No, he might have to take some of it back, about the “gangster” part. But the “bodyguard” feature could not be laughed away — or the fact that the blue-chinned warrior certainly hadn’t learned his methods in any lace-collar school.
Simon Templar took a leisurely shower, put on a clean pair of denim slacks and a shirt that could have been used to advertise an exotic flower show, and went down to the bar to buy himself a Dry Sack before dinner.
He was halfway through his meal when the Uckroses and the slim droopy-eyed man came in and sat down at a corner table on the other side of the dining room. If Simon had given more thought to it, he realized that he might have expected that: the island offered no variety of first-class hotels for anyone to choose from. But in the overwhelmingly civilized atmosphere of a British hotel dining room, even in such an unassuming outpost of the Empire, in the presence of soft-footed waiters and a handful of other conventional guests, a situation that might have been explosive seemed to be decisively dampened. Clinton Uckrose and his bodyguard glanced at him only once, and thereafter studiously ignored him. The conversation at their table was inaudible, but seemed to remain at a commonplace desultory level, and the faces of the two men were inexpressive, with the deliberate woodenness of poker players. Only Gloria kept on looking at the Saint, and seemed to be paying little attention to the talk of her companions. She had changed into a low-cut white dress that provided a striking contrast for her brown skin and dark copper hair, and which made her superlative torso even more intriguing than the bra top in which he had first seen it. He found her eyes on him again and again, and her gaze did not waver when he discovered it. A kind of secret smile lurked around her mouth and let him wonder whether it was meant for him to share or not.
He finished, and went out to the lounge, where he found the proprietor. They exchanged a couple of polite trivialities, and Simon said, “The younger of the two men at the corner table in there, with the show-stopper in white — I feel I’ve met him somewhere before. Do you know his name?”
The proprietor turned and picked up the register.
“Mr Vincent Innutio,” he said, pointing to the entry. “From Naples. He came here with Mr and Mrs Uckrose.”
“No bell.” Simon shook his head. “I guess it must just be a resemblance.”
Even the Saint could not know every minor malefactor on two continents, but the name sounded as if it would fit very well on some subordinate hoodlum who might have been tagged as an undesirable alien and forcibly shipped home from America to his native Italy, where Mr Uckrose could have found him and adopted him. But why Mr Uckrose would want him was still another question.
By this time, of course, the Saint knew very well that he had already reached the middle of another adventure without even having noticed the point at which it started to close around him. But he was quite happy to let it continue to enmesh him, without rushing it.
Exactly as he would have done if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he arranged for a native guide with a skiff to take him bone-fishing early the next morning, and went to bed. As his one concession to the intrinsic hazards of the situation, he wedged the back of a chair under his door knob, after assuring himself that his window was reasonably inaccessible from outside; aside from that, he relied on his ability to sleep like a watchdog to protect him. He read Time for an hour, turned out the light, and slept tranquilly until dawn. An hour later, fortified with bacon and eggs and coffee, he was rigging a rod loaned him by the hotel proprietor, while a cheerful displaced African ferried him down the bay.
Again this is no occasion to detail his morning’s stalking of the elusive bonefish, which is esteemed to be the spookiest and at the same time the fightingest thing that swims. He was well satisfied to put two in the boat, the larger of which would scale close to six pounds. By one o’clock his eyes ached from searching the brilliant water, he was hot and thirsty and getting hungry again, and most of the mud flats were high and dry; he was glad to agree with his boatman that they should knock off until the turn of the tide.
As the boy started to row back across the lagoon, Simon saw the Colleen coming through the inlet, riding high on her step with a creaming wave at her bow. In a few minutes she was snug at her berth, and almost at once three figures were walking away from her along the pier. Even at that distance the Saint’s keen eyes could identify them by their silhouettes, and he told his boatman to change course towards the Colleen with the assurance that the Uckroses and Vincent Innutio would be well out of the way by the time he got there.
Patsy O’Kevin passed Des the hose with which he had been helping his mate to swab down, and gave Simon a hand over the side with a big grin.
“Faith, ’tis a proud man I am to be shakin’ the hand that pushed that spaghetti merchant into the drink. An’ if only it’d pushed Uckrose in after him, I’d be kissin’ it. As it is, ye can ask me for anything except the Colleen herself.”
“How about a cold beer?” Simon suggested.
With the cool nectar freshening his mouth and throat, he said, “You hadn’t warned me about Innutio. Where does he fit in?”
“I niver met him before, ayther. Uckrose calls him his secretary, but by the cut av his jib I’d say he’d be handier wid the kind o’ typewriter that only prints three letters, RIP. As ye saw for yerself!”
Simon nodded.
“Why would Uckrose need that kind of bodyguard?”
“I couldn’t be guessin’. Although ’tis likely enough he’d always be givin’ someone the notion to be takin’ a poke at him. Now that ye’ve seen him in action, there’s no more I can tell ye.”
“He is really retired, is he? Or has he ever said anything about still dabbling in business?”
“Accordin’ to him, the only jewelry he iver wants to see again is what he can hang on his wife.”
“That’s nice hanging, now you mention it. And the stuff I saw her wearing last night wasn’t colored glass.”
“Maybe he thinks he needs the wop to take care av it.”
“Insurance would cost a lot less, unless she’s going around with a maharani’s collection.”
“Maybe he can’t get insurance,” O’Kevin said.
Simon took another prolonged swallow of beer. He was feeling better all the time.
“What brought you back so early today?” he asked.
“It was like a mill-pond when we set out, which was foine, an’ Uckrose caught a dolphin, about twelve pounds. Thin it started blowin’ just enough to ruffle the water, so pretty soon he says he’s got a headache an’ he wants to go in — the way I told you it always is.” Patsy opened the fishbox aft and held up the dolphin. “But just in case we niver catch anything else, I’m to keep this frozen, an’ this hardly enough for a good dinner, an’ if it should be all he catches he’ll send it back to Miami to be stuffed.” He dropped the fish back on the ice and slammed the lid of the box disgustedly. “Would ye have a little appetite left, Simon? I got some conch last night an’ brewed a foine pot o’ chowder for the Uckroses’ lunch, but His Lard-ship wouldn’t eat while we were out, an’ it’s just goin’ to waste.”
“We can’t let it do that,” said the Saint.
It was a good chowder, rich and creamy, with plenty of chewy conch meat in it.
“If Uckrose had et some av it, he might o’ made Gloria a lot happier,” O’Kevin said as he finished his bowl.
There is a widespread belief in those parts that the flesh of that giant species of marine snail possesses aphrodisiac properties far exceeding those of the traditionally respected oyster, which was doubtless what O’Kevin was alluding to. His thoughts seemed to continue along that track, for he went on as if it were in the most natural sequence, “If ye don’t give her the benefit av it yourself, ye’re not the man I’ve heard tell ye are.”