"She might be," Charlie said mildly, when he had located the subject. "But she isn't what I think you mean by a news-hen. That's Mrs. Santander, one of the richest women on the island."
"Oh. Pardon my ignorance."
"She's an ex-wife of Jose Santander, the Venezuelan oil man."
"Now that's more like type-casting," said the Saint, with an air of flippant relief; but a couple of knife-thin wrinkles remained between his brows as a throbbing crescendo of revving-up engines drew their attention back to the course.
The starter's flag dropped, and with a deafening roar the twelve tidily deployed automobiles surged forward, comfortably spread out three abreast for a bare instant before they broke ranks and crowded into one suicidal bid for position at the first bend. To the naive spectator who has never seen a shop open its doors to the first arrivals at a genuine bargain sale, or been caught on a suburban artery at the rush hour when a light turns green, these first few seconds are the most thrilling in any race of this kind. Even to Simon Templar it was still one of the peak excitements of every event.
Cynthia's white Bristol was off in front. Teresa's dark green Maserati, starting from one of the rear positions, shoved viciously through the pack like a bulldozing footballer, shouldering less ruthless drivers aside to left and right with an unswerving callousness which is the only ultimate factor in these jams. She was still only a close fourth at the turn, but the Saint thought she came out of it perceptibly faster than the two cars ahead of her as they flashed into the next short stretch and temporarily disappeared from view.
The track at that time was not laid out with much regard for the audience. Superimposed on the existing runways of Oakes Field, the former airport of Nassau, and making the most possible use of the already paved surfaces, it meandered off into backwaters previously known only to aviators, with little regard for the perspective of the cash customers. The most obvious thrills which the public comes to see in this kind of racing, of course, are on the corners; but practically none of these were clearly visible from the expensive boxes or the general admission stands, or accessible to either class of client. For most of the winding five-mile course, between their dashes through the short spectator stretches, the cars could be followed only in occasional tantalizing glimpses as they whizzed through the two or three fairly distant sections of which the terrain gave an unobstructed vista. This made it pleasantly painless to chat about other things or patronize the bar, without fear of missing too much of the race. On previous days, Simon had found this a fairly agreeable consolation for the inferior visibility; but this time he felt himself nagged by a faint far-down uneasiness, something like a tiny splinter might set up as it worked down into a calloused palm. He strained his eyes for the first cars to come out of the "chicane", two consecutive sharp turns that were at a bad head-on viewing angle from the club stand, and saw the white Bristol still leading, then another car, then another, dark green one which had to be Teresa's, the only one of that color in the competition. She had already picked up one notch, through what he knew was some tricky territory.
"Pete won his heat in the Island Race," Brenda mentioned. "They finished just after we got here, while you were talking to the Quillens. They must have changed the starting time — we were supposed to be here for it. Don't tell him you didn't see that 'Saint' stick figure of yours on his bonnet — he only put it on for your benefit."
"Oh, hell," said the Saint contritely. "That's the last thing I would have missed. Where is he?"
"He just came up from the pits. He's in that box down there with Betty."
Peter Bethell was one of Charlie's brothers, and Betty was his wife. In another moment he was with them, still trying to wipe off the mask of track grime outside the stencil of his goggles.
"You shouldn't have done it," said the Saint. "That extra load of paint on my insignia might have cost you a track record."
"It was lighter than paint," Peter said boisterously. "We just had some masking tape left over when we got through putting on the numbers, and didn't know what else to do with it. Thought it might give you a laugh. And perhaps it was lucky for me. It may have been what scared off the ruddy saboteur who was going around messing up all the cars last night."
"The which?" Simon asked sharply.
"Some silly bugger who must 've decided the races weren't exciting enough, so he was trying to arrange a few accidents. The night watchman was just taking a little nap, of course, but he finally woke up and heard this ghoul clanking about in the pits, and yelled at him. You know, Who dat?' — as if the fellow was going to be fool enough to give his name and address. So the chap ran off, very fast, and the watchman couldn't catch him. Anyhow, that's what he says. I expect he was so frightened himself he was running sideways."
"I hadn't heard about that," Charlie said.
"The watchman thought it was just somebody out stealing, and he knew from the way he ran off that he couldn't be carrying much weight. But when some of the crews came out this morning they started finding wheel hubs loose, and oil drain plugs unscrewed, and nails in the tires — a lot of that nonsense. After a while it dawned on them that it wasn't a lot of accidental coincidences, and they started making inquiries."
The Saint had been so fascinated that he realized he had missed the one other possible glimpse of the lady drivers before they would be passing the stands again. A thunder of exhausts was even then heralding the end of the first lap; and he turned to see the Bristol come first under the Esso bridge, a Jaguar after it, and then the smoky green Maserati gaining ground like a thunderbolt, overhauling the Jag by the end of the straight and coming out of the Prince George Corner with a measurable length's lead before they vanished again in pursuit of Cynthia's white steed behind the next topographical obstruction.
"It's between Quillen's wife and the Roman figure — if they don't kill each other," Peter said, with professional-sounding off-handedness.
"Couldn't the watchman give any description of this saboteur?" Simon persisted.
"Nothing that's any use. 'A medium small man,' he thinks, but he doesn't know if he was white or black. I know he must 've been pretty stupid, because most of the things he did were bound to be spotted before anybody started driving. But even you couldn't catch anyone with as few clues as that."
There was a leaden feeling in the Saint's stomach, a sort of dull premonition of a premonition that was too essentially shocking to take complete form suddenly.
"Don't bet me, or I might have to go to work," he said mechanically.
"You've done your job, old boy. My buggy wasn't touched. This clot obviously saw your mark on it and got panicked. He knew that if he fooled around with that one, the vengeance of the Saint would land on him."
"What time was this?"
"About four o'clock in the morning. Ouf! I wonder if I'll ever get all this dust out of my mouth."
Simon's eyes shifted towards the back balcony again. The expensively glamorous Mrs. Santander had disappeared, but Godfrey Quillen was still there, finishing a coke from the bottle and paying no immediate attention to anything else.
"Let's see what we can find to rinse it out," Simon suggested.
But he started moving towards the dispensing counter without waiting to see who would go with him. But Quillen saw him at once, and awaited his approach with expansive cordiality.
"Hi-yah, pal! This is the pause that refreshes, isn't it? — letting the back-seat drivers fight it out."
"Well, it's no strain on me," Simon assented amiably. "But I don't have a wife or a girl friend driving right after some creep has been out in the small hours doing funny things to the hardware.