The Saint on the Spanish Main by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online

cover-up. And when I said I was
headed for Bimini, all you could think of was that I must be
on trail of this racket you’re in.”
    He lighted a cigarette and enjoyed a
leisurely inhala tion.
    “You pounded your brains during the
evening, and decided that the really smart move, if I was as close on the trail
as that, was to keep me even closer. At least that might make it easier
to keep track of me; and the more you could make me think I was fooling
you, the better you might be able to fool me. Besides, you still had the selfish
personal angle that if I didn’t know too much already, you might go
on selling the idea that you weren’t really connected with Uckrose except
in the most innocent and professional way, which is how the operation
is set up anyhow. So if it came to a blow-up, you might yet save your own skin.”
    He leaned against the galley bulkhead and
flipped ashes fastidiously into the sink.
    “Of course you didn’t give yourself
away by inviting me to come over with you. I didn’t begin to smell the
rat until you started on the tirade against Uckrose. You had a good
idea there, but you overdid it. It just didn’t ring quite true that you should
be so bitter about a rich slob who only gave you a nice bit of business every
year, even if he
was a bum sportsman. It started me wondering what
else there could be behind your attitude. And then, when we got here, you were
alone with him just long enough to have tipped him off to the build-up
you’d given me, and he had to carry on with
the gag. Only he overdid it too. I just couldn’t see a successful retired
business man being quite such an uninhibited boor… . I didn’t see all this in a flash, but it filtered
through grad ually. And I even began
to see what was developing ahead
when you started the special advance work for Gloria—almost pimping for her, if I may be so rude.”
    O’Kevin glared up at him with his head
twisted side ways, mutely, having little choice about doing it in any other
way; but the Saint was quite content to conduct a monologue.
    “Now the only question is, what is the racket?” he said. “Of course I could probably get you to
tell me by sticking toothpicks under
your toenails, or something oldfashioned like that, but it’s more fun to make
it an intellectual exercise. So I
shall try first to do it in my head.
Listen carefully, Patsy, because you may have to explain to the others how I did it without any help from you.”
    He paused a moment for a final review of his thoughts,
because he would always be proud of this feat of virtuosity if he brought it off.
    “It has to involve some form of
merchandise, because nothing else could pay off through Bimini. It
must be very valuable to account for the guard and for all the concern
about it. It should be something that a man could bring here from
Europe, which he could land with in Nassau without any trouble, because the Customs there never bother with the baggage of American
tour ists. And then it only has to
be put on board a charter boat
working out of Miami, which would only get a per functory going-over by the Customs there if it was just coming back
from Bimini. The two most compact and likely possibilities are narcotics and
jewelry. Unless Uckrose has invented
himself a completely phony back ground,
which is less probable, the odds point to jewels.”
    He took a last drag at his cigarette and
flicked it through
the porthole.
    “Then where are these jewels? Not at
the hotel, because Clinton and Gloria and Vincent all went out with you this morning, and they’d
never have risked me burgling their rooms or
even the hotel safe while they were
away if there’d been anything there to find. But all kinds of work has been
done to take suspicion off the Colleen —and you. Des is so obviously innocent that he’s an extra asset to the camouflage. So this boat
should be the safest place in sight. And exactly where on the boat, if I’m to find them without taking her