Simon moved his head reluctantly, left to right.
“I’m sorry, chum. I’m sort of engaged for Monday.”
“Give the girl such a time tomorrow that she won’t miss you till Tuesday.”
“She’s tied up tomorrow.”
“Then to hell with her. Make her wait for you till Tuesday.”
“We have a shooting schedule for Monday, too, and it’s something I can’t change.”
“What a louse you turned out to be,” Donohue said morosely. “I should have made an actor of you when I met you in Hollywood. Then you’d have been pleading with me for a chance to work, instead of spurning me for some ginger dye job. Aren’t you getting a bit old to be chasing these dizzy dolls?”
The Saint grinned.
“Didn’t you know, Junior? When you get to be my age, you’ll really appreciate them. And they will appreciate you for your sophistication and all the money you’ll have. It’s a grand old formula. And talking of formulas—”
He broke off suddenly, his face transfigured in mid-speech by a beatific thought that had illuminated his brain like a revelation from heaven. For several seconds he rolled it rapturously around in his mind, assaying all its possibilities of perfection.
“Well?” Donohue said coldly.
“I’m thinking of your corny script. And I will double in those underwater shots for you.”
“Thank you.”
“On Tuesday.”
“Monday.”
“No, I’m booked even more solid on Monday now. Just switch your schedules for the two days. I’m sure you can do it.”
“All right, damn you,” Donohue said resignedly. “I expect you’ll sink like a stone on Tuesday, but all right. If that’s all it’s costing me, I’ll switch the schedule for you.”
“It isn’t quite all...”
The director groaned aloud.
“What else? You want real mermaids to fan you between takes?”
“I don’t want to strain your budget. But since you don’t have to worry about getting a professional swimmer tomorrow, and you’ll have nothing but time on your hands, you’re going to have to do something for me.”
4
The Narrows on Monday morning had the air of a maritime picnic ground rather than the site of a salvage operation. The US Coast Guard cutter would have been dwarfed by a destroyer, but she looked big enough to be the mother of the brood of other craft gathered around her. The police boat from Road Town and the pinnace that had brought the Governor of the British islands were tied up to one side of her, and April Mallory’s chartered cabin cruiser was tied up to the other side. Duncan Rawl’s launch was hove to only a few yards away.
It was a perfect day for a picnic or for salvage. The water was oily calm, silver blue and turquoise, as the sun took its first step up into a cloudless sky, and the variety of flags called for by the nations and services and personages represented gave the little group of boats a festive and holiday appearance.
“I’m only surprised that everything else in the Caribbean that’ll float isn’t here,” said the Saint.
“All of us tried our best to keep it quiet,” April said. “That was about the only thing everyone was agreed on, including the authorities. If it had got into the papers, it’d ’ve taken the American and British navies combined to keep the channel clear.”
The American Governor was on board the cutter, where he was playing host to the British Governor, and he had courteously invited April and the Saint aboard as soon as they came within hailing distance.
It had been nine o’clock the previous night before Simon had talked to her on the phone.
“I had to have dinner with them,” she said, “and now I’m full of sun and sleepy, and we’ve got to leave tomorrow before daylight. Don’t let’s try to meet tonight.”
“Did your legal beagle produce his brainstorm?” he asked.
“No. Did you?”
“Yes.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I’m too tired to be teased, darling.”
“And I don’t want to give you any false hopes, baby. It might work, but it’s only a wild gamble. So I won’t say anything now. Get some sleep, and I’ll see you on the dock.”
But when they had met, before dawn, and the cabin cruiser droned out through Pillsbury Sound under the paling stars, he still refused to tell her any more.
“Let’s face it,” he said. “You’re prettier than most actresses, but you may not be one. And if you just act naturally, it’ll be better than any performance.”
“I think I’d rather not know, anyway,” she said listlessly. “I’ve been trying to get used to the idea that I’m licked, and it wouldn’t be much fun to start hoping and be let down all over again.”
Now, as they stood on the cutter’s deck watching Duncan Rawl preparing for his first dive, Simon could feel that she was somewhat less stoical than she might have wished to be, and he was scarcely surprised. He was aware of more than a mild tingle of anticipation himself, although it was necessarily in a different key from hers. Stripped down to his swimming trunks, Duncan Rawl looked like a heroic if slightly debauched and hung-over Norse god. He had declined to board the cutter or to tie up to her, cutting his engine a few lengths away and letting the launch drift by to the separate focal spot befitting the star of the show. He had ignored April and the Saint in his greetings as he passed as if he had not even seen them. He sat with his feet dangling over the side, scowling down at the water, while his helpers hung the air tanks on his shoulders and put a weighted belt around his middle.
The sun was barely high enough to send light under the water when he pulled down his mask, put on the breathing mouthpiece, and let himself down till he sank out of sight.
“I suppose it’d be wicked to hope that a shark bites him,” April said.
“Could be,” said the Saint. “But let’s hope it anyway.”
He lighted a cigarette and forced himself to smoke it unhurriedly. In that way, disciplining himself against the temptation to look at his watch every few seconds, he could estimate fairly accurately that it was less than ten minutes before Rawl surfaced again, and his spirits leapt as he saw it.
Rawl’s men helped him aboard and lifted off his air tank. There was a brief excited colloquy, and then one of the men took the wheel and the engine coughed and started. Rawl sprang up on to the foredeck as the launch eased over to the cutter, and as it drew alongside he was tall enough to grasp a stanchion on the cutter and hold on, mooring the launch with his own arm.
“Ahoy there, Captain, or whoever’s in charge!”
The Coast Guard skipper came to the rail, but the two Governors were at his elbow, and April and the Saint were close beside them.
“What is it, Mr Rawl?”
“You’d better get these boats moved away. I’m going to dynamite.”
“Already?” April gasped.
Simon cleared his throat, and moved in still closer.
“Pardon me, Your Excellencies,” he said to the two Governors, “but Miss Mallory asked me to come as her adviser because her attorney had to be in court this morning. And I think she has a right to protest against what Mr Rawl proposes to do.”
“On what grounds?” asked the British Governor.
“To use dynamite now, before the bottom has been thoroughly examined as it is, could obliterate a lot of treasure that otherwise might be quite easy to locate and bring up — for someone who really knows what he’s doing, I mean. Of course nobody would mind Mr Rawl making a mess down there if he were the only person concerned. But he should be obliged to leave Miss Mallory a fair chance to find something when her turn comes tomorrow.”