The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

"I'm awfully sorry to trouble you," said the Saint, "but my motor's conked out, and I haven't any oars or anything."

"Where do you want to get to?" asked Nilder.

He stood in the cockpit, with his cap tilted to what he obviously thought was a rakish angle.

"Bursledon," said the Saint. "But I expect someone could come out to me from wherever you're going to --"

"We're going there ourselves. We'll take you in tow."

At a nod from Nilder, the helmsman went aft and flung out a rope. He seemed to comprise the entire crew of the Seabird, and seen at close quarters he appeared noticeably lacking in that winsome benignity of counte­nance which is found on the dials of governors of infant orphanages.

Simon made the rope fast, and Nilder leaned over the side.

"Why don't you come up here?" he suggested amiably. "I'm afraid you'll get rather wet if you stay where you are."

Simon had proposed to get aboard somehow from the beginning, but he had not expected such a prompt invitation. He climbed into the cockpit rather watch­fully, with a tiny question mark roving through his mind. It was a perfectly normal invitation in itself, but if Mr. Nilder was revealing a little more astuteness than the Saint had credited him with . . . And then the morn­ing breeze wafted over to him the fragrance of Ronald Nilder's breath, and Simon realized that the man was more than a little drunk.

"It's quite a coincidence that we should meet again so soon, isn't it?" Nilder remarked suddenly, as the engines picked up again and the one-man crew took the wheel. "I had an excellent view of you in my driving mirror yesterday."

His close-set eyes were fixed on the Saint with the peculiarly rigid stare of mild intoxication, and Simon understood in a flash that Ronald Nilder had oiled himself up to the exact stage of tiddliness at which a man becomes conscious of a verve and brilliance which no one else can perceive and which he himself never knew he possessed.

Simon returned the man's stare coolly. He had set out that morning with no intention of doing anything desperate, but he was always ready to adapt his style to circumstances. And Ronald Nilder was being so frantically and unnecessarily clever that he was asking for a suitable retort with both hands.

"Why, yes-it does seem odd, doesn't it?" mur­mured the Saint.

He tapped the helmsman gently on the shoulder, and the man half turned. In that position, the point of his jaw offered itself to the Saint's fist as a target that could not in common politeness be ignored. Simon duly obliged-gracefully, accurately, and with a detonating release of energy that lifted the helmsman clear onto the balls of his feet before he dropped.

"Perfectly priceless weather, isn't it?" murmured the Saint, conversationally.

He spun the wheel hard over, so that the Seabird heeled to starboard and came about in a flat skid. Simon straightened her up smoothly and let her run south, away from the river mouth.

His eyes returned to Nilder's face with a blue chal­lenge of devilment to match his smile. It was on such moments of inspired unexpectedness that the Saint's greatness was founded. Looking at Ronald Nilder, he saw that the tipsy courage which had induced the man to take such a recklessly incalculable bull by the horns had wheezed down like a punctured tire. There was a kind of panic in Ronald Nilder's face, and he was trying clumsily to draw a gun.

Simon took it away from him quite good-humouredly and dropped it over the side.

"You know, that's another mistake, Ronald," said the Saint calmly. "Respectable yachtsmen never pull guns when their crew are assaulted. They just go mauve in the frontispiece and say: 'What the devil, sir, is the meaning of this outrage ?' "

Nilder stared at him whitely; and the Saint de-clutched the engine and allowed the Seabird to lose way.

"And now that the audience has gone to sleep, Ronald," he remarked, "I'll tell you a secret. While I was sitting out here hoping that some young fish who'd never heard of my reputation would accept one of my worms, I thought to myself what a useful base this would be for anyone who didn't want to advertise his cargo." He saw Nilder crouch a little, and did not smile. "I'm afraid several girls must have been sorry they accepted an invitation to go yachting with you. But what do you bring back with you on the return journey, Ronald ?-that's what worries me."

Nilder licked his lips and did not answer.

Then a hand like steel gripped his arm, and a brown face that had lost all its geniality looked down into his.

"Shall we go and look?" said the Saint.

He thrust Nilder through the door that led into the saloon aft. There were a couple of wicker hampers on the table, and Simon surveyed them thoughtfully. That, of course, was the simplest way of bringing any reasonably sized cargo ashore.

"Champagne and caviare sandwiches?" drawled the Saint. "That's just what the doctor ordered for me."

He pushed Nilder onto one of the sofa berths and snapped up the lid of one of the baskets.