose to say nothing, it wasn't worth his while to contradict me."

The girl's slender fingers drummed on the table.

"Why do you think Dicky should try to kill you?"

Hilloran had an inspiration. He couldn't stop to give thanks for the marvellous coincidence that had made the girl play straight into his hands. The thanksgiving could come later. The immediate thing was to leap for the heaven-sent opening. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and leaned forward. "You remember me giving Dicky a letter yesterday evening before dinner?" he asked. "I opened it first and took a copy. Here it is. It looks innocent enough, but-"

"Did you test it for invisible ink?"

"I made every test I knew. Nothing showed up. But just read the letter. Almost every sentence in it might be a hint to anyone who knew how to take it."

The girl read, with a furrow deepening between her brows. When she looked up, she was frowning. "What's your idea?"

"What I told you before. I think Dicky Tremayne is one of the Saint's gang. An arrangement."

"That can't be right. I don't know much about the Saint, but I don't imagine he'd be the sort to send a man off on a job like this and leave his instructions to a letter delivered at the last minute. The least delay in the post, and he mightn't have received the letter at all."

"That's all very well, but-"

"Besides, whoever sent this letter, if it's what you think it is, must have guessed that it might be opened and read. Otherwise the instructions would have been written in plain language. Now, these people are clever. The hints may be good ones. They may just as probably be phoney. I wouldn't put it above them to use some kind of code that anyone might tumble to-and hide another code behind it. You think you've found the solution-in the hints, if you can interpret them-but I say that's too easy. It's probably a trap."

"Can you find any other code?"

"I'm not a code expert. But that doesn't say there isn't one."

Hilloran scowled. "I don't see that that makes any difference," he said. "I say that that letter's suspi­cious. If you agree with me, there's only one thing to be done."

"Certainly."

"He can go over the side, where he might have put me last night."

She shook her head. "I don't like killing, Hilloran. You know that. And it isn't necessary." She pointed to his pocket. "You have the stuff. Suppose there was only one coffee without it after dinner to-night?"

Hilloran's face lighted up with a brutal eagerness. He had a struggle to conceal his delight. It was too simple-too utterly, utterly simple. Verily, his enemies were delivered into his hands. . . . But he tried to make his acknowledgment of the idea re­straining and calculating. "It'd be safer," he conceded. "I must say I'm relieved to find you're com­ing round to my way of thinking, Audrey."

She shrugged, with a crooked smile. "The more I know you," she said, "the more I realize that you're usually right."

Hilloran stood up. His face was like the thin crust of a volcano, under which fires and horrible forces boil and batter for release. "Audrey-"

"Not now, Hilloran-"

"I've got a first name," he said slowly. "It's John. Why don't you ever use it?"

"All right-John. But please ... I want to rest this afternoon. When all the work's done. I'll-I'll talk to you."

He came closer. "You wouldn't try to double-cross John Hilloran, would you?"

"You know I wouldn't!"

"I want you!" he burst out incoherently. "I've wanted you for years. You've always put me off. When I found you were getting on too well with that twister Tremayne, I went mad. But he's not taking you in any more, is he?"

"No-"

"And there's no one else?"

"How could there be?"

"You little beauty!"

"Afterwards, Hilloran. I'm so tired. I want to rest. Go away now-"

He sprang at her and caught her in his arms, and his mouth found her lips. For a moment she stood passively in his embrace. Then she pushed him back, and dragged herself away. "I'll go now," he said unsteadily.

She stood like a statue, with her eyes riveted on the closing door, till the click of the latch snapping home seemed to snap also the taut cord that held her rigid and erect. Then she sank limply back into her chair. For a second she sat still. Then she fell for­ward across the table, and buried her face in her arms.

Chapter VIII "VE VERE suppose'," said the Countess Anusia Marova, "to come to Monaco at nine o'clock. But ve are delay', and ze captayne tell me ve do nod zere arrive teel ten o'clock. So ve do nod af to urry past dinair to see ourselves come in ze port."

Dicky Tremayne heard the soft accents across the saloon, above the bull-voice drawl of Mr. George Y. Ulrig, who was holding him down with a discourse on the future of the Japanese colony in California. Dicky was rather less interested in this than he would have been in a discourse on the future of the Walloon colony in Cincinnati. A scrap of paper crumpled in the pocket of his dinner-jacket seemed to be burning his side.

The paper had come under his cabin door while he dressed. He had been at the mirror, fidgeting with his tie, and he had seen the scrap sliding on to the carpet. He had watched it, half-hypnotized, and it had been some time before he moved to pick it up. When he had read it, and jerked open the door, the alleyway outside was deserted. Only, at the end, he had seen Hilloran, in his uniform, pass across by the alley athwarthships without looking to right or left. The paper had carried one line of writing, in block letters: DON'T DRINK YOUR COFFEE.

Nothing else. No signature, or even an initial. Not a word of explanation. Just that. But he knew that there was only one person on board who could have written it. He had hurried over the rest of his toilet in the hope of finding Audrey Perowne in the saloon before the other guests arrived, but she had been the last to appear. He had not been able to summon up the courage to knock on the door of her cabin. His desire to see her and speak to her again alone, on any pretext, was tempered by an equal desire to avoid giving her any chance to refer to his last words of the previous night.

"The Jap is a good citizen," George Y. Ulrig droned on, holding up his cocktail-glass like a sceptre. "He has few vices, he's clean, and he doesn't make trouble. On the other hand, he's too clever to trust. He... Say, boy, what's eatin' you?"

"Nothing," denied Dicky hastily. "What makes you think the Jap's too clever to trust?"

"Now, the Chinaman's the honestest man in the world, whatever they say about him," resumed the drone. "I'll tell you a story to illustrate that. ..."

He told his story at leisure, and Dicky forced himself to look interested. It wasn't easy. He was glad when they sat down to dinner. His partner was the less eagle-eyed Mrs. George Y. Ulrig, who was incapable of noticing the absent-minded way in which he listened to her detailed description of her last illness. But halfway through the meal he was recalled to attention by a challenge, and for some reason he was glad of it.

"Deeky," said the girl at the end of the table. Dicky looked up. "Ve are in ze middle of an argu­ment," she said.

"Id iss this," interrupted Sir Esdras Levy. "Der Gountess asks, if for insdance you vos a friendt off mine, ant bromised to tell nobody nothing, ant I see you vill be ruined if you don't know off der teal, and I know der teal vill ruined be if you know off it-vot shoot I to?"

This lucid exposition was greeted with a sup­pressed titter which made Sir Esdras whiffle impa­tiently through his beard. He waved his hands ex­citedly. "I say," he proclaimed magisterially, "dot a man's vort iss his pond. I am sorry for you, bud I must my vort keep."

'Owever," chipped in Mr. Matthew Sankin, and, catching his wife's basilisk eye upon him, choked redly. "However," said Mr. Matthew San-kin, "I 'old by the British principle that a man ough­ter stick by his mates-friends-an' he ain't- 'asn't-hasn't got no right to let "em down. None of 'em. That's wot."

"Matthew, deah," said Mrs. Sankin silkily, "the Countess was asking Mr. Tremayne the question, ay believe. Kaindly give us a chance to heah his opin­ion."

'What about a show of hands?" suggested Dicky. How many of you say that a man should stand by his word-whatever it costs him?" Six hands went up. Sankin and Ulrig were alone among the male dis­senters. "Lost by one," said Dicky.

No," said the Countess. "I do not vote. I make you ze chairman, Deeky, and you 'ave ze last vord. 'Ow do you say?"

"In this problem, there's no chance of a com­promise? The man couldn't find a way to tell his friend so that it wouldn't spoil the deal for his other friends?"

"Ve hof no gompromises," said Sir Esdras sternly.

Dicky looked down the table and met the girl's eyes steadily. "Then," he remarked, "I should first see my partners and warn them that I was going to break my word, and then I should go and do it. But the first condition is essential."

"A gompromise," protested Sir Esdras. "Subbose you hof nod der dime or der obbortunity?"

"How great is this friend?"

"Der greatest friendt you hof," insisted the hon­ourable man vehemently. "Id mags no tifference."

"Come orf it," urged Mr. Sankin. "A Britisher doesn't let 'is best pal dahn."

"Well," drawled George Y. Ulrig, "does an American?"

"You say I am nod Briddish?" fumed Sir Esdras Levy, whiffling. "You hof der imberdinence-"

"Deeky," said the girl sweetly, "you should make up your mind more queekly. Ozairvise ve shall 'ave a quarrel. Now, 'ow do you vote?" Dicky looked round the table. He wondered who had started that fatuous argument. He could have believed that the girl had done it deliberately, judging by the way she was thrusting the casting vote upon him so insis­tently. But, if that were so, it could only mean . . .

But it didn't matter. With zero hour only a few minutes away, a strange mood of recklessness was upon him. It had started as simple impatience- impatience with the theories of George Y. Ulrig, impatience with the ailments of Mrs. Ulrig. And now it had grown suddenly to a hell-for-leather des­peration.

Audrey Perowne had said it. "You should make up your mind more quickly." And Dicky knew that it was true. He realized that he had squandered all his hours of grace on fruitless shilly-shallying which had taken him nowhere. Now he answered in a kind of panic. "No," he said. "I'm against the motion. I'd let down any partners, and smash the most colossal deal under the sun, rather than hurt anyone I loved. Now you know-and I hope you're satisfied."

And he knew, as the last plates were removed, that he was fairly and squarely in the cart. He was certain then that Audrey Perowne had engineered the discussion, with intent to trap him into a state­ment. Well, she'd got what she wanted.

He was suspect. Hilloran and Audrey must have decided that after he'd left her cabin that afternoon. Then why the message before dinner? They'd de­cided to eliminate him along with the rest. That message must have been a weakness on her part. She must have been banking on his humanity-and she'd inaugurated the argument, and brought him into it, simply to satisfy herself on a stone-cold cer­tainty. All right. . . .

That was just where she'd wrecked her own bet. A grim, vindictive resentment was freezing his heart. She chose to trade on the love he'd confessed-and thereby she lost it. He hated her now, with an increasing hatred. She'd almost taken him in. Al­most she'd made him ready to sacrifice his honour and the respect of his friends to save her. And now she was laughing at him.

When he'd answered, she'd smiled. He'd seen it-too late-and even then the meaning of that smile hadn't dawned on him immediately. But he understood it all now. Fool! Fool! Fool! he cursed himself savagely and the knowledge that he's so nearly been seduced from his self-respect by such a waster was like a worm in his heart.

"But she doesn't get away with it," he swore sav­agely to himself. "By God, she doesn't get away with it!"

And savagely that vindictive determination lashed down his first fury to an intensely simmering malevolence. Savagely he cursed the moment's panic that had made him betray himself-speaking from his heart without having fully reckoned all that might be behind the question. And then suddenly he was very cold and watchful. The steward was bringing in the tray of coffee.

As if from a great distance, Dicky Tremayne watched the cups being set before the guests. As each guest accepted his cup, Dicky shifted his eyes to the face above it. He hated nearly all of them. Of the women, Mrs. Ulrig was the only one he could tolerate-for all her preoccupation with the diseases which she imagined afflicted her. Of the men, there were only two whom he found human: Matthew Sankin, the henpecked Cockney who had, some­how, come to be cursed rather than blessed with more money than he knew how to spend, and George Y. Ulrig, the didactic millionaire from the Middle West. The others he would have been de­lighted to rob at any convenient opportunity- particularly Sir Esdras Levy, an ill-chosen adver­tisement for a noble race.

Dicky received his cup disinterestedly. His right hand was returning from his hip pocket. Of the two things which it brought with it, he had one under his napkin: the cigarette-case he produced, and offered. The girl caught his eye, but his face was expression­less. An eternity seemed to pass before the first cup was lifted. The others followed. Dicky counted them, stirring his own coffee mechanically. Three more to go . . . two more . . .

Matthew Sankin drank last. He alone dared to comment. "Funny taste in this cawfy," he said.

"It tastes good to me," said Audrey Perowne, having tasted.

And Dicky Tremayne, watching her, saw some­thing in her eyes which he could not interpret. It seemed to be meant for him, but he hadn't the least idea what it was meant to be. A veiled mockery? A challenge? A gleam of triumph? Or what? It was a curious look. Blind. . . .

Then he saw Lady Levy half rise from her chair, clutch at her head, and fall sprawling across the table.

"Fainted," said Matthew Sankin, on his feet. "It's a bit stuffy in here-I've just noticed. ..."

Dicky sat still, and watched the man's eyes glaze open, and saw him fall before he could speak again. They fell one by one, while Dicky sat motionless, watching, with the sensation of being a spectator at a play. Dimly he appreciated the strangeness of the scene; dimly he heard the voices, and the smash of crockery swept from the table; but he himself was aloof, alone with his thoughts, and his right hand held his automatic pistol hidden under his napkin. He was aware that Ulrig was shaking him by the shoulder, babbling again and again: "Doped-that coffee was doped-some goldurned son of a coot!"-until the American in his turn crumpled to the floor. And then Dicky and the girl were alone, she standing at her end of the table and Dicky sitting at his end with the gun on his knee.

That queer blind look was still in her eyes. She said, in a hushed voice: "Dicky-"

"I should laugh now," said Dicky. "You needn't bother to try and keep a straight face any longer. And in a few minutes you'll have nothing to laugh about-so I should laugh now."

"I only took a sip," she said.

"I see the rest was spilt," said Dicky. "Have some of mine."

She was working round the table towards him, holding on the backs of the swivel chairs. He never moved. "Dicky, did you mean what you-answered-just now?"

"I did. I suppose I might mean it still, if the conditions were fulfilled. You'll remember that I said-anyone I loved. That doesn't apply here. Last night, I said I loved you. I apologize for the lie. I don't love you. I never could. But I thought-" He paused, and then drove home the taunt with all the stony contempt that was in him: "I thought it would amuse me to make a fool of you."

He might have struck her across the face. But he was without remorse. He still sat and watched her, with the impassivity of a graven image, till she spoke again. "I sent you that note-"

"Because you thought you had a sufficient weapon in my love. Exactly. I understand that."

She seemed to be keeping her feet by an effort of will. Her eyelids were drooping, and he saw tears under them. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Dicky Tremayne is my real name," he said, "and I am one of the Saint's friends."

She nodded so that her chin touched her chest.

"And-I-suppose-you-doped-my coffee," she said, foolishly, childishly, in that small hushed voice that he had to strain to hear; and she slid down beside the chair she was holding and fell on her face without another word.

Dicky Tremayne looked down at her in a kind of numb perplexity, with the ice of a merciless venge­fulness holding him chilled and unnaturally calm. He looked down at her, at her crumpled dress, at her bare white arms, at the tousled crop of golden hair tumbled disorderly over her head by the fall, and he was like a figure of stone.

But within him something stirred and grew and fought with the foundations of his calm. He fought back at it, hating it, but it brought him slowly up from his chair at last, till he stood erect, still looking down at her, with his napkin fallen to his feet and the gun naked in his right hand. "Audrey!" he cried suddenly.

His back was to the door. He heard the step behind him, but he could not move quicker than Hilloran's tongue. "Stand still!" rapped Hilloran.

Dicky moved only his eyes.

These he raised to the clock in front of him, and saw that it was twenty minutes past nine.

Chapter IX "DROP that gun," said Hilloran. Dicky dropped the gun.

"Kick it away." Dicky kicked it away.

"Now you can turn round," Dicky turned slowly.

Hilloran, with his own gun in one hand and Dicky's gun in the other, was leaning back against the bulkhead by the door with a sneer of triumph on his face. Outside the door waited a file of seamen. Hilloran motioned them in.

"Of course, I was expecting this," said Dicky.

"Mother's Bright Boy, you are," said Hilloran.

He turned to the seamen, pointing with his gun.

"Frisk him and tie him up."

"I'm not fighting," said Dicky. He submitted to the search imperturbably. The scrap of paper in his pocket was found and taken to Hilloran, who waived it aside after one glance at it.

"I guessed it was something like that," he said. "Dicky, you'll be glad to hear that I saw her slip it under your door. Lucky for me!"

"Very," agreed Dicky dispassionately. "She must have come as near fooling you as she was to fooling me. We ought to get on well after this."

"Fooling you!"

Dicky raised his eyebrows.

"How much did you hear outside that door?"

"Everything."

"Then you must have understood-unless you're a born fool."

"I understand that she double-crossed me, and warned you about the coffee."

"Why d'you think she did that? Because she thought she'd got me under her thumb. Because she thought I was so crazy about her that I was as soundly doped that way as I could have been doped by a gallon of 'knock-out.' And she was right-then."

The men were moving about with lengths of rope, binding wrists and ankles with methodical efficien­cy. Already pinioned himself, Dicky witnessed the guests being treated one by one in similar fashion, and remained outwardly unmoved. But his brain was working like lightning.

"When they're all safe," said Hilloran, with a jerk of one gun, "I'm going to ask you some questions-Mr. Dicky Tremayne! You'd better get ready to answer right now, because I shan't be kind to you if you give trouble."

Dicky stood in listless submission. He seemed to be in a kind of stupor. He had been like that ever since Hilloran had disarmed him. Except for the movements of his mouth, and the fact that he re­mained standing, there might have been no life in him. Everything about him pointed to a paralyzed and fatalistic resignation. "I shan't give any trou­ble," he said tonelessly. "Can't you understand that I've no further interest in anything-after what I've found out about her?"

Hilloran looked at him narrowly, but the words, and Dicky's slack pose, carried complete conviction. Tremayne might have been half-chloroformed. His apathetic, benumbed indifference was beyond dis­pute. It hung on him like a cloak of lead. "Have you any friends on board?" asked Hilloran.

"No," said Dicky flatly. "I'm quite alone."

"Is that the truth?"

For a moment Tremayne seemed stung to life.

"Don't be so damned dumb!" he snapped. "I say I'm telling you the truth. Whether you believe me or not, you're getting just as good results this way as you would by torture. You've no way of proving my statements-however you obtain them."

"Are you expecting any help from outside?"

"It was all in the letter you read."

"By aлroplane?"

"Seaplane."

"How many of your gang?"

"Possibly two. Possibly only one."

"At what time?"

"Between eleven and twelve, any night from to­night on. Or at four o'clock any morning. I should have called them by flashing-a red light."

"Any particular signal?"

"No. Just a regular intermittent flash," said Dicky inertly. "There's no catch in it."

Hilloran studied his face curiously. "I'd believe you-if the way you're surrendering wasn't the very opposite of everything that's ever been said about the Saint's gang."

Tremayne's mouth twitched. "For heaven's sake!" he burst out seethingly. "Haven't I told you, you poor blamed boob? I'm fed up with the Saint. I'm fed up with everything. I don't give another lonely damn for anything anyone does. I tell you, I was mad about that double-crossing little slut. And now I see what she's really worth, I don't care what happens to her or to me. You can do what you like. Get on with it!"

Hilloran looked round the saloon, By then, everyone had been securely bound except the girl, and the seamen were standing about uncertainly, waiting for further instructions. Hilloran jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Get out," he ordered. "There's two people here I want to interview-alone."

Nevertheless, when the last man had left the room, closing the door behind him, Hilloran did not immediately proceed with the interview. Instead, he pocketed one gun, and produced a large bag of soft leather. With this he went round the room, collecting necklaces, earrings, brooches, rings, studs, bracelets, wallets-till the bag bulged and weighed heavy. Then he added to it the contents of his pockets. More and more jewels slipped into the bag like a stream of glittering hailstones. When he had finished, he had some difficulty in tightening the cords that closed the mouth of the bag.

He balanced it appreciatively on the palm of his hand. "One million dollars," he said.

"You're welcome," said Dicky.

"Now I'll talk," said Hilloran.

He talked unemotionally, and Dicky listened without the least sign of feeling. At the end, he shrugged. "You might shoot me first," he suggested.

"I'll consider it."

No sentence of death could ever have been given or received more calmly. It was a revelation to Dicky, in its way, for he would have expected Hill­oran to bluster and threaten luridly. Hilloran, after all, had a good deal to be vindictive about. But the man's restraint was inhuman.

Tremayne's stoicism matched it. Hilloran prom­ised death as he might have promised a drink: Dicky accepted the promise as he might have accepted a drink. Yet he never doubted that it was meant. The very unreality of Hilloran's command of temper made his sincerity more real than any theatrical elaboration could have done. "I should like to ask a last favour," said Dicky calmly.

"A cigarette?"

"I shouldn't refuse that. But what I should ap­preciate most would be the chance to finish telling-her-what I was telling her when you came in.

Hilloran hesitated.

"If you agree," added Dicky callously, "I'd advise you to have her tied up first. Otherwise, she might try to untie me in the hope of saving her own skin. Seriously-we haven't been melodramatic about this to-night, so you might go on in the same way."

"You're plucky," said Hilloran.

Tremayne shrugged. "When you've no further interest in life, death loses its terror."

Hilloran went and picked up a length of rope that had been left over. He tied the girl's wrists behind her back; then he went to the door and called, and two men appeared. "Take those two to my cabin," he said. "You'll remain on guard outside the door." He turned back to Dicky. "I shall signal at eleven. At any time after that, you may expect me to call you out on deck."

"Thank you," said Dicky quietly. The first seaman had picked up Audrey Perowne, and Dicky followed him out of the saloon. The second brought up the rear. The girl was laid down on the bunk in Hill­oran's cabin. Dicky kicked down the folding seat and made himself as comfortable as he could. The men withdrew, closing the door.

Dicky looked out of the porthole and waited placidly. It was getting dark. The cabin was in twilight; and, beyond the porthole, a faintly lumi­nous blue-grey dusk was deepening over the sea. Sometimes he could hear the tramp of footsteps passing over the deck above. Apart from that, there was no sound but the murmuring undertone of slithering waters slipping past the hull, and the vi­bration, felt rather than heard, of the auxiliary en­gines. It was all strangely peaceful. And Dicky waited. After a long time, the girl sighed and moved. Then she lay still again. It was getting so dark that he could hardly see her face as anything but a pale blur in the shadow. But presently she said softly: "So it worked."

"What worked?"

"The coffee."

He said. "I had nothing to do with that."

"Almost neat butyl, it was," she said. "That was clever. I guessed my own coffee would be doped of course. I put the idea into Hilloran's head, because it's always helpful to know how you're going to be attacked. But I didn't think it'd be as strong as that. I thought it'd be safe to sip it."

"Won't you believe that I didn't do it, Audrey?"

"I don't care. It was somebody clever who thought of catching me out with my own idea."

He said: "I didn't do it, Audrey."

Then for a time there was silence.

Then she said: "My hands are tied."

"So are mine."

"He got you as well?"

"Easily. Audrey, how awake are you?"

"I'm quite awake now," she said. "Just very tired. And my head's splitting. But that doesn't matter. Have you got anything else to say?"

"Audrey, do you know who I am?"

"I know. You're one of the Saint's gang. You told me. But I knew it before."

"You knew it before?"

"I've known it for a long time. As soon as I noticed that you weren't quite an ordinary crook, I made inquiries-on my own, without anyone knowing. It took a long time, but I did it. Didn't you meet at a flat in Brook Street?"

Dicky paused. "Yes," he said slowly. "That's true. Then why did you keep it quiet?"

"That," she said, "is my very own business."

"All the time I was with you, you were in danger-yet you deliberately kept me with you."

"I chose to take the chance. That was because I loved you."

"You what?"

"I loved you," she said wearily. "Oh, I can say it quite safely now. And I will, for my own private satisfaction. You hear me, Dicky Tremayne? I loved you. I suppose you never thought I could have the feelings of an ordinary woman. But I did. I had it worse than an ordinary woman has it. I've always lived recklessly, and I loved recklessly. The risk was worth it-as long as you were with me. But I never thought you cared for me, till last night. ..."

"Audrey, you tell me that!"

"Why not? It makes no difference now. We can say what we like-and there are no consequences. What exactly is going to happen to us?"

"My friends are coming in a seaplane. I told Hill­oran, and he proposes to double-cross the crew. He's got all the jewels. He's going to give my signal. When the seaplane arrives, he's going to row out with me in a boat. My friends will be told that I'll be shot if they don't obey. Naturally, they'll obey- they'll put themselves in his hands, because they're that sort of fool. And Hilloran will board the sea­plane and fly away-with you. He knows how to handle an aлroplane."

"Couldn't you have told the crew that?"

"What for? One devil's better than twenty."

"And what happens to you?"

"I go over this side with a lump of lead tied to each foot. Hilloran's got a grudge to settle-and he's going to settle it. He was so calm about it when he told me that I knew he meant every word. He's a curious type," said Dicky meditatively. "I wish I'd studied him more. Your ordinary crook would have been noisy and nasty about it, but there's nothing like that about Hilloran. You'd have thought it was the same thing to him as squashing a fly."

There was another silence, while the cabin grew darker still. Then she said: "What are you thinking, Dicky?"

"I'm thinking," he said, "how suddenly things can change. I loved you. Then, when I thought you were trading on my love, and laughing at me up your sleeve all the time, I hated you. And then, when you fell down in the saloon, and you lay so still, I knew nothing but that I loved you whatever you did, and that all the hell you could give me was nothing, because I had touched your hand and heard your blessed voice and seen you smile." She did not speak. "But I lied to Hilloran," he said. "I told him nothing more than that my love had turned to hate, and not that my hate had turned back to love again. He believed me. I asked to be left alone with you before the end, to hurl my dying contempt on you-and he consented. That again makes him a curious type-but I knew he'd do it. That's why we're here now."

"Why did you do that?"

"So that I could tell you the truth, and try to make you tell me the truth-and, perhaps, find some way out with you."

The darkness had become almost the darkness of night. She said, far away: "I couldn't make up my mind. I kept on putting myself off and putting myself off, and in order to do that I had to trade on your love. But I forced you into that argument at dinner to find out how great your love could be. That was a woman's vanity-and I've paid for it. And I told Hilloran to dope your coffee, and told you not to drink it, so that you'd be ready to surprise him and hold him up when he thought you were doped. I was going to double-cross him, and then leave the rest in your hands, because I couldn't make up my mind."

"It's a queer story, isn't it?" said Dicky Tremayne.

"But I've told you the truth now," she said. "And I tell you that if I can find the chance to throw myself out of the boat, or out of the seaplane, I'm going to take it. Because I love you." He was silent. "I killed Morganheim," she said, "because I had a sister- once." He was very quiet. "Dicky Tremayne," she said, "didn't you say you loved me-once?"

He was on his feet. She could see him.

"That was the truth."

"Is it-still-true?"

"It will always be true," he answered; and he was close beside her, on his knees beside the bunk. He was so close beside her that he could kiss her on the lips.

Chapter X SIMON TEMPLAR sat at the controls of the tiny sea­plane and stared thoughtfully across the water. The moon had not yet risen, and the parachute flares he had thrown out to land had been swallowed up into extinction by the sea. But he could see, a cable's length away, the lights of the yacht riding sulkily on a slight swell; and the lamp in the stern of the boat that was stealing darkly across the intervening stretch of water was reflected a thousand times by a thousand ripples, making a smear of dancing lumi­nance across the deep.

He was alone. And he was glad to be alone, for undoubtedly something funny was going to happen. He had himself, after much thought, written Pa­tricia's letter to Dicky Tremayne, and he was satis­fied that it had been explicit enough. "My eyes are red from weeping for you." It couldn't have been plainer. Red light-danger. A babe in arms couldn't have missed it.

And yet, when he had flown nearer, he had seen the yacht was not moving; and his floats had hardly licked the first flurry of spray from the sea before the boat he was watching had put off from the ship's side. He could not know that Dicky had given away that red signal deliberately, hoping that it would keep him on his guard and that the inspiration of the moment might provide for the rest. All the same, the Saint was a good guesser, and he was certainly on his guard. He knew that something very fishy was coming towards him across that piece of fish-pond, and the only question was-what?

Thoughtfully the Saint fingered the butt of the Lewis gun that was mounted on the fuselage behind him. It had not been mounted there when he left San Remo that evening; for the sight of private sea­planes equipped with Lewis guns is admittedly un­usual, and may legitimately cause comment. But it was there now. The Saint had locked it onto its special mounting as soon as his machine had come to rest. The tail of the seaplane was turned towards the yacht; and, twisting round in the roomy cockpit, the Saint could comfortably swivel the gun round and keep the sights on the approaching boat.

The boat, by that time, was only twenty yards away.

"Is that you, sonny boy?" called the Saint sharply.

The answering hail came clearly over the water.

"That's me, Saint."

In the dark, the cigarette between the Saint's lips glowed with the steady redness of intense concen­tration. Then he took his cigarette from his mouth and sighted carefully. "In that case," he said, "you can tell your pals to heave to, Dicky Tremayne.

Because, if they come much nearer, they're going to get a lead shower-bath."

The sentence ended in a stuttering burst from the gun; and five tracer bullets hissed through the night like fireflies and cut the water in a straight line directly across the boat's course. The Saint heard a barked command, and the boat lost way; but a laugh followed at once, and another voice spoke.

"Is that the Saint?"

The Saint only hesitated an instant. "Present and correct," he said, "complete with halo. What do your friends call you, honeybunch?"

"This is John Hilloran speaking."

"Good evening, John," said the Saint politely.

The boat was close enough for him to be able to make out the figure standing up in the stern, and he drew a very thoughtful bead upon it. A Lewis gun is not the easiest weapon in the world to handle with a microscopic accuracy, but his sights had been picked out with luminous paint, and the standing figure was silhouetted clearly against the reflection in the water of one of the lights along the yacht's deck.

"I'll tell you," said Hilloran, "that I've got your friend at the end of my gun-so don't shoot any more."

"Shoot, and be damned to him!" snapped in Dicky's voice. "I don't care. But Audrey Perowne's here as well, and I'd like her to get away."

"My future wife," said Hilloran, and again his throaty chuckle drifted through the gloom.

Simon Templar took a long pull at his cigarette, and tapped some ash fastidiously into the water. "Well-what's the idea, big boy?"

"I'm coming alongside. When I'm there, you're going to step quietly down into this boat. If you resist, or try any funny business, your friend will pass in his checks."

"Is-that-so?" drawled Simon.

"That's so. I want to meet you-Mr. Saint!"

"Well, well, well!" mocked the Saint alertly.

And there and then he had thrust upon him one of the most desperate decisions of a career that con­tinued to exist only by the cool swift making of desperate decisions.

Dicky Tremayne was in that boat, and Dicky Tremayne had somehow or other been stung. That had been fairly obvious ever since the flashing of that red signal. Only the actual details of the stinging had been waiting to be disclosed. Now the Saint knew. And, although the Saint would willingly have stepped into a burning fiery furnace if he thought that by so doing he could help Dicky's getaway, he couldn't see how the principle applied at that mo­ment. Once the Saint stepped down into that boat, there would be two of them in the consomme instead of one-and what would have been gained?

What, more important, would Hilloran have gained? Why should J. Hilloran be so anxious to increase his collection of Saints? The Saint thought­fully rolled his cigarette-end between his finger and thumb, and dropped it into the water.

"Why," ruminated the Saint-"because the dear I soul wants this blinkin' bus what I'm sitting in. He wants to take it and fly away into the wide world. Now, again-why? Well, there was supposed to be a million dollars' worth of jools in that there hooker. It's quite certain that their original owners haven't got them any longer-it's equally apparent that Au­drey Perowne hasn't got them, or Dicky wouldn't have said that he wanted her to get away-and, clearly, Dicky hasn't got them. Therefore, Hill­oran's got them. And the crew will want some of them. We don't imagine Hilloran proposes to load up the whole crew on this airyplane for their get­away: therefore, he only wants to load up himself and Audrey Perowne-leaving the ancient mariners behind to whistle for their share. Ha! Joke. . . ."

And there seemed to be just one solitary way of circumventing the opposition. Now, Hilloran wasn't expecting any fight at all. He'd had several drinks, for one thing, since the hold-up, and he was very sure of himself. He'd got everyone cold- Tremayne, Audrey, the crew, the Saint, and the jewels. He didn't see how anyone could get out of it.

He wasn't shaking with the anticipation of triumph, because he wasn't that sort of crook. He simply felt rather satisfied with his own ingenuity. Not that he was preening himself. He found it as natural to win that game as he would have found it natural to win a game of stud poker from a deaf, dumb, and blind imbecile child. That was all.

Of course, he didn't know the Saint except by reputation, and mere word-of-mouth reputations never cut much ice with Hilloran. He wasn't figur­ing on the Saint's uncanny intuition of the psychol­ogy of the crook, nor on the Saint's power of lightn­ing logic and lightning decision. Nor had he reck­oned on that quality of reckless audacity which lifted the Saint as far above the rut of ordinary adventurers as Walter Hagen is above the man who has taken up golf to amuse himself in his old age-a quality which infected and inspired also the men whom the Saint led.

There was one desperate solution to the problem, and Hilloran ought to have seen it. But he hadn't seen it-or, if he had, he'd called it too desperate to be seriously considered. Which was where he was wrong to all eternity.

He stood up in the stern of the boat, a broad dominant figure in black relief against the shimmer­ing waters, and called out again: "I'm coming alongside now, Saint, if you're ready."

"I'm ready," said the Saint; and the butt of the Lewis gun was cuddled into his shoulder as steadily as if it had lain on a rock.

Hilloran gave an order, and the sweeps dipped again. Hilloran remained standing. If he knew what happened next, he had no time to coordinate his impressions. For the harsh stammer of the Lewis gun must have merged and mazed his brain with the sharp tearing agony that ripped through his chest, and the numbing darkness that blinded his eyes must have been confused with the numbing weak­ness that sapped all the strength from his body, and he could not have heard the choking of the breath of his throat, and the cold clutch of the waters that closed over him and dragged him down could have meant nothing to him at all. . . .

But Dicky Tremayne, staring stupidly at the widening ripples that marked the spot where Hill­oran had been swallowed up by the sea, heard the Saint's hail. "Stand by for the mermaids!"

And at once there was a splash such as a seal makes in plunging from a high rock, and there followed the churning sounds of a strong swimmer racing through the water.

The two men, who were the boat's crew, seemed for a moment to sit in a trance; then, with a curse, one of them bent to his oars. The other followed suit.

Dicky knew that it was his turn. He came to his feet and hurled himself forward, throwing himself anyhow across the back of the man nearest to him. The man was flung sideways and over onto his knees, so that the boat lurched perilously. Then Dicky had scrambled up again, somehow, with bruised shins, and feet that seemed to weigh a ton, and launched himself at the back of the next man in the same way.

The first man whom he had knocked over struck at him, with an oath, but Dicky didn't care. His hands were tied behind his back, but he kicked out, swung his shoulders, butted with his head-fought like a madman. His only object was to keep the men from any effective rowing until the Saint could reach them.

And then, hardly a foot from Dicky's eyes, a hand came over the gunwale, and he lay still, panting. A moment later the Saint had hauled himself over the side, almost overturning the boat as he did so. "O.K., sonny boy!" said the Saint, in that inimitably cheerful way that was like new life to those who heard it on their side, and drove his fist into the face of the nearest man.

The the other man felt the point of a knife prick his throat. "You heard your boss telling you to row over to the seaplane," remarked the Saint gently, "and I'm very hot on carrying out the wishes of the dead. Put your back into it!"

He held the knife in place with one hand, with the other hand he reached for the second little knife which he carried strapped to his calf. "This way, Dicky boy, and we'll have you loose in no time." It was so. And then the boat was alongside the sea­plane, and Dicky had freed the girl.

The Saint helped them up, and then went down to the stern of the boat and picked up the bag which lay fallen there. He tossed it into the cockpit, and fol­lowed it himself. From that point of vantage he leaned over to address the crew of the boat.

"You've heard all you need to know," he said. "I am the Saint. Remember me in your prayers. And when you've got the yacht to a port, and you're faced with the problem of accounting for all that's hap­pened to your passengers-remember me again. Because to-morrow morning every port in the Mediterranean will be watching for you, and on every quay there'll be detectives waiting to take you away to the place where you belong. So remember the Saint!" And Simon Templar roused the engine of the seaplane and began to taxi over the water as the first shot spat out from the yacht's deck and went whining over the sea.

A week later, Chief Inspector Teal paid another visit to Brook Street. "I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Templar,".he said. "You'll be interested to hear that Indomitable picked up the Corsican Maid as she was trying to slip through the Straits last night. They didn't put up much of a scrap."

"You don't say!" murmured the Saint mockingly. "But have some beer."

Mr. Teal sank ponderously into the chair. "Fat men," he declined, "didn't ought to drink-if you won't be offended. But listen, sir-what happened to the girl who was the leader of the gang? And what happened to the jewels?"

"You'll hear to-day," said the Saint happily, "that the jewels have been received by a certain London hospital. The owners will be able to get them back from there, and I leave the reward they'll contribute to the hospital to their own consciences. But I don't think public opinion will let them be stingy. As for the money that was collected in cash, some twenty-five thousand dollars. I-er-well, that's difficult to trace, isn't it?"

Mr. Teal nodded sleepily. "And Audrey Perowne, alias the Countess Anusia Marova?"

"Were you wanting to arrest her?"

"There's a warrant-"

The Saint shook his head sadly. "What a waste of time, energy, paper, and ink! You ought to have told me that before. As it is, I'm afraid I-er-that is, she was packed off three days ago to a country where extradition doesn't work-I'm afraid I shouldn't know how to intercept her. Isn't that a shame?"

Teal grimaced. "However," said the Saint, "I un­derstand that she's going to reform and marry and settle down, so you needn't worry about what she'll do next."

"How do you know that?" asked Teal suspiciously.

The Saint's smile was wholly angelic. He flung out his hand.

"A little Dicky bird," he said musically, "a little Dicky bird told me so this morning."

(bm)