The Saint's fierce whisper sizzled in his ear.
"Wenn du einen Laut von dir gibst, schneide ich dir den Kopf ab."
The man made no sound, having no wish to feel the hot bite of that vicious blade searing through his neck. He lay still; and the Saint slowly released the grip on his throat and used his freed hand to take the automatic from the man's hip pocket. Then he took his knee out of the man's chest.
"Get up."
The man worked himself slowly to his feet, with the muzzle of the gun grinding into his breastbone and the knife still under his eyes.
"Do you want to live to a ripe old age, Fritz?" asked the Saint gently.
The man nodded dumbly, licking his lips. And the Saint's white teeth flashed in a brief and cheerless smile.
"Then you'd better listen carefully to what I'm saying. You're not going to take all of that message to Ivaloff. You're going to take me along, and tell him that Vogel says I'm to go down. That's all. You won't see this gun any more, because it'll be in my pocket; but it'll be quite close enough to hit you. And if you make the slightest attempt to give me away, or speak one word out of your turn, I'll blow the front out of your stomach and let your dinner out for some air. Do you get my drift or shall I say it again?"
2
As they moved on, Simon amplified his instructions. He replaced his knife in its sheath and put it inside his shirt; the gun he slipped into his trouser pocket, turning it up so that he could fire fairly easily across his body. He was still building up his plan while he was giving his orders. Crazy? Of course he was. But any man who was going to win a fight like that had to be crazy anyhow.
And now he could fill in the steps of reasoning which the wild leap of his inspiration had ignored. The sight of those cases of bullion stacked around the after deck had started it; the grab not yet dismantled and lashed down had helped. Vogel's talk about unloading the gold had fitted in. And then, when he had heard Vogel speak about "going down" again, and gathered that Vogel himself was going to accompany Ivaloff, the complete and incontestable explanation had opened up in his mind like an exploding bomb. Loretta had told him-—-how many hundred years ago?—that Vogel must have some fabulous treasure-house somewhere, where much of the proceeds of his astounding career of piracy might still be found, which Ingerbeck's had been seeking for five years. And now the Saint knew where that treasury was. He knew it as certainly as if he could have seen down through the thirty feet of stygian water over the side. Where else could it have been? Where else, in the name of all the sublime and extravagant gods of piracy, could Kurt Vogel, taking his loot from the trackless abysses of the sea, have found a more appropriate and inviolable depository for it than down there in the same vast lockers of Davy Jones from which it had been stolen?
And the Saint was going down there to find it. Vogel was going down with him to show him the last secret. And down there, in the heavy silence of that ultimate underworld, where no other soul could interfere, their duel would be fought out to its finish.
As they came to the companion, Simon was ripping off his tie and threading it through the trigger-guard of his automatic. He steadied the helmsman as they reached the lower deck.
"Hold my arm."
The man looked at him and obeyed. The Saint's blue eyes held him with a wintry dominance that would not even allow the idea of disobedience to come to life.
"And don't forget," added that smouldering undertone, which left no room for doubt in its audience that every threat it made would be unhesitatingly fulfilled. "If they even begin to suspect anything, you'll never live to see them make up their minds. Move on."
They moved on. The helmsman stopped at a door a little further up the alleyway and on the opposite side from the cabin in which Simon had been locked up, and opened it. Ivaloff and the two men who had dressed the Saint before were there, and they looked up in dour interrogation.
Simon held his breath. His forefinger took up the first pressure on the trigger, and every muscle in bis body was keyed up in terrible suspense. The second which he waited for the helmsman to speak was the longest he could remember. It dragged on through an eternity of pent-up stillness while he watched his inspiration trembling on a balance which he could do no more to control.
"The Chief says Templar is to go down again . . ."
Simon heard the words through a haze of relief in which the cabin swam round him. The breath seeped slowly back out of his thawing lungs. His spokesman's voice was practically normal—at least there was not enough shakiness in it to alarm listeners who had no reason to be suspicious. The Saint had been sent down once already; why not again?
Without a question, the two dressers got to their feet and stumped out into the alleyway, as the helmsman completed the order.
"He says you, Calvieri, see that there is a dress ready for him. He goes down himself also. He will be along in a few minutes— you are to be quick."
"Okay."
The two dressers went on, and Ivaloff was coming out to follow them when the helmsman stopped him.
"You are to stay here. You change into your shore clothes at once, and then you stay below here to see that none of the others come out on deck. No one except the engineer and his assistant must come out for any reason, he says, until this work is finished. Then you will go ashore with him."
"Boje moy," grumbled the other. "What is this?"
The helmsman shrugged.
"How should I know? They are his orders."
Ivaloff grunted and turned back, unbuckling his belt; and the helmsman closed the door on him.
It had worked.
The stage was set, and all the cues given. With that last order, the remainder of the crew were immobilised as effectively as they could have been by violence, and far more simply; while the one man whose unexpected appearance on deck would have blown everything apart was detailed to look after them. A good deal of jollification and whoopee might take place on deck while the authority of Vogel's command kept them below as securely as if they had been locked up—he had no doubt that a man like Vogel would have thoroughly impressed his underlings with the unpleasant consequences of disobedience. And the exquisite strategy of the idea traced the first glint of a purely Saintly smile in the depths of Simon Templar's eyes. He only hoped that Kurt Vogel, that refrigerated maestro of generalship, would appreciate it himself when the time came ...
As he drew the helmsman, now white and trembling with the knowledge of what he had done, further along the alleyway, Simon flashed a lightning glance over the details of his organisation, and found no flaw. There remained only the helmsman himself, who could undo all the good work with the speech which he would undoubtedly make as soon as he had the chance. It was, therefore, essential that the chance should not come for a long time . . . Simon halted the man opposite the cabin where he had been imprisoned, and grinned at him amiably. And then his fist smoked up in a terrific uppercut.
It was a blow that carried with it every atom of speed and strength and science which the Saint had at his disposal. It impacted with surgical accuracy on the most sensitive spot of the helmsman's jaw with a clean crisp smack like the sound of a breaking spar, and the man's head snapped back as if it had collided with an express train. Beyond that single sharp crack of collision it caused no sound at all—certainly the recipient was incapable of making any, and the Saint felt reasonably sure that he would not become audible again for a full hour. He caught the man as he fell, lowered him to the ground inside the cabin which he should have been occupying himself, and silently shut the door.