Saint Overboard by Leslie Charteris Page B

down to some place like Madeira, where
there was really deep water close at hand
for any number of experiments? The Chal font Castle could not wait. If an authorised expedition was being organised so
quickly, there was not much time for a free-lance to step in and
forestall it. Perhaps the underwriters, taught by past experience, had thought
of that. But for a man of Vogel’s nerve there
might still be a chance… .
    Simon Templar lunched at the Gallic, and
enjoyed his meal. The sting of the encounter from which he had just
emerged had driven out every trace of the rather exasperated
lassitude which had struck him an hour or two before; this providential
hint of new movement swept new inspiration in like a sea breeze. The spice of certain danger laced
his wine and sparkled through his veins. His
brain was functioning like an awakened machine, turning over the urgencies of
the moment with smooth and effortless ease.
    When he had finished, he went out into the
main foyer and collected a reception clerk. “You have a
telephone?”
    “Oui, m’sieu. A gauche—— ”
    “No, thanks,” said the Saint.
“This isn’t local—I want to talk to England. Let me have a private room. I’ll pay for
it.”
    Ten minutes later he was settled comfortably
in an armchair with his feet on a polished walnut table.
    “Hullo, Peter.” The object of his
first call was located after the London exchange had tried three other possible
numbers which he
gave them. “This is your Uncle Simon. Listen—didn’t you tell me that you once had a respectable
family?”
    “It still is respectable,” Peter
Quentin’s voice answered indig nantly. “I’m the only one who’s had
anything to do with you.”
    Simon grinned gently and slid a cigarette
out of the package in front of him.
    “Do any of them know anything about
Lloyd’s?”
    “I’ve got a sort of cousin, or something,
who works there,” said Peter, after a pause for reflection.
    “That’s great. Well, I want you to go and dig out this sort
of cousin, or something, and stage a reunion. Be nice to him—re mind him of the old family tree—and find out
something for me about the Chalfont
Castle.”
    “Like a shot, old boy. But are you sure
you don’t want an estate
agent?”
    “No, I don’t want an estate agent, you
fathead. It’s a wreck, not a ruin. She sank somewhere near Alderney about the begin ning of March. I want you to find out exactly where
she went down. They’re sure to have a record at Lloyd’s. Get a chart from Potter’s, in the Minories, and get the exact
spot marked. And send it to me at the Poste Restante, St Peter Port,
Guernsey— to-night. Name of Tombs. Or get a
bearing and wire it. But get something.
All clear?”
    “Clear as mud.” There was a
suspicious hiatus at the other end of the line. “But if this means
you’re on the warpath again—— ”
    “If I want you, I’ll let you know, Peter,” said the
Saint con tentedly, and rang off.
    That was that… . But even if one knew the
exact spot where things were likely to happen, one couldn’t hang
about there and wait for them. Not in a stretch of open water where a
float ing bottle
would be visible for miles on a calm day. The Saint’s next call was to another erstwhile companion in crime.
    “Do you think you could buy me a nice
diving suit, Roger?” he suggested sweetly. “One of the latest self-contained
contraptions with oxygen tanks. Say you’re representing a movie com pany and you want it for an undersea epic.”
    “What’s the racket?” inquired
Roger Conway firmly.
    “No racket at all, Roger. I’ve just
taken up submarine geol ogy, and I want to have a look at some
globigerina ooze. Now, if you bought that outfit this afternoon and
shipped it off to me in a trunk——”
    “Why not let me bring it?”
    The Saint hesitated. After all, why not? It
was the second time in a few minutes that the suggestion had been held
out, and each time
by a man whom he had tried and proved in