The Saint in Miami by Leslie Charteris

his slight puzzled stare to the captain.
    Simon surveyed them both.
    “You had a chance then,” he remarked. “I wonder why you didn’t take it? Was it because you didn’t want to shock Karen?” He put the lighter back in his pocket with the same studied deliberation. “Or did it occur to you that if the police had to investigate a shooting on board they might dig out more than you’d want them to?”
    “As a matter of fact, Mr March,” said the captain placidly, “I was wondering how many other people he might have told his ridiculous story to. You wouldn’t want to be annoyed with any malicious gossip, no matter how silly it was.”
    “Perhaps you’d better find out,” March suggested.
    “I’ll take him ashore to the house and do that while we’re waiting for the police.”
    Probably that was the precise mathematical point at which the Saint’s last lingering fragments of doubt dissolved, creeping over his scalp with a special tingle on their way out before they melted finally into nothingness.
    The dialogue was beautifully done. It was exquisitely and economically smooth. There wasn’t a ragged tone in it anywhere that should have betrayed anything to any listener who wasn’t meant to understand too much-and Simon wondered whether the girl Karen was in that category. But in those few innocuous-sounding words a vital problem had been considered, a plan of solution suggested and discussed, a decision made and agreed on. And Simon knew quite clearly that the scheme which had been approved was not one which promised great benefits to his health. What would happen if they got him safely away into a secluded room in the house, and what that huskily soft-spoken captain’s notions might be on the subject of likely methods of finding out things from a reluctant informant, were not the most pleasant prospects in the world to brood about. But he had staged the scene for his own benefit, and now he had to get himself out of it.
    Simon knew that not only the fate of that adventure but the fate of all other possible adventures after it hung by a thread; but his eyes were as cool and untroubled as if he had had a platoon of infantry behind him.
    “You don’t have to worry about me,” he said. “But Gilbeck left a letter which might be much more of a nuisance to you.”
    “Gilbeck?” March repeated. “What are you talking about?”
    ‘I’m talking about a letter which he thoughtfully left in his house before you kidnapped him.”
    “How do you know?’
    “Because I happen to be living in his house at the moment.”
    The furrow returned between March’s brows.
    “Are you a friend of Gilbeck’s?”
    “Bosom to bosom.” Simon refilled his champagne glass. “I thought he’d have mentioned me.”
    March’s mouth opened a little, and then an expression of hesitant relief came over his face.
    “Good Lord!” he exclaimed. He laughed, with what was obviously meant to be a disarming heartiness. “Why ever didn’t you say so before? Then what is all this business-a joke?”
    “That depends on your point of view,” said the Saint. “I don’t suppose Lawrence Gilbeck and Justine found it particularly funny.”
    March plucked at his upper lip.
    “If you really are a friend of theirs,” he said, “you must have got hold of the wrong end of something. Nothing’s happened to them. I talked to the house today.”
    “Twice,” said the Saint. “I took one of the calls.”
    “Mr Templar,” said the captain carefully, “you haven’t behaved tonight like one of Mr Gilbeck’s friends would behave. May we ask what you’re doing in his house while he is away?”
    “A fair question, comrade.” Simon raised his glass and barely wetted his lips with the wine. “Justine asked me to come and be a sort of general nursemaid to the family. I answer the phone and read everybody’s personal papers. A great writer of notes and jottings, was Brother Gilbeck.” He turned back to March. “I haven’t ferreted