The Saint in Miami by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page B

The Saint is a well-known international criminal. The newspapers call him ‘the Robin Hood of modern crime’. He is a very dangerous man. Dangerous to you and to me and to everyone else.”
    “So wouldn’t it be very much simpler and safer,” said the Saint, “not to call the police. Why not go for another evening cruise-take us out to sea and quietly destroy us and sink our boat and let the underwriters write us off as spurlos versenkt -like you did with Lawrence Gilbeck and his daughter?”
    “The man’s a maniac,” said March in a colourless tone.
    “I am,” Simon confessed affably, “completely nuts. I’m loony enough to think that after you’ve moved us into that elegant penal penthouse, Hoppy and I will just stroll around the roof garden wondering how long it’ll be before you join us. I’m daft enough to think that I can send you to the chair for a very fine and fancy collection of murders. Like the murder of Lawrence Gilbeck and his daughter Justine. And some poor kid who was washed up on the beach tonight, with one wrist conveniently tangled into a lifebelt with the name of a British submarine on it. Not to mention a much larger collection of guys who went down with a tanker that got itself torpedoed tonight by a mysterious submarine which I think you could tell us plenty about. Of course, that’s just another of my screwy ideas.”
    He knew that it was screwy, but he had to say it He had to find out what sort of response the outrageous accusation would bring.
    March sat up and his eyes narrowed. After a moment he said slowly: “What’s this about a submarine? The radio said the tanker blew up.”
    “It did,” said the Saint. “With assistance. As it happens, I saw the submarine myself. So did three other people who were with me.”
    March and the captain exchanged glances.
    The captain said: “That’s very interesting. If it’s true, you certainly ought to tell the police about it.”
    “But why do you think I should know anything about it?” demanded March.
    “Maybe on account of the Foreign Investment Pool,” said the Saint
He was firing all his salvos at once, in the blind hope of hitting something. And it was dawning on him, with a warm glow of deep and radiant joy, that none of them were going altogether wide. Not that there was anything crude and blatant about the way they rang the bell. It was far from making a sonorous and reverberating clang. It was, in fact, no more than an evanescent tinkle so faint that an ear that was the least bit off guard might have doubted whether anything had really happened at all. But the Saint knew. He knew that his far-fetched and delirious hunch was coming true. He knew that all the things he had linked together in his mind were linked together in fact somehow, in some profound and intricate way which he had yet to unravel, and that both Randolph March and the captain were vital strands in the skein. He knew also that by talking so much he was putting a price on his own head; but he didn’t care. This was adventure again, the wine of life. He knew.
    He knew it even when March relaxed and took a cigarette from the jar and lounged back again with a short laugh.
    “Very amusing,” said March. “But it’s getting quite late. Captain, you’d better get rid of him while he’s still funny.”
    “He’s a dangerous man,” said the captain again, and this time he said it with only the most delicate shade of added emphasis. “If I thought he was making a threatening movement, I might have to shoot him.”
    “Go ahead,” said March in a bored voice.
    He put the cigarette in his mouth and looked for a match. Simon stepped over to him, flicked his lighter, and offered it with an obsequious efficiency which could not possibly have been rivalled by the steward for whom he was deputising. The muscles of his back crawled with anticipation of a bullet, but he had to do it. March stared at him, but he took the light.
    “Thank you,” he said, and turned