Free The Saint in Miami by Leslie Charteris Page A

chin.
    “Son,” he said, “I’ve been compared to everything from the disappearin’ view of a racehorse at Tropical Park, to havin’ my maw never find out what my paw’s last name was. It ain’t never got a rise out of me. I don’t aim to change my tactics now. You and your friends are guests in a prominent citizen’s home, an’ I’m treatin’ you as such. But as Sheriff of this county I’ve got a few questions to ask you, and I expect you to answer ‘em.”
    It was a rare event for Simon Templar to feel admiration for any professional enforcer of the Law. But admiration for any cool unflustered opponent who could meet him in his own field and exchange parry and riposte without vindictiveness but with a blade sharp enough to match his own, was a tribute which none of his instincts could refuse. He drew at his cigarette again, and over his fingers his eyes twinkled calculatingly blue but with all malice wiped out of them.
    “I suppose that anything I say can be used as evidence against me,” he remarked cheerfully.
    “If you’re fool enough to tell me anything incriminatm’,” said Haskins, “that’s true. Don’t blame me for it.”
    “Shoot,” said the Saint.
    Haskins considered him.
    “I saw you scootin’ around in Gilbeck’s speedboat last night, and I sort of wondered at the time why he wasn’t along with you.”
    “I sort of wondered myself. You see, we came here on a special invitation to visit him. And as you’ve already found out, he isn’t here.”
    Haskins took the rather long end of his nose between thumb and forefinger and wiggled it around.
    “You mean they wam’t here to welcome you, so you just thought you’d move in an’ wait for ‘em.”
    Simon nodded.
    “Sort of noblesse oblige not to leave without seeing your hosts.”
    The Sheriff took off his black hat and fanned himself thoughtfully.
    “Where did you go last night after I chased you away?”
    “We took a little spin. The moonlight kind of got me.”
    “It used to do that to me when I was your age. So you took a little spin an’ came back ashore.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Here?”
    “But of course.”
    “There was a lot of funny goin’s-on around Miami last night,” said Haskins, with an air of perplexity. “They don’t make sense to me. Some time in the small hours of the mawnin’, my office got a call that Randolph March was carryin’ an unreported body around on his yacht. Silly sort of thing, warn’t it?”
    “Was it?” Simon asked innocently.
    “Well, it turned out to be not so silly, at that.” Haskins uncrossed his long legs languorously. “I took a jaunt out there, and it seems there was a body. The Captain said they’d been out that evening, an’ the lad fell overboard an’ drowned before they could find him again.”
    “Who was he?”
    “One o’ the crew. Some kid they picked up in Newport News. They didn’t even know where his home was or if he had any family. Don’t suppose nobody ever will There’s lots of kids like that on the waterfronts … But the funny thing was, nobody on the March Hare had called me. They were just wonderin’ whether they ought to when I got there.”
    “It all sounds most mysterious,” Simon agreed sympathetically.
    Haskins stood up and mopped his brow.
    “It shuah does. Heah’s all hell apoppin’ just a few hours after you land in town. You’re known from heah to Shanghai as a .trouble maker, although I ain’t sayin’ you deserve it. But if you’re as clever as they say you are you naturally wouldn’t have any convictions-yet. But you can’t blame me for wonderin’ about you.”
    “Brother,” said the Saint, with the silkiest possible undertone of warning, “you’re beginning to sound just a little too much like Chief Inspector Teal. You remember what I told you? Just because a few queer things happen here, and I’m in Miami at the time, you come charging after me-“
    “When I charge you, son, I’ll have something.” Haskins