"I would rather like to come," said the Saint frankly, as he poured out the whisky.
"Then we'll expect you definitely. Loretta is coming, too."
"Who's coming?"
"You know—Miss Page——"
Simon eased a drop of liquid from the neck of the bottle on to the rim of the glass with a hand as steady as a rock, and looked up with a smile.
"I'm afraid I don't," he murmured. "Who is the lady?"
"She was with us—— I beg your pardon," Vogel said quickly.
"My memory is playing me tricks—I had an idea she was with us when we met this morning. Perhaps you will meet her in Guernsey."
"If she's as pretty as her name, I hope I do," said the Saint lightly.
He passed the glass over and sat down again, feeling as if his stomach had been suddenly emptied with a vacuum pump.
"We shall be sailing about eleven," proceeded Vogel urbanely. "But we shan't take long on the trip—we marine motorists have rather an advantage in speed," he added deprecatingly. "I don't wonder you thorough-going yachtmen despise us, but I'm afraid I'm too old to learn your art."
Simon nodded vaguely. But there was nothing vague in his mind. Every fibre of his being seemed to have been dissected into an individual sentience of its own: he was conscious of the vitality of every cell and corpuscle of his body, as though each separate atom of him was pressed into the service of that supercharged aliveness. His whole intellect was waiting, cat-like, for Vogel to show his hand.
Vogel gave him no sign. His smooth aggressively profiled face might have been moulded out of wax, with its appearance of hard and uniform opacity under the thin glaze of skin. The Saint's keenest scrutiny could find no flaw in it. He had watched Vogel working up through a conspiracy of intricate and marvellously juggled tensions towards a climax of cunning that had been exploded like a soap-bubble at the very instant of crisis; he knew that even after that Vogel must have taken a re-staggering shock when he discovered the vanishment of their prisoner and the slumber of Otto Arnheim; he could guess that even Vogel's impregnable placidity must have felt the effect of a cumulation of reverses that would have shaken any other man to the beginnings of fear; and yet there was not a microscopical fissure in the sleek veneer of that vulturine face. Simon admitted afterwards that the realisation of all that was implied by that immovable self-command gave him a queer momentary superstitious feeling of utter helplessness, like nothing else that he had ever experienced in the presence of another human being.
He took hold of the feeling with a conscious effort and trod it ruthlessly down. Vogel was holding his drink up in one steady hand, imperturbably surveying the details of the saloon, with the eyelids drooping under the shadow of his black overhanging brows; and Simon watched him without a tremor in the careless good humour of his gaze.
"But this is a charming boat," Vogel remarked idly. "What is her tonnage?"
"About twenty-five."
"Delightful . . ." Vogel got up and began to wander around, studying the panelling, touching the fittings, investigating the ingenious economy of space with all the quiet pleasure of an enthusiast. "I envy you, really—to be able to have something like this all to yourself, without bothering about crews and formalities. If I were twenty years younger . . . Did you have her fitted out yourself?"
"Yes."
"Of course. And are all the other rooms as attractive as this one?"
So that was how it was coming. The Saint felt a tiny pulse beginning to beat way back in the depths of his brain, like the frantic ticking of a distant clock racing with time.
"They're pretty comfortable," he said modestly; and Vogel caught him up without a second's hesitation.
"I wish I could see them. I'm tremendously interested—I had no idea a small boat could be so luxurious. You might even convert me!"
Simon, brought the tip of his cigarette to a red glow, and feathered a fading cloud of smoke through his lips.
He was for it. The fuse was lighted. There was no excuse, however plausible, no tactful way of changing the subject, however fluent, from which Vogel would not draw his own conclusions. Vogel had got him, exactly as he had got Loretta a few hours before. He had paid that belated call, transparently, with the one object of discovering whether the Corsair would yield any connecting link with the night's disturbances, and he would not be prepared to go home satisfied after one brief confined session in the saloon. Simon could see the man's black unswerving eyes fixed on him intently, outwardly with no more than the ingenuous eagerness which made the granting of his request a favour that it would be difficult in any circumstances to refuse— inwardly with a merciless insistence of which no one without the Saint's knowledge would have been conscious. The fuse was lighted; and how soon the mine would go up depended only on Orace's perception of the secondary uses of keyholes.
Now that the die was cast, Simon felt a curious contented relaxation.
"By all manner of means," he said amicably. "Let me show you the works."
3
He stood up, lighting a second cigarette from the stub of the first. The movement gave a few seconds' grace in which Orace, if he had been listening, might prepare for the emergency as best he could. But it could not be prolonged a moment beyond the requirements of the bare physical facts; and with an inaudible prayer to the hardworked gods of all good buccaneers, the Saint flattened his discarded butt in the ashtray and opened the communicating door.
Simon Templar could rake over his memory at any time and comb out an impressive crop of moments which he had no desire to live over again. In spite of the ultimate balance of success that showed on the books of his meteoric career, his life had contained its full quota of occasions that definitely looked their best in distant retrospect. But of all that collection of unenjoyable contingencies there were very few to which he would so fervently have refused an encore as those hectic instants during which the vista beyond the saloon unrolled itself before the opening door. The spectacle of Orace sitting curled up in the diminutive galley, alone, with a paper-covered detective story on his knee, was such a dizzy anti-climax that it made the Saint feel somewhat lightheaded. He could have raised the protective curtain of Orace's moustache and kissed him.
Fortunately the presence of Kurt Vogel precluded any such regrettable demonstration. Simon cleared his throat and spoke almost hesitatingly through the ecstatic glow which enveloped him.
"This is the kitchen, where we heat the tins and open the bottles. On the right, the refrigerator, where we keep the beer warm ..."
He exhibited all the features of the galley with feverish pride; and Vogel, as flatteringly impressed as any proud owner could want a guest to be, admired them all in turn—the cunningly fitted glass and crockery racks, the planned compartments for all kinds of provisions, the paraffin geyser that provided hot water at the turn of a tap, the emergency stove slung in gimbals for use when the weather was too rough for a kettle to stand on the ordinary gas cooker, and all the other gadgets which had been installed to reduce discomfort to the vanishing point. All the time Simon was casting hopeful glances at Orace, searching for a hint of what his staff had done to meet the situation; but the staff had returned phlegmatically to its volume of blood, and its battle-scarred face offered as many clues as a boiled pudding.
Eventually they had to move on. Beyond the galley there was a short alleyway, and Simon led the way briskly down it.