Salvage for the Saint Read Online Free PDF Page B

Tatenor’s massive yellow boat, the Can-decour. With her overall length of thirty-eight feet and her six-hundred horsepower twin Rolls-Royce diesel engines she fell decidedly into the brute-force category, although the name was an exception to the general trend, and had no obvious derivation that the Saint could see. She was a conversion rather than a purpose-built job, but in this case the work had been carefully and professionally done even though most of the luxury fittings had been preserved. Tatenor had even added to the ostentation, by having the external trim finished off with a series of intricately carved mahogany panels and an ornate figurehead in the shape of an eagle; all of which gave the Candecour an outward air of rococo excess that belied its brisk performance on the water.
    Tatenor himself was standing a few yards away on the quayside with Fournier. Each of the two men was wearing a one-piece waterproof suit and carrying a bright orange crash helmet.
    Though Simon had exchanged the odd word with Tatenor within the ambit of this and previous races, he preferred to dislike him cordially at a distance. But Tatenor caught his eye now, and flicked a depreciatory finger at the Privateer’s scarlet hull.
    “I do hope she holds up for you,” he called across.
    “You’ll be able to follow her progress for yourself, and without turning your head,” replied the Saint with even politeness.
    Tatenor laughed hollowly, exposing teeth of perfect porcelain translucence whose shade matched the white of his hair and contrasted with the deep tan of his handsome weather-beaten features.
    “I suggest you might care to check the boiler in that thing before we start,” he brayed, flicking another dismissive finger in the Privateer’s direction and chuckling at his own remark.
    “And you,” retorted the Saint good-humouredly, “had better lash down the Chippendale and be prepared to jettison a couple of footmen when the going gets tough.”
    “Boiler!” Vic exploded softly to Simon as Tatenor turned away with a frozen smile on his large brown face. “We’ll show you somethin’, Mister lah-de-dah Tatenor!”
    Simon felt vaguely uncomfortable himself with Tatenor’s speech, for some reason he couldn’t quite pin down. It was a discomfort that was something more than simple dislike of the parodied form of English articulation inflicted on the rest of us by certain representatives of the old-guard sporting gent brigade, of which Tatenor seemed to be almost a founder officer. It was decidedly something more than that; it was the kind of discomfort, the kind of nebulous puzzlement, which the Saint had felt before in all manner of circumstances when something was micrometrically off-key and his senses were busy delivering messages to his understanding which that partly instinct-driven system refused to accept as making a wholly convincing picture. When Simon Templar felt this way he could be sure there was something behind it which with luck and persistence he would presently ferret out from his subconscious. But that would happen in its own time, and for the moment he had the race to think about and no intention of actively worrying away at a nagging disquiet about Charles Tatenor’s speech.
    But then something reached his ears which was all the more thought-provoking for being so wholly unexpected.
    He heard Charles Tatenor speaking to Fournier in perfect French.
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    Even though the two had turned away before Tatenor spoke, the Saint’s acute hearing picked up the sentence clearly. He heard Tatenor translate, for Fournier’s benefit, the last flippant remark of his own about the Chippendale and the footmen.
    Whether Fournier grasped the satirical point at once is doubtful—judging from the corrugations of puzzlement that appeared on his unprepossessing brow—but incidental. The noteworthy thing to Simon Templar, himself an exceptional linguist and fluent French speaker, was Tatenor’s perfect assurance in the