The Saint in Miami Read Online Free PDF Page B

got to take a chance some time.”
    He took a fresh grip on the rope and began to haul. The burden swung free at first, then bumped dully against the side as it came higher. The Saint threw all the supple power of his back and shoulders into the task of speeding its ascent, while he breathed a prayer that no member of the crew had been in a position to notice the thud and scrape of its contact. After what seemed like a year the lolling head of the body came in sight above the edge of the deck.
    And then the Saint’s tautly vigilant ears caught the scuff of the steward’s returning footsteps.
    Holding tightly to the rope, Simon stepped rapidly backwards until the deckhouse concealed him. There he fastened the rope to a handy stanchion with a couple of quick half-hitches.
    The steward’s footsteps pattered along the deck, slackened hesitantly, and shuffled to a dubious stop. The Saint held his breath. If the steward raised an alarm from where he stood, he might as well take a running dive over the side and hope for the best … But the steward’s nerves where under phlegmatically good control. His footsteps picked up again, approaching stolidly, as he came on forward to investigate for himself.
    Which was an unfortunate error of judgment on his part.
    He came past the corner of the deckhouse into Simon’s field of vision and stood still, looking down movelessly at the lifeless head of the boy dangling against the bottom of the rail. And Simon stepped up behind him like a phantom and enclosed his neck in the crook of an arm that was no more ghostly than a steel hawser …
    The steward became gradually limp, carrying his perplexity with him into the land of dreams; and Simon picked him up and transported him over the same route that he had taken with the deck hand. He also treated him in exactly the same way, binding and gagging him and pouring him into the store locker with his still sleeping fellow crewman. The only distinction he made was to remove the steward’s trim white jacket first. The Saint’s humanitarian instincts made him reflect that the atmosphere of the store room might grow warmer later with its increasing population; and furthermore another use for that article of clothing was beginning to suggest itself to him.
    It was a little short in the sleeves, but otherwise it fitted him fairly well, he decided as he shrugged himself into it on his way back to the deck.
    He had an instant of alarm when he returned towards the dangling body and saw a ham-sized hand groping with very lifelike activity above the level of the deck. A moment later he had identified it. He grasped it, and assisted the perspiring Mr Uniatz to heave himself over the rail.
    “I ought to push you back into the drink,” he said severely. “I thought I told you to wait in the boat.”
    “De stiff stops goin’ up,” explained Hoppy, “so I t’ought dey mighta gotcha. Anyhow, dey ain’t no more drink. I finish de udder bottle while I’m waitin’.” He became aware of the uniform jacket which was now buttoned tightly over the Saint’s torso, and stared at it with dawning comprehension. “I get it, boss,” he said. “We’re gonna raid de bar an’ get some more.”
    He beamed at the prospect like an ecstatic votary at the gates of Paradise. Simon Templar had long been aware of the fact that Mr Uniatz’s nebulous notions of an ideal after life were composed of something like floating out through eternity in an illimitable sea of celestial alcohol; but for once the condition of his own palate left him without the heart to crush the manifestations of that dream.
    “I’ve heard you bring up a lot of worse ideas, Hoppy,” he admitted. “But first of all we’d better finish lugging in the stiff, before somebody else comes along.”
    A brisk exploration along the starboard side disclosed that the door from which the steward had emerged gave into an alley athwartships from which a lounge opened forward, a dining saloon aft, and a