The Saint in Miami

1

Sheriff Haskins' equine face seemed to grow longer and gloomier as he completed a patient reading of the letter. Then he referred again to the note signed with the Saint's emblem.

"'You can't get away with it all the time'" he read off it "What would that mean?"

"Oh, I was always kidding him that you can't make millions honestly," Simon replied easily. "I always told him that one day his sins would catch up with him and he'd go to jail. It was a standing rib. So of course when Justine said he was worried I had to make a crack like that."

Haskins shifted his cud.

"'I'm coming to put an end to your troubles' That would be sort of double meanin', hunh?"

"Yes."

"On account of what well call this fictitious reputation o' yours."

"Naturally." The Saint was still a little shaky with laughter. "Now wouldn't it be fair to tell me where you got that note from?"

"I dunno yet." Haskins gazed at it abstractedly for a moment longer, and put it back in his pocket He returned his attention to Justine Gilbeck's letter. He said, as if he were making a comment on the weather: "I guess there's plenty of this letterhead in the house."

"And we're all master forgers," Simon assured him blandly. "Signatures are just baby stuff to us. We think nothing of four whole pages of handwriting."

Haskins put the letter back in its envelope and studied the postmark. He tapped it on his front teeth.

"Mind if I keep this a while?"

"Not a bit," said the Saint. "There must be a bank in town that knows her writing, and they've probably got other friends here as well. Check up on it all you like. And then come back and apologise to me."

Haskins put on his hat and turned his head in the manner of a buzzard seeking sustenance. Finding a spot which suited his fancy, he scored a nicotine bullseye at the roots of an unoffending lily, and said: "Maybe you better not leave town just yet, in case I might want to do that."

A suitable remise was shaping itself on the Saint's tongue when it was abruptly cut off by the arrival of another car. It was a very different proposition from the Sheriff's well-worn but serviceable jalopy. This was an enormous cream-coloured custom-built Packard, which whirled into the driveway and whipped around the front of the house with an effortless speed that made Simon tip an imaginary hat to the skill of the driver. Above the side of the roadster he had time to catch a glimpse of a jacket of Lincoln green and a mane of tawny hair tossed in the wind, and abruptly changed his mind about making a barbed retort.

He made a starting movement towards the house.

"All right," he said amiably. "I'll be expecting you."

Haskins held his ground, absorbing the scenery with his seamed poker face.

"I don't get much pleasure out of life, son," he explained, "and while I'm right respectably married, redheads have always been a weakness of mine. When I get a chance like this, I sorta hesitate to hurry off."

"Then by all means don't hurry," said the Saint hospitably; but his brain tightened into preparedness, tinged with a certain malevolence of which Haskins was the sole beneficiary.

It might well have suited the devious purposes of March and his captain to say nothing about his unconventional visit to the March Hare, but the girl's attitude was much less predictable. By trying to get rid of her during their exchange of backchat the night before, March had suggested that she wasn't entirely in his confidence; but Simon was not yet ready to attribute her prompt response to his invitation to nothing but the fascination which his beauty and charm had been able to exert on her during an interview in which his attention had been mostly elsewhere. She was a very uncertain quantity still, and the Saint wasn't anxious for Haskins to find out about that visit to the March Hare too soon. It was a situation that demanded active management…

Stimulated by the arrival of a lady, Haskins sought a nearby flowerbed and in more or less gentlemanly fashion disposed of his chew. Simon took advantage of the disgorgement to cross the patio alone and greet the girl as she came out.

By night she had been beautiful; but so were many girls whose glamour vanished with the dawn. She was not one of them. Under the sunlight she took on a flaming vividness that matched the heady colours in the courtyard. The setting took her into its composition and framed her with perfect lightness, as if its exotic blooms took life from her and she from them… What the Saint had to do was an attractive task.

"Karen darling!"

His voice was warm and eager. And before she could speak, he had wrapped her in his arms, holding her tightly against him and covering her lips with his own.

"The scarecrow in black's the Sheriff," he said in an urgent sotto-voce, and went on aloud: "This is wonderful! Why haven't I seen you for so many years?"

The first rigidity of her supple body gave him a bad moment. But he had to give her a clue, and this seemed to be the only way. If she still didn't want to play, it was the will of Allah… He kept her in an embrace of iron, and kissed her again for luck.

Her strength was pent up against him; and then suddenly it wasn't. He loosed her, and she smiled, and he felt a breathlessness which could not be wholly put down to the suspense.

"It's lovely to see you, dear." Her voice was cool and self-possessed. "I heard this morning that you were here, and I rushed right over." She turned towards Haskins as he shuffled up. "Why, hullo, Sheriff. I didn't expect to see you again today."

"It's an unexpected pleasure for me, Miss Leith."

"The Sheriff was out on Randy's yacht last night, Simon," she explained quickly. "Oh, I forgot — you don't know Randy, do you? You must meet him. Randolph March. Anyway, he has this yacht, and we were out last night, and a poor boy fell overboard and got drowned, and the Sheriff had to come out and see about it."

Haskins' eyes had a birdlike brightness. "Why, miss," he said, with an air of persuasive surprise, "wasn't it Mr March who told you Mr Templar was heah?"

"Oh, no! Mr March would be frightfully jealous if he knew I'd come here. You will be an old dear and not say a word about it, won't you?" She took his enslavement for granted with a glance of saccharine seduction, and turned away again to twine fingers with the Saint "Sally wrote me from New York."

"I hoped she would," said the Saint happily. The shadow of great gloom fell back over Haskins' face. The brightness went out of his eyes, to be replaced by a look of dour resignation. He said: "Well, folks, I don't like to interrupt the meetin' of old friends. I guess I'll be moseyin' along."

"Won't you even stay for a drink?" Simon invited halfheartedly.

"No, son." Haskins raised his hat to the girl. "You'll have lots of private things to talk about, I'm sure. I'll be seein' you both again 'fore long."

"Bring your bloodhounds," said the Saint, as he escorted the funereal figure towards the house. "Maybe we can put something up a tree."

He watched the Sheriff's departure with mixed feelings. It was a remarkably difficult thing to divine exactly what Mr Haskins was thinking or believing at any given time. He had a disturbing faculty for shaping phrases that could hold as much or as little as the hearer's conscience wanted to read into them.

But there was a much more pleasant, if no less problematical, factor to be dealt with immediately; and Simon Templar temporarily dismissed the less alluring enigma with a shrug as he went back to the patio.

She had sat down on the footrest of a deck chair, and she was using a mirror and lipstick to repair the damage he had done to her mouth. He wondered if she also had felt any of the unaccountable breathlessness which had caught him during the infliction of the damage; but if she had, she was a good dissembler. She made him wait until her full lips were again flawless enough for her satisfaction.

Then she said calmly: "You like very direct methods, don't you?"

"It was the only thing I could think of," he said, matching her for calm. "I didn't know you'd met him, and I had to make sure you wouldn't drop any bricks."

"What made you think I'd respond to your kind of hint?"

"I just hoped."

"You don't hate yourself very much."

"Anyone can hope. But I'm not asking you to excuse me. I'd do the same thing again, even if I knew it was hopeless. I found out it was worth it."

"I'm glad you were satisfied."

She was packing lipstick and mirror carefully back in her bag.

He regarded her thoughtfully, digging a package of cigarettes out of the pocket of his robe.

"Now," he said, "let's ask why you came here."

"You told me to look you up if I wanted some fun," she said innocently. "Well, I've always liked fun. But perhaps our ideas of fun aren't quite the same."

"Did March send you?"

"Did you think I was lying to that Sheriff? March would be mad as hell if he knew I'd been here."

"You lied about that drowned boy." Her eyes were big with ingenuous astonishment. "I only repeated what Randy told me. I suppose the boy just fell overboard and I didn't notice it. Perhaps they didn't want to tell me about it at the time because it would have spoiled the trip. And if it wasn't true, how else could the body have got there?"

Simon tightened his lips on an unlighted cigarette. "You lied about me."

Colour touched her cheeks.

"Wasn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"Of course. But why did you do it?"

"Because I like you."

"How much?"

"Enough."

"So you liked Randy enough, too, before I arrived. And when somebody better than me comes along, I can move back into the same museum. It must be a life full of variety."

"I'm sorry." Her slim fingers drummed on her knee. "If you'd be more at home with a Bible Class, I can always go."

The Saint struck a match.

"I have a sort of weakness," he explained apologetically, "for knowing what's going on. A lot of weird things have been happening lately, and a guy can't be too careful. My dear old grannie always told me that If you really want me to believe that you just came following me in search of fun, I'll be a little gentleman and stop arguing — out loud. But you seemed to be pretty well in with Randy last night, and you may have gathered that there is some unfinished business between him and me. So I'm going to ask a lot of questions about your change of heart, whether you like it or not. On the other hand, if you've got something else on your mind, let's quit stalling and have it out."

"Suppose I came here to tell you something?"

"To warn me off?" he said quizzically. "I've been warned off before."

"Damn you!" she flashed. "You wouldn't have to tell me you wouldn't be warned. Anyone would know it You're the Saint — the King of Crime — the magnificent infallible hero! You couldn't be told that you were meddling with something too tough for you. I wouldn't waste my time."

"Then what?" he inquired equably.

She mastered the temper that went so well with her proud fiery head.

"I might be able to tell you where Haskins found the note that brought him here. I might—"

A whining sound like that of a magnified malignant mosquito zipping between them cut her off. From the direction of the driveway a rifle cracked, sending its echo bouncing out to sea. Frozenly she turned her head and stared at the scar where a mushroom bullet had excavated its own grave in the stucco wall.

2

Bushes crashed at the base of the palms along the driveway. Simon saw the fluttering movement of the foliage, and heard a squeal reminiscent of a frightened rat, and the sound of a heavy fall. Instinctively he reached for Karen Leith, and was ready to swing her out of the way of whatever might be developing. With her soft figure in the curve of his arm, he stood warily watching the shrubbery.

"You can always find some excuse for this sort of thing, can't you?" she remarked, with commendable sangfroid.

"Its a knack I have," he said, without a shift of his keen blue eyes.

The nearer oleanders began to sway. They parted, making way for the passage of Hoppy Uniatz's pithecanthropoid physique.

Mr Uniatz clutched a rifle in one hand, and the neck of a denim-clad figure in the other. His homely face was beatific with the consciousness of work well done as he ploughed towards the patio with both his burdens at trail. The worn heels of the lanky captive in his right hand bumped limply along behind him, kicking up little spurts of dust.

He waded through an intervening bed of assorted petunias, leaving a wide swath of destruction behind him, and dumped his prize at Simon's feet with the pleased and playful air of a spaniel bringing in a bird.

"Dis is de lug," he said. "He shoots at ya once before I can get to him."

He swung his foot at the offender broodingly. "Before you boot him to death," Simon intervened, "let's find out if he's got anything to say."

He released the girl, and inspected the catch with interest. The man was breathing noisily, sucking in gobs of air to replenish the supply which had been temporarily cut off by the clutch of Hoppy's ungentle hand. He stared back up at Simon with sunken rabbit eyes which formed reddish beads in a face of a million lines. The wrinkles converged on loose-hung lips drawn back over snaggly yellow teeth. Topping the face was a dirty thatch of unkempt hair.

"A very pretty creature," said the Saint, and turned to Karen. "Is he a friend of yours?"

Her red lips tightened. "Thanks for the flattery."

"Well, have you ever seen him before?"

"Thank God, no. Why should I have?"

"I just wondered," said the Saint carelessly, "who he was aiming at."

From behind them, Patricia asked anxiously: "What happened, boy? We heard the shot from the beach."

The red-haired girl whirled round and stared at her with detached appraisal. Peter Quentin came up on the run and stopped beside Pat, and did his own staring. As between expert inventories, there was nothing much in it for either side to claim an edge.

"Friends of mine," said the Saint. "Miss Holm and Mr Quentin." He pointed to the bullet hole in the wall. "Miss Leith very kindly came here to tell me something, and she was about to do it when our little playmate took a pot at us."

"I warn't shootin' at nobody," the man broke out in a sullen whine.

"Get up," ordered the Saint coldly.

The man hesitated, and Hoppy prodded him in the stomach with the muzzle of the rifle.

"Giddap, youse! You hoid what de boss said." The man scrambled to his feet, and Hoppy turned to Simon. "Lemme woik him over a bit, boss. I can break him down."

"In the rumpus room," said the Saint Mr Uniatz took hold of the prisoner's collar and moved him off, encouraging his progress by goosing him briskly in the stern with the rifle barrel. Simon followed, and was not surprised to find the others silently entering the play room after him.

He waved them to chairs, and carefully closed the door. The room was spacious and rather bare, an admirable venue for some mildly athletic cross-examination. Best of all, it was well soundproofed with an eye to its normal function; but that features was equally convenient for other things. Mr Uniatz pushed the scowling captive into a seat, and then became aware that in addition to its other advantages the room also contained a bar. It seemed to him that this was a last refining touch of architectural genius. Satisfied that the situation was now under the Saint's adequate command, he eased away on a voyage of exploration…

Simon straddled a chair, leaned on his folded arms, and scrutinised the specimen for dissection for a leisured period which was intended to give it every opportunity to realise its predicament.

"You can make it just as tough as you like, brother," he announced at length. "What were you shooting at us for?"

The man glared back at him with stubborn animosity, wriggling uneasily on the edge of the hard seat which.Hoppy had chosen for him. The overalls he wore were a shade too small. An ungainly stretch of sockless ankle showed white above the tops of his shoes. "What's your name?" asked the Saint patiently. The red eyes squinted.

"None of your goddam—"

The rest of the speech was cut off with a clunking sound as Mr Uniatz tapped him moderatingly on the side of the head with the bottle of Peter Dawson which he had just opened. "'I can make him come t'ru, boss," he volunteered. "I know a guy once in Brooklyn I have to ask questions about some dough he is holdin' out. He talks for two hours straight when I hold matches under his toes."

"You see, brother," Simon explained. "Hoppy gets homesick for the good old days every now and again and wants to play, and I simply haven't the heart to refuse him."

The man's gnarled fingers clasped and unclasped nervously. He ran one hand up the leg of his overalls to remove sweat from the palm.

"My name's Lafe Jennet," he said sulkily. "I was shootin' at a bird. You ain't goin' to kill nobody and you ain't goin' to hurt nobody, and I ain't aimin' to talk none to you."

"Boss," pleaded Mr Uniatz, wanning to the flow of inspiration and Scotch whisky, "I got anudder idea. You get some pliers outa de car an' take hold of de guy's toenails—"

"We may have time to try both," said the Saint cheeringly. "Take off his shoe."

He rose and turned his back and strolled towards a window. He heard Hoppy's frightening voice. "Stick out ya foot or I'll kick ya shins in."

"The other one," Simon said without looking round. "Not the one he stuck out. Take off his other shoe."

"It don't make no difference, boss. It woiks the same."

"The other shoe, Hoppy."

He gazed out at the sunlit scene outside, and waited. The sound of a brief scuffle ended in a grunt of pain. "It's off, boss. Which ja wanna try foist?"

Karen Leith crushed out her cigarette and gave a tiny sigh.

"Take a look at his ankle and tell me what you see," Simon instructed.

"Chees, boss, he's got ringwoim," Hoppy exclaimed admiringly. "Howja know dat?"

"It's the gall of a leg-iron." Simon turned from the window and strode back towards the prisoner. "You've been towing around a ball in a chain gang, Lafe. You ought to have blown yourself to a pair of socks. The mark shows."

"You're pretty damn smart, ain't you?" Jennet spat out. "Well, I been in a chain gang an' I served my time. So what's it to you?"

Simon stepped back a pace and surveyed the calloused ankle.

"You escaped, Lafe," he stated impassively. "You hung it on the limb. Somebody knocked that shackle off you with a sledgehammer. Your ankle's still black and blue. Of course, if you'd rather talk to Sheriff Haskins than to me, we can always send for him."

Jennet's bloodshot eyes swivelled from left to right, as if in search of a way of escape that was not there. He sat erect for an instant, a picture of deadly hatred; then he slumped back and gripped his hands about one knee. "I'll talk to you, mister."

"That's splendid." Simon drew his cigarette into a glow. "Who hired you to shoot at us?"

"I don't know." The Saint raised his eyebrows. "Hoppy—"

"I told you, I don't know. That is, I don't know nuthin' except his name — Jesse Rogers."

Behind him, Simon heard the quick grating creak of a wicker chair. For some reason it made his mind flash back to the night before, when Karen Leith had spilled her champagne.

He turned quickly. She was lighting a cigarette with a tremorless hand. She had taken the match from a box on a table beside her — her shift of position in reaching for the light accounted for the sound.

Simon resumed his interrogation with a sheepish feeling that for once his nerves had played him false. "Where does this guy live?"

"I don't know."

"I suppose you don't know nothing except his address."

"See here," Jennet snarled. "I said I'd talk, an' I'm talkin'. I lammed from the gang a week ago from a road camp near Olustee. I got a friend owns a barge near heah. I done some-thin' for him once, so he done somethin' for me. He hid me out."

"What's his name?"

"A Greek called Gallipolis. This Rogers comes in to do a little gamblin'. Somehow he got on to me. He come out there early this momin'. It was a case of you or me. Either I did the job or he sent me back to the gang. I never saw him before, an' I don't know nuthin' about him."

"Are you sure," said the Saint, "that you weren't hired to kill a girl? A red-haired girl?" He pointed to Karen. "Like this one?"

"No, mister. It was you."

"You must be a lousy shot."

"I'm the best danged—"

Jennet broke off raggedly.

The Saint looked at him peacefully and said: "Oh, are you? Then under those humble and somewhat smelly overalls you must hide a kind heart after all."

"Mister, I never tried. If I'd tried, you wouldn't be standin' up now. I never could shoot a man in cold blood."

The Saint took a meditative saunter up and down the room. Nobody else moved. Aside from the almost inaudible pad of his bare footsteps, the only thing that intruded into the stillness was the sedative gurgle of good Scotch laving the appreciative palate of Mr Uniatz.

Finally he faced Jennet again, with his decision made.

"I'm going to give you a chance to prove your story," he said. "I want to meet this guy Rogers."

Jennet's face crinkled with a touch of fear.

"What good does that do me?"

"If your story's true," Simon told him, "I might forget my legal duty and not give you back to Sheriff Haskins."

"How do I know?"

"You don't," said the Saint unhelpfully. "You'll just have to take a chance. You're going to lead me to that barge after lunch… Hoppy, give him his shoes back and tie him up. I'll have some food sent over, but don't let Desdemona in. She might be a little startled. Take the tray at the door. I'm going to put on some clothes and get a drink."

As they crossed the patio, Karen Leith looked at her watch.

"I'm afraid I'll have to go," she said.

"Must you?"

"I've stayed too long already." She turned to Peter and Patricia. "It's so nice to have met you."

"You must come again," said Patricia, in a voice of arsenical sweetness.

Simon's lips twitched impenitently as he took the red-haired girl's arm and led her around the house.

"Did you change your mind about what you were going to tell me?"

"I'll exchange it for something else."

"Another catch?"

"You don't have to trade if you don't want to."

"Suppose you ask first."

She played with a bracelet on her wrist.

"I wanted to be here before Haskins arrived. I came as soon as I knew. Since I was late. I'd give anything to know how you were able to satisfy him."

The Saint laughed, softly and rapturously, like a small boy.

"That's making it too easy. I wanted you to know. I'd have told you anyway. I even wish I could be sure you'd go back to March and tell him. It's too good to lose."

"Why?"

"Because it was the best thing that could have ever happened. I didn't have to deny anything. I admitted that I wrote that note."

"But—"

"I know I didn't. But I might have. It fitted perfectly. You see, Justine Gilbeck wrote us a letter and begged us to come here, because her father was in some sort of mysterious trouble and she thought we might be able to help. I'd kept the letter. So I just had hysterics, and showed it to Haskins."

Her face showed a mixture of reactions too complex to analyse. Red lips and deep violet eyes were both as elusive as the reflections in rippling water; but he felt the involuntary stirring of firm muscles in her rounded arm.

"Now, Ginger," he said, "where did that note come from?"

"From the MIRAGE." Her voice at least was completely matter-of-fact. "It was found this morning, abandoned at Wildcat Key. There was no trace of the Gilbecks or their crew."

He walked a few steps in silence, trying to find a niche for this new knowledge.

"Where is this Wildcat Key?" he asked evenly.

"It's just outside of Card Sound, south of Old Rhodes Key." They had reached the cream-coloured Packard. "We could run down there on a fishing trip tomorrow — if your blonde girl friend wouldn't object."

He opened the car door.

"Let's have dinner tonight and talk it over — if you can get away from Randy again."

She settled herself on the maroon leather upholstery. The starter whirred, twisting the motor into a throaty purr.

"What else is there to talk over?"

"I still haven't asked you the most important question."

"What's that?"

"What is your place in this picnic?"

His hand was still on the car door, and for a moment her fingers rested lightly on his.

"Ask me tonight," she said. And then she was gone, and he was crinkling his eyes into the dust of her departure.

3

Simon Templar poured gin and French vermouth into a tall crystal mixer, added a shot of Angostura, and swizzled the mixture with a long spoon. Then he poured some of it over the olives in three cocktail glasses and passed them around.

"In spite of your lack of sex appeal," Peter Quentin said frowningly, "Patricia and I have been getting attached to you. We're going to miss you when you're gone."

"Gone where?" Simon inquired.

Peter flourished a hand which seemed to push back the walls of the house and patio and encompass the world outside.

"Out to the Great Beyond," he said sombrely. "When you start for that barge this afternoon, you might wear a target over your heart. It'll give March's snipers something to aim at, and save a lot of messy bracketing."

Simon regarded him compassionately, and tested his concoction.

"You're worrying about nothing. You heard Lafe Jennet boast about how he could shoot, and I believe him. That bloodshot eye was hatched out behind a rifle sight He could knock an ant out of a palm top, shooting against the sun."

"Then what was he trying to do — knock down the wall?"

"The trouble with your peanut brain," said the Saint disparagingly, "is that you're putting the March Combine in the same class as Hoppy — bop 'em quick, and the hell with where they fall. You've forgotten our mythical protective letter, and other such complications. If Jennet could have popped me if he'd wanted to, which I believe, then his orders only were to scare me. And the organiser of the scheme expected that we'd catch him. And the organiser also expected Jennet to squeal when things started to look too tough. And Jennet did. He squealed all he knew, which was exactly what he was meant to squeal, and did it much better that way than if they'd tried to coach him in a part. The idea being to make me think I've been pretty clever, and send me rushing out to this barge like a snorting warhorse."

"And that's just what you mean to do, so everybody ought to be happy." Peter finished his Martini and ate the olive. "Whatever they've arranged for you there goes through according to schedule, and you end up at the bottom of the Tamiami Canal, weighted down with a couple of tons of coal."

He went back to the portable bar for a refill.

"His red-headed heart-throb won't look so luscious in black," said Patricia troubledly.

"Believe it or not," said the Saint, "she came here to tell me something."

"I notice you're doing your listening with your mouth these days," Peter remarked. "You shouldn't have washed off her lipstick — it suited you."

Simon sprawled himself out in a chair and gazed at them both affectionately.

"Do you two comedians want to listen?" he inquired. "Or would you rather go on rehearsing your new vaudeville act?"

He told them everything that had happened from the arrival of Haskins to the capture of Lafe Jennet. They didn't find the affair of the note so wildly hilarious as he had done, being more practically concerned with the miraculous good fortune that had deflated it; but when he came to his parting conversation with Karen Leith, they sat up, and then pondered it silently for several seconds.

"Wouldn't it be more likely," Peter said at last, "that Karen's visit was timed to find out whether the note business had worked?"

"But she covered me up for Haskins."

"She covered up your visit to March," Patricia corrected. "March wouldn't want that brought in, anyway."

"And then, if the note had misfired somehow, she was there to put the finger on him for Jennet." Peter was developing his theory with growing conviction. "And when Jennet missed, she could report back that you were on your way out to this gambling barge—"

"And if you get out of that alive," said Patricia, "she'll have another chance on your date tonight—"

"And if he still accidentally happens to be alive in the morning," Peter concluded, "there's a fishing trip down to Wildcat Key on which anything can happen… It all hangs together, Chief. They've got about half a dozen covering bets, and your luck can't hold for ever. They haven't missed a loophole."

The Saint nodded.

"You may be absolutely right," he said soberly. "But there's still no way out of it for me. If we want to get anywhere, we can't barricade ourselves in the house and refuse to budge. I've got to follow the only trail there is. Because any place where there's a trap there may be a clue. You know that from boxing. You can't lead without opening up. I'm going with my eyes open — but I'm going."

They argued with him through lunch, but it would have been more useful to argue with the moon. The Saint knew that he was right, in his own way; and that was the only way he had ever been able to handle an adventure. He had no use for conniving and tortuous stratagems: they were for the ungodly. For him, there was nothing like the direct approach — with the eyes open. So long as he was prepared for pitfalls, they merely formed the rungs of a ladder, leading through step after step of additional discovery to the main objective. They might be treacherous, but there could be no adventure without risk.

When it was ultimately plain that his determination was immovable, Peter demanded the right to take the risk with him. But the Saint shook his head just as firmly.

"Somebody has to stay here with Pat," he pointed out. "Certainly she can't come. And I'd rather leave you, because you're brighter than Hoppy. If there's so much cunning at work, the whole scheme might be to get me out of the way for a raid on this place."

It was impossible to argue with that, either.

And yet, as the Saint sped by the waters of Indian Creek and crossed it at 41st Street, he had few doubts that for the present he himself was the main centre of attraction to the ungodly. Later it might be otherwise; but for the present he was satisfied that the ungodly would regard his entourage as small fry to be mopped up at leisure after he had been disposed of.

The open 16-cyIinder Cadillac which he had chosen from the selection in the well-stocked garage purred past the golf course and held a steady fifty to the Venetian Causeway. The islands of Rivo Alto, Di Lido, and San Marino, splashed with multihued homes of luxury, slid past them like a moving diorama. The Saint stole a glance at Lafe Jennet, who was packed like a blue sardine between himself and Hoppy on the front seat.

"When we hit Biscayne Boulevard, Sunshine," he said, "which way do we turn?"

"For all of me," Jennet said viciously, "you can run yourself into the bay—"

The last word expired in a painful involuntary exhalation caused by the pulverising entrance of Mr Uniatz's elbow into the speaker's ribs.

"De boss astcha a question,'' said Mr Uniatz magisterially. "Or woujja like a crack on de nose?"

"Turn left, an' go west on Flagler," said Jennet, and shut his mouth more tightly than before.

A phalanx of skyscrapers swept by, towering reminders of the perverted Florida boom. A magic city with no more than four or five million acres to spread out in had had to drive its fingers of commerce into the sky.

At Flagler Street they had to slow down. A traffic policeman, picturesque in pith helmet, white belt, and skyblue uniform, gazed at them without special interest while he held them up. But Hoppy Uniatz put one hand in his coat pocket and crowded the pocket inconspicuously into Jennet's waist, and Jennet crouched down and made no movement. The policeman released their line, and they drove on.

They had to crawl for some blocks — first through the better shops, whose windows reproachfully displayed their most stylish variety of clothing to a throng of sidewalk strollers whose ambition appeared to be to wear as few clothes as the law would let them; then further westward past barkers, photo shops, fortune tellers, and curio vendors with despondent-looking families of tame Seminole Indians squatting in their doors. A newsboy with his papers and racing forms hopped on the running-board, and Simon noticed a card of cheap sun-glasses pinned to his shirt. He bought a pair, and stuck them on Jennet's nose.

"We don't want some bright cop to recognise that sour puss of yours while you're with us," he said.

Eventually the traffic thinned out, and Simon opened the big car up again. They whispered past the Kennel Club and golf course, and Jennet spoke again as they came in sight of the Tamiami Canal.

"You turn left here. Go right on Eighth Street. Then you turn off again just before you hit the Tamiami Trail. You'll have to leave the car there, whether you like it or not. There ain't no way but walkin' to reach that barge."

The relics of abandoned subdivisions grew less frequent. Flatwoods crept close to the highway. Thrust back by the hand of man, curbed but impossible to tame, the wilderness of Florida inched inexorably back and waited with primeval patience to reclaim its own.

Jennet said: "You'd better slow down. Tain't far, now."

They had gone several blocks without passing another car when he indicated a dim trail leading to the right Simon pulled the wheel over and nursed the big car skilfully over the rutted track carpeted with brownish pine needles. When the track petered out he eased the Cadillac into a thicket of pines which formed a natural screen against the outside world, and stopped the engine. He climbed out, and Hoppy Uniatz yanked Jennet out on the other side.

"I never said Rogers would be here now," Jennet growled sulkily. "What happens after this ain't nuth'n to do with me."

"I'll take a chance on it," said the Saint. "All you have to do is to lead me on."

He was ready for the chance by then, ready with every trained and seasoned sense of muscle and nerve and eye. This was the first point at which ambushes might begin, and even though all his movements seemed easy and careless he was overlooking no possibilities. Under lazily drooping lids, his hawk-sharp blue eyes never for an instant ceased their restless scanning of the terrain. This was the kind of hunting at which he was most adept, in which he had mastered all the tricks of both woodsman and wild animal before he learned simple algebraic equations. And something that lay dormant in his blood through all city excitements awoke here to unfathomable exhilaration…

The flatwoods ended suddenly, cut off in a sharp edge by encroaching grass and palmettos. Still in the shelter of the trees, he redoubled his caution and halted Hoppy and Jennet with a word.

He stared out over a far-flung panorama of flatness baked to a crusty brown by years of relentless sun. A covey of quail zoomed up out of the bushes ahead with a loud whirr of wings, and were specks along the edge of the trees before the startled Hoppy could reach for his gun.

A narrow footpath wound away through the palmettos. The Saint's eyes traced its crooked course to where the unpainted square bulk of a two-storied houseboat broke the emptiness of the barren plain. Boards covered the windows on the side towards him, but a flash of reflected light from the upper deck showed that at least one window remained unboarded at the stern. The palmettos hid any sign of water, giving an illusion that the houseboat rested on land.

Lafe Jennet said: "Come on."

The Saint's arm barred his way.

"Will Gallipolis be there now?"

"He's always there. Most time durin' the afternoon he runs a game."

Simon tramped out his cigarette, conscious of the revealing smoke.

"Keep him here," he instructed Hoppy. "Don't come any closer unless I call for you, or you hear too many guns going off. Keep well hidden. And if I don't get back by dark, give him the works, will you?"

He moved off like a shadow through the trees to a point where the flatwoods bellied out closest to the barge. The rest of it was not going to be so easy, for even that shortened stretch was at least a quarter of a mile without any obvious cover. Evidently Mr Gallipolis had chosen his location with a prevision of unannounced attack that would have done credit to a potential general. A single marksman could have picked off a dozen men between the trees and the boat, even though the invading forces took it at a run; while suitable preparations for any less vigorous visitor could be made on board long before he came within hailing distance.

Simon stopped again at the point of the wood, and slapped a mosquito on his neck. A squirrel chattered rowdily in a nearby tree, protesting against the Saint's intrusion. The sudden noise made the patterned landscape of glaring light and eccentric shadow seem unconscionably still.

He leaned against a tree and let a rapid newsreel of the events of the day run through his mind, trying to pick out of it some guiding inkling of March's campaign; but it was not a profitable delay. He could always appreciate the finer points of an adversary's inventiveness, but the introduction of Lafe Jennet and Gallipolis and the thus far legendary Jesse Rogers formed a kaleidoscope that was hard to fit in to any preconceived pattern. The only apparently comprehensive theory was the one which Peter Quentin had propounded, and yet even that still had one vital flaw It did not take into account the protective letter with which March must credit him with having covered his exposed flank. He couldn't believe that the ungodly would have him killed without first having dealt with that contingency. And yet there was very little sense left in any supposition which could make his projected call on Mr Gallipolis seem foolproof.

The Saint shrugged defeatedly. After all, there was still only one positive way to find out.

He tested the freeness of his gun in his shoulder holster, dropped to the ground, and began to crawl.

4

The palmetto bushes made a barrier that jabbed stinging points through his light clothing. Saw-edged grass rasped smartingly against his face and neck. His shirt was soaked with perspiration before he had gone fifty yards; and he was cursing artistically under his breath by the time the sandy ground pitched sharply up, barring his way with the dredged-out bank of the canal.

The bank was bare of vegetation. He lay flat and wriggled his way to the top of the ten-foot rise of sand and clay. Working one eye warily over the summit, he took stock again of the houseboat twenty paces away. The boarded windows stared blankly back at him. Except for a pair of grey socks dangling limply from a line on the top deck near the bow, the ancient craft might have been abandoned for years.

A foot from his head, something moved; and the dampness of his shirt turned cold.

It was something that had been so still, blending so well into the baked desolation of its background, that without the movement he might have missed it entirely. The movement brought it to life in mosaic coils of deadly beauty, while he lay rigid and felt his muscles tautening like shrinking leather. Black, unwinking eyes stared impersonally into his, making the skin of his face creep as if cobwebs had touched it. Then the coils straightened fluidly out, and a five-foot cottonmouth moccasin slithered gracefully away.

The Saint used his forearm to wipe clammy dew from his brow. There might not actually be any sniper waiting on the barge for him to show himself, but the dangers of his present method of approach had been unmistakably demonstrated.

In any case, the decision to abandon them was now virtually taken out of his hands. Between the point he had reached, and the sluggish water where the barge floated, there was literally no cover at all. The space had to be crossed, and the only way was to do it quickly.

He raised himself up on to his toes and fingertips, and took off over the top like a sprinter. Bent low to the ground, he shot across those few perilous yards with the sure-footed soundlessness of a fiddler crab scooting for its hole, and boarded the stern with no more uproar than a fragment of rising mist.

There was no shot.

He stood with his back to the bulkhead and got his breath, listening to a clink of chips and a mumble of voices that were audible through a torn screen door. But it seemed that the sounds came from some distance away amidships, and he opened the door and sidled through into dimness. As his eyes adjusted themselves to the gloom, he saw an oil stove, racked-up dishes, a sink, and a stained table. Across from him was another door, and beyond that he found a narrow hall The voices came from an open door which made a rectangle of light in the dark passage. A game seemed to be unconcernedly in progress, and there were no other symptoms at all of an alarm. Unless the stage had been very carefully set for him, his entrance seemed to have been achieved without a hitch.

And once again, there was only one way to find out.

He sauntered noiselessly down the hall and walked into the open room.

Five men sat around a baize-covered table. A tired-looking man in a green eyeshade sat with his back to a window dealing stud. An even more tired-looking cigarette drooped from his lower lip. As he called the bets in a tired monotone, the cigarette wobbled up and down. The five men raised their heads from the cards as the Saint came in. One of them looked horsy; the other three were in shirtsleeves and seemed about as menacing as bookkeepers on a holiday.

The dealer flipped up five cards and said: "King bets." He lowered his eyeshade again and continued in his breath-saving tone: "Five dollar limit stud. The house kitty's fifty cents out of each pot over five dollars. It's an open game. Don't stand around watching. If you want to play, take a chair."

He shoved one out beside him with some pedal jugglery, while he dealt the second round, and Simon sat down because the chair faced the door.

The dealer pushed chips in front of him.

"The yellows are five, the blues one, the reds a half, and the whites a quarter. Fifty bucks, and you pay now."

Simon peeled money off his roll, and looked over the room while the hand was finished. There was nothing much to it. A double gasoline lantern hung over the table. The light from the window, which was on the water side of the barge and open, cut a square shaft of light through a fog of cigarette and cigar smoke. The walls had two or three Petty drawings tacked up on them.

The dealer ladled chips towards a winner, gathered up cards, and shuffled them with the speed of a boy's stick rattling along a picket fence. He dealt once around face down, and a second round face up. The Saint was high with a queen.

"Queen bets." The cigarette moved up and down.

The Saint squeezed his hole card up, peeped at it, and flattened it down. He had a pair, back to back, and he didn't like to start that well in a game.

"A buck," he said, and tossed a blue chip in.

The dealer stayed on a ten. Two of the bookkeepers dropped out, but the horsy man with a nine and the other bookkeeper with a seven spot stayed in. More cards fluttered from the dealer's agile hand, and finished up by leaving him a second ten.

"Pair of tens bets," he droned, and pushed out a yellow chip with a finger stained with nicotine to match it.

The horsy man said "Nuts!" and rid himself of his cards. The surviving bookkeeper with a seven and a jack showing spent five dollars. Simon figured him for a pair of jacks, and looked down at his own visible queen which had gotten married to a king.

"Let's make it expensive," he said, and flipped two yellows in.

The dealer stayed, but the bookkeeper folded up with a sigh. Simon got another king. The dealer gave himself an ace of spades. He removed the stub of his cigarette and said: "You bet, friend."

"The works," said Simon with an angelic smile, and used both hands to shove in his entire pile.

"Don't clown, brother." The dealer ran his thumb along the edge of the pack and snapped it with a flourish. "I told you there's a five buck limit on this game."

Simon's eyebrows rose in an arch of sanctimonious perplexity.

"What game?'

"Don't be funny," the dealer advised. "The game you're in now."

"Oh," said the Saint in a voice of silk and honey. "I wasn't betting on the game. I just want all the money back for my chips."

"See here," said the dealer dangerously, "what sort of a place do you think this is?"

The invisible coldness of angry men waiting for an explanation slid down like an avalanching glacier and crystallised the atmosphere of the room; but the Saint was utterly at ease. He leaned back in his chair and favoured the dealer with his most benevolent and carefree smile.

"I think," he said, "that it's the sort of place where ugly little runts like you give suckers a nice game with a marked deck." He sat up again; and suddenly, without warning, he snatched the pack out of the dealer's hand and smeared it in front of the other players. "Look for yourselves, boys. It's all done in the veins of the leaf in the left-hand corner. Nothing to notice if you aren't looking for it, but as plain as a billboard when you know the code. It's nice work, but it gives the house too much of an edge for my money."

The horsy man picked up some cards with a grin which held nothing but trouble.

"If you're right about this, guy, there's more coming to me than I've lost here today."

"Use your eyes," said the Saint cynically. "I don't know how many of you are in with him, but the rest of you can see it. You might like to do something about it. Personally, I'll have my dough back and talk to the manager."

"You'll do that," muttered the dealer.

There was the sound of one padding step in the alleyway outside, and a new man showed in the doorway with a sub-machine-gun covering the room.

The Saint knew an instant of frozen expectancy when all the other close calls he had ever had passed in review before the immutable knowledge that some day somewhere there must be a call too close to dodge, and he thought: "This is it." For a flash the whole set-up seemed entirely rational and obvious. A gambling barge, a quarrel over a card game, a few shots, and the whole thing might be settled in a way in which Randolph March couldn't possibly be implicated. Only a supreme combination of intuition and will-power kept his right hand from starting a hopeless dive for the butt of the Luger under his arm. It was a more than human feat to sit there without movement and expect the tearing shock of lead; but he thought: "That's what they're waiting for. They want to be able to say I fired first. I won't give them that break, anyway." But there were goose-pimples all over his body. The horsy man forced a laugh that clicked his teeth together, and stammered: "G-good God, Gallipolis, what's the ripper for?"

There was still no shooting, and it seemed to Simon that he had stopped breathing for a long time. In a detached but still partly incredulous way he began to take in the details of the prospective gunner.

Any cooperative reader who has been herded along the paths of romance and adventure by well-trained authors before, knows that a Greek must be fat, swarthy, and apparently freshly rubbed down with oil. It is this chronicler's discouraging task to try to convince such an audience that Mr Gallipolis most inconsiderately declined to conform to these simple requirements. His figure was svelte, almost feminine. Limpid eyes showed tar-black in a sunburnt face crowned with crisp black curls. He wore a pink polo shirt open at the neck, khaki pants, and very clean white tennis shoes. He leaned against the door jamb and exhibited flawless white teeth in a grin. His hands on the double grips of the Thompson gun were as slender as a girl's.

He didn't even seem to pay any special attention to the Saint. His eyes enfolded the dealer in a melting embrace.

"Why did you push the buzzer, Frank?" he inquired liquidly. "There's no stick-up here."

"That's what you think," said Frank. "This cheapskate you let in here was trying to pull a fast one and welsh on us."

The Greek said: "So?" and his eyes wrapped themselves around Simon. "Who the hell are you and how did you get on board? I never saw you before."

"I came in the back door," said the Saint. "I sat in the game and accused your dealer of cheating, that's all"

Gallipolis's face grew long with melancholy.

"Were you cheating, Frank?"

"Hell, no! He was getting in too deep, so he tried to start something."

"That's a lot of malarkey!" said one of the bookkeepers boldly. "He didn't start anything. He said these cards were crooked, and they are. We've seen 'em."

Gallipolis looked amused.

"I have a hell of a time with dealers," he told the Saint "How much you got coming?"

"Fifty dollars."

"Give him his money," repeated Gallipolis, with a broadening smile.

The dealer produced a ten and two twenties and slapped them on the table. Gallipolis stepped aside and spoke to the Saint again.

''Come on, mister. You must have something on your mind or you wouldn't have come in the back door. We can talk it over in the bar."

Simon took his money and stood up, admiring the way Gallipolis handled his gun. As Simon walked around the table, the Greek edged along the wall to keep the other players out of the line of fire. He was behind Simon when the Saint reached the door.

"Take it easy," he recommended, as the Saint stepped outside. "If you start running I can drop you before you make the end of the hall." He turned back to the other players. "See what you can get out of Frank, boys. If you're still short anything, see me before you go."

As Gallipolis left the room, the horsy man said: "Did you ever eat a pack of cards, Quickfingers?" and left the table to close the door.

The bar furniture comprised a simple pinewood counter and three kitchen tables flanked with chairs. The Saint, walking with a circumspect negation of haste, reached it alive, which he had at no time taken for granted. He discovered that the landward windows were shuttered to conceal an inside coating of thin steel. A square hole provided an outlook from the window at one end of the bar, and would also, Simon decided, have served very well for a gun port.

Gallipolis rested the machine gun on the counter and nodded Simon to a chair. He studied the Saint with his ever-present grin.

"Well, you're on board. So what? You don't look like a heist man. What are you, a Sam?" He answered his own question with a shake of his curly head. "No, you don't look like the law. Give, friend, give. Who are you, and what do you want?"