Detective and mystery stories; Private investigators -- England -- Fiction; Saint (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“Wrecked nothing! I told Bittle and Co. we were going down, but we
aren’t. Orace and I just fixed the pumps and left ’em running so as to
run all the water out of the port ballast tank and fill up the
starboard one! I’ve just reversed the arrangement—see? She’s evening
up already.”
Simon showed Carn all the exhibits, and the detective was staggered.
“That Tiger had us all skinned,” he said.
They sat in the saloon and exchanged notes. Carn had been lucky enough
to find a couple of new submarine-chasing motor-boats lying at
Ilfracombe at the end of a trial run, and he was able to catch them
with his posse when they were on the point of returning to Bristol.
“All the same,” he remarked, “I should have been too late to be any
use to you. I take my hat off to you, Saint.”
“What was Lapping in this?” asked Patricia.
She told him about her interview that afternoon, and the detective
smiled.
“Lapping knew all about me, of course,” he said. “And I told him all
about how the Saint was trying to cut me out. I expect he thought you
were having a dab at pumping him for the Saint’s benefit.”
The Saint did not consider himself bound to say anything about Harry
the Duke. Before he let Harry go back to the past of Agatha Girton, he
had warned him about the dangers of private feuds, and Harry had seen
reason—the Saint had a means to control him.
“You can tell Lapping that Harry the Duke has decided to forgive him,”
he said enigmatically.
Carn was mystified, but Simon let him be puzzled, and passed on.
“Now we’re all satisfied,” murmured Simon. “You’ve got the villains of
the piece to take home with you, and I’ve got the gold.”
Carn goggled.
“I’d forgotten that—I was so worried about you and the Tiger,” he
said, and the Saint chuckled.
“I hadn’t forgotten it. I waited to start any ructions until they’d
got it all aboard for me—I couldn’t bear to think of all my work being
wasted.” The Saint looked steadily at the detective. “Shall we cry
quits, Carn? You know I’m straight, and I want to work this hooker
across to New York and return the ducats to the Confederate Bank’s
agents and collect my reward. It’ll just make enough for me to retire
on comfortably, and you get all the kudos out of the affair for
nabbing the Tiger. Is that a bet?”
Carn held out his hand, and they both smiled.
“Miss Holm goes with you, I suppose?”
“I’ll ask her,” promised the Saint. “It’ll be easy—these motor-ships
are dead simple to run, and Orace has as much expert knowledge as we
need. America’s a big place, anyway. We can’t miss it altogether, and
as soon as we strike the coast we’ll be able to find out where we are,
and probably get a navigator. We’ll only be able to run in daylight,
of course, so it won’t be a quick passage—but I can think of worse
honeymoons!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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