"Why, Mr. Croon — what's the matter?"
"I'm sick," sobbed Mr. Croon, and proceeded to prove it.
The officer picked him up and laid him on the bunk.
"Bless you, sir, this isn't anything to speak of. Just a bit of a blow — and quite a gentle one for the Atlantic."
Croon gasped feebly.
"Did you say the Atlantic?"
"Yes, sir. The Atlantic is the ocean we are on now, sir, and it'll be the same ocean all the way to Boston."
"I can't go to Boston," said Mr. Croon pathetically. "I'm going to die."
The officer pulled out a pipe and stuffed it with black tobacco. A cloud of rank smoke added itself to the smell of oil that was contributing to Croon's wretchedness.
"Lord, sir, you're not going to die!" said the officer cheerfully. "People who aren't used to it often get like this for the first two or three days. Though I must say, sir, you've taken a long time to wake up. I've never known a man be so long sleeping it off. That must have been a very good farewell party you had, sir."
"Damn you!" groaned the sick man weakly. "I wasn't drunk — I was drugged!"
The officer's mouth fell open.
"Drugged, Mr.Croon?"
"Yes, drugged!" The ship rolled on its beam ends, and Croon gave himself up for a full minute to his anguish. "Oh, don't argue about it! Take me home!"
"Well, sir, I'm afraid that's —"
"Fetch me the captain!"
"I am the captain, sir. Captaine Bourne. You seem to have forgotten, sir. This is the Christabel Jane, eighteen hours out of Liverpool with a cargo of spirits for the United States. We don't usually take passengers, sir, but seeing that you were a friend of the owner, and you wanted to make the trip, why, of course we found you a berth."
Croon buried his face in his hands.
He had no more questions to ask. The main details of the conspiracy were plain enough. One of his victims had turned on him for revenge — or perhaps several of them had banded together for the purpose. He had been threatened often before. And somehow his terror of the sea had become known. It was poetic justice — to shanghai him on board a bootlegging ship and force him to take the journey of which he had cheated their investments.
"How much will you take to turn back?" he asked; and Captain Bourne shook his head.
"You still don't seem to understand, sir. There's ten thousand pounds' worth of spirits on board — at least, they'll be worth ten thousand pounds if we get them across safely — and I'd lose my job if I —"
"Damn your job!" said Melford Croon.
With trembling fingers he pulled out a cheque book and fountain-pen. He scrawled a cheque for fifteen thousand pounds and held it out.
"Here you are. I'll buy your cargo. Give the owner his money and keep the change. Keep the cargo. I'll buy your whole damned ship. But take me back. D'you understand? Take me back —"
The ship lurched under him again, and he choked. When the convulsion was over the captain was gone.
Presently a white-coated steward entered with a cup of steaming beef-tea. Croon looked at it and shuddered.
"Take it away," he wailed.
"The captain sent me with it, sir," explained the steward. "You must try to drink it, sir. It's the best thing in the world for the way you're feeling. Really, sir, you'll feel quite different after you've had it."
Croon put out a white, flabby hand. He managed to take a gulp of the hot soup; then another. It had a slightly bitter taste which seemed familiar. The cabin swam around him again, more dizzily than before, and his eyes closed in merciful drowsiness.
He opened them in his own bedroom. His servant was drawing back the curtains, and the sun was streaming in at the windows.
The memory of his nightmare made him feel sick again, and he clenched his teeth and swallowed desperately. But the floor underneath was quite steady. And then he remembered something else, and struggled up in the bed with an effort which threatened to overpower him with renewed nausea.
"Give me my chequebook," he rasped. "Quick — out of my coat pocket —"
He opened it frantically and stared at a blank stub with his face growing haggard.
"What's today?" he asked.
"This is Saturday, sir," answered the surprised valet.
"What time?"
"Eleven o'clock, sir. You said I wasn't to call you —"
But Mr. Melford Croon was clawing for the telephone at his bedside. In a few seconds he was through to his bank in London. They told him that his cheque had been cashed at ten.
Mr. Croon lay back on the pillows and tried to think out how it could have been done.
He even went so far as to tell his incredible story to Scotland Yard, though he was not by nature inclined to attract the attention of the police.
A methodical search was made in Lloyd's Register, but no mention of a ship called the Christabel Jane could be found. Which was not surprising, for Christabel Jane was the name temporarily bestowed by Simon Templar on a dilapidated Thames tug which had wallowed very convincingly for a few hours in the gigantic tank at the World Features studio at Teddington for the filming of storm scenes at sea, which would undoubtedly have been a great asset to Mr. Croon's Consolidated Albion Film Company if the negotiations for the lease had been successful.
4. The Owners' Handicap
"The art of crime," said Simon Templar, carefully mayonnaising a section of truite à la gelée, "is to be versatile. Repetition breeds contempt — and promotion for flat-footed oafs from Scotland Yard. I assure you, Pat, I have never felt the slightest urge to be the means of helping any detective on his upward climb. Therefore we soak bucket-shops one week and bootleggers the next, the poor old Chief Inspector Teal never knows where he is."
Patricia Holm fingered the stem of her wineglass with a faraway smile. Perhaps the smile was a trifle wistful. Perhaps it wasn't. You never know. But she had been the Saint's partner in outlawry long enough to know what any such oratorical opening as that portended; and she smiled.
"It dawns upon me," said the Saint, "that our talents have not yet been applied to the crooked angles of the Sport of Kings."
"I don't know," said Patricia mildly. "After picking the winner of the Derby with a pin, and the winner of the Oaks with a pack of cards —"
Simon waved away the argument.
"You may think," he remarked, "that we came here to celebrate. But we didn't. Not exactly. We came here to feast our eyes on the celebrations of a brace of lads of the village who always tap the champagne here when they've brought off a coup. Let me introduce you. They're sitting at the corner table behind me on your right."
The girl glanced casually across the restaurant in the direction indicated. She located the two men at once — there were three magnums on the table in front of them, and their appearance was definitely hilarious.
Simon finished his plate and ordered strawberries and cream.
"The fat one with the face like an egg and the diamond tie-pin is Mr. Joseph Mackintyre. He wasn't always Mackintyre, but what the hell? He's a very successful bookmaker; and, believe it or not, Pat, I've got an account with him."
"I suppose he doesn't know who you are?"
"That's where you're wrong. He does know — and the idea simply tickles him to death. It's the funniest thing he has to talk about. He lets me run an account, pays me when I win, and gets a cheque on the nail when I lose. And all the time he's splitting his sides, telling all his friends about it, and watching everything I do with an eagle eye — just waiting to catch me trying to put something across him."
"Who's the thin one?"
"That's Vincent Lesbon. Origin believed to be Levantine. He owns the horses, and the way those horses run is nobody's business. Lesbon wins with 'em when he feels like it, and Mackintyre fields against 'em so generously that the starting price usually goes out to the hundred-to-eight mark. It's an old racket, but they work it well."