If that news photographer was not a real news photographer, and the picture had been developed and printed and rushed across to England by air that evening, a correspondent could show it around in certain circles in London with the virtual certainty of having it identified within forty-eight hours . . . And if the result of that investigation was cabled to Kurt Vogel at St Peter Port, a good many interrogation marks might be wiped out with deadly speed.
III. HOW KURT VOGEL WAS NOT SO CALM, AND
OTTO ARNHEIM ACQUIRED A HEADACHE
A CEILING of cloud had formed over the sky, curtaining off the moon and leaving no natural light to relieve the blackness. Out in the river it was practically pitch dark, except where the riding lights of anchored craft sprang their small fragments of scattered luminance out of the gloom.
The Saint slid through the water without sound, without leaving so much as a ripple behind him. All of the rhythmic swing of his arms and legs was beneath the surface, and only his head broke the oily film of the still water; so that not even as much as the pit-pat of two drops of water could have betrayed his passing to anyone a yard away. He was as inconspicuous and unassertive as a clump of sea-weed drifting up swiftly and silently with the tide.
He was concentrating so much on silence that he nearly allowed himself to be run down by some nocturnal sportsman who came skimming by in a canoe when he was only a stone's throw from the Falkenberg. The boat leapt at him out of the darkness so unexpectedly that he almost shouted the warning that came instinctively to his lips; the prow brushed his hair, and he submerged himself a fraction of a second before the paddle speared down at him. When he came up again the canoe had vanished as silently as it had come. He caught a glimpse of it again as it arrowed across the reflected lights of the Casino de la Vicomté, and sent a string of inaudible profanities sizzling across the water at the unknown pilot, apparently without causing him to drop dead by remote control.
Then the hull of the Falkenberg loomed up for undivided attention. At the very edge of the circle of visibility shed by its lights, he paused to draw a deep breath; and then even his head disappeared under the water, and his hands touched the side before he let himself float gently up again and open his lungs.
He rose under the stern, and trod water while he listened for any sound that would betray the presence of a watcher on the deck. Above the undertones of the harbour he heard the murmur of voices coming through open portholes in two different directions, the dull creak of metal and the seep of the tide making under the hull; but there was no trace of the sharper sound that would have been made by a man out in the open, the rustle of cloth or the incautious easing of a cramped limb. For a full three minutes the Saint stayed there, waiting for the least faint disturbance of the ether that would indicate the wakefulness of a reception committee prepared to welcome any such unauthorised prowler as himself. And he didn't hear any such thing.
The Saint dipped a hand to his belt and brought it carefully out of the water with a mask which he had tucked in there before he left the Corsair. It was made of black rubber, as thin and supple as the material of a toy balloon; and when he pulled it on over his head it covered every inch of his face from the end of his nose upwards, and held itself in place by its own gentle elasticity. If by any miscalculation he was to be seen by any member of the crew, there was no need for him to be recognised.
Then he set off again to work himself round the boat. There were three lighted portholes aft, and he stopped by the first of them to find a finger-hold. When he had got it he hauled himself up out of the water, inch by inch, till he could bend one modest eye over the rim.
He looked into a large cabin running the whole width of the vessel. A treble tier of bunks lined two of the three sides which he could see, and seemed to be repeated on the side from which he was looking in. On two of them half-dressed men were stretched out, reading and smoking. At a table in the centre four others, miscellaneously attired in shirtsleeves, jerseys, and singlets, were playing a game of cards, while a fifth was trying to poach enough space out of one side to write a letter. Simon absorbed their faces in a travelling glance that dwelt on each one in turn, and mentally ranked them for as tough a harvest of hard-case sea stiffs as anyone could hope to glean from the scourings of the seven seas. They came up to his expectations in every single respect, and two thin fighting lines creased themselves into the corners of his mouth as he lowered himself back into the river as stealthily as he had pulled himself out of it.
The third porthole lighted a separate smaller cabin with only four bunks, and when he looked in he had to peer between the legs of a man who was reclining on the upper berth across the porthole. By the light brick-red hosiery at the ends of the legs he identified the sleuth who had trailed him that afternoon; and on the opposite side of the cabin the man who had been busily doing nothing in the foyer of the Hotel de la Mer, with one shoe off and the other unlaced, was intent on filling his pipe.
He couldn't look into any of the principal rooms without actually climbing out on to the deck, but from the scraps of conversation that floated out through the windows he gathered that was where the entertainment of Loretta Page was still proceeding. Professor Yule appeared to be concluding some anecdote about his submarine experiences.
". . . and when he squashed his nose against the glass, he just stayed there and stared. I never imagined a fish could get so much indignation into its face."
There was a general laugh, out of which rose Vogel's smooth toneless suavity: "Wouldn't even that tempt you to go down, Otto?"
"Not me," affirmed a fat fruity voice which the Saint had not heard before. "I'd rather stay on top of the water. Wouldn't you, Miss Page?"
"It must be awfully interesting," said Loretta—and Simon could picture her, sitting straight and slim, with the light lifting the glints of gold from her brown head. "But I couldn't do it. I should be frightened to death. . . ."
The Saint passed on, swimming slowly and leisurely up to the bows. He eeled himself round the stem and drifted down again, close up in the shadow of the other side. As he paddled under the saloon windows on the return journey, Vogel was offering more liqueurs. The man in the pink socks was snoring, and his companion had lighted his pipe. The card game in the crew's quarters finished a deal with a burst of raucous chaff, the letter-writer licked his envelope, and the men who had been reading still read.
Simon Templar edged one hand out of the water to scratch the back of his ear. During the whole of that round tour of inspection he hadn't collected one glimpse or decibel of any sight or sound that didn't stand for complete relaxation and goodwill towards men. Except the faces of some of the crew, which may not have been their faults. But as for any watch on deck, he was ready to swear that it simply didn't exist.
Meaning . . . Perhaps that Loretta had been caught the night before by accident, through some sleepless mariner happening to amble up for a breath of fresh air. But even if that was the explanation, a watch would surely have been posted afterwards to frustrate any second attempt. Unless . . . and he could only see that one reason for the moment . . . unless Loretta had been promoted from a suspect to a certainty—in which case, since she was there on board, the watch could take an evening off.
The Saint gave it up. By every ordinary test, anyhow, he could find nothing in his way; and the only thing to do was to push on and search further.