Free Saint Overboard by Leslie Charteris

that you haven’t heard anything from me.”
    Murdoch took out a cigar and bit the end from
it with a bull dog clamp of his jaws. His eyes were dark again with
distrust.
    “It’s a stall, Loretta,” he said
sourly. “How d’ya know Vogel isn’t capable of having an undercover man,
the same as us. All he wants to do is get me out of the way, so he can take you alone.”
    “You flatter yourself, brother,”
said the Saint coldly “If I wanted to take her, you wouldn’t stop me.
Nor would you stop Vogel.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    “Well, I’m not running.”
    Loretta glanced from one man to the other. The
animosity between them was creeping up again, hardening the square
obsti nacy of Murdoch’s jaw, glittering like chips of elusive steel in the Saint’s eyes. They were
like two jungle animals, each superb in his
own way and conscious of his strength, but of two different species whose feud dated back too far
into the grey dawns of history for
any quick forgetting.           
    “Yes, you are, Steve,” said the
girl.
    “When I start taking orders from that——”
    “You aren’t.” Her voice was quiet
and soothing, but there was a thread of calm decision under the silky
texture. “You’re taking orders from me. The Saint’s right. We’d
better break off again, and hope we can alibi this meeting.”
    Murdoch was staring at her half
incredulously.
    “Orders?” he repeated.
    “That’s right, Steve. At present I’m
running this end of it. Until Martin Ingerbeck takes me off the
assignment, you do what
I tell you.”
    “I think you’re crazy.”
    She didn’t answer. She took a cigarette from
a bos on the table and walked to the window, standing there with her
arms lifted and her hands on either side of the frame. The silver dragon
lifted on her waist.
    Murdoch’s lips flattened the butt of his
cigar. His hands clutched the arms of his chair, and he started to get up
slowly. With a sudden burst of vicious energy he grabbed for his hat and thumped it
on his head.
    “If you put it that way, I can’t
argue,” he growled. “But you’re going to wish I had!” He
transferred his glare from her unconscious back to the Saint’s face.
“As for you—if anything happens to Loretta through my not being here ——”
    “We’ll be sure to let you know about it,” said the
Saint, and opened the door for him.
    Murdoch stumped through with his fists
clenched;   and the Saint half closed it as Loretta
turned from the window and came across the
room. He took her hands.
    “I shall be gone while you’re seeing
Steve off,” he said. “I can’t risk the foyer again, but I spotted a fire
escape.”
    “Must you?” The faint irony of her voice was baffled by
the enigma of her smiling mouth.
    He nodded.
    “Not because I want to. But they ought to
see me going back to the Corsair before there’s too much excitement
about my shadow having lost me. You’re still sure you mean to go to- night?”
    “Quite sure.”
    “Did I dream the rest of it, after you’d
gone last night?”
    “I don’t know, dear. What did you have for dinner?”
    “Lobster mayonnaise. I dreamt that you
came back from the Falkenberg. Safe. And always
beautiful. To me.”
    “And then the danger really started.”
    “I dreamt that you didn’t think it was too dangerous.”
    Her eyes searched his face, with the laughter
stilled in them for a moment. The tip of the dragon’s tongue stirred on
her shoulder as she drew breath. One hand released itself to trace the
half-mocking line of his mouth.
    “But I am afraid,” she said.
    Suddenly he felt her lips crushed and melting against his, and her body pressed against him, for one soundless
instant; and then, before he could
move, she had brushed past him and gone.
    Orace was waiting for him anxiously when he
got back.
    “Yer bin a long time,” Orace
remarked shatteringly.
    “Thousands of years,” said the
Saint.
    He sat out on deck again after he had taken
his last daylight