Read Online Salvage for the Saint by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online
Authors: Leslie Charteris
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and proceeded to the second stage of his expedition.
For this his eccentric garb might not be ideal, but he thought it would do. He walked briskly along the foreshore until he came to the narrow stretch of water—a mere fifty yards or so across—which forms the entrance to Christchurch Harbour and divides Hengistbury’s curled fingertip from the main coastline at Mudeford, a pleasant seaside village.
As he had done his swimming for the day, he hailed an old local salt who was reclining in a rowing-boat on the other side. A cool breeze had sprung up during the day.
“Can you take me across?” he called out amiably.
In due course an eye was opened and a pair of lips moved. But the man’s reply was a jumbled confusion of palatals lost on the wind.
Then the boatman held up both fists and opened his ten fingers to indicate his price.
“Ten shillings!” the Saint muttered under his breath. “Dick Turpin at least wore a mask.” But he signalled his agreement and the man inched his way across the water with rhythmically plodding oars.
“D’you do this every day?” Simon asked conversationally, when the plodding had been resumed in the opposite direction with himself aboard. “Row people back and forth, I mean.”
The man spat out a well-masticated wad of tobacco into the sea. He had a leathery red face; his blue eyes were watery and deeply recessed behind inscrutable walls of eyebrow and eyelid.
“Aas roik. Meamoi maik,” he said gruffly.
“Ah,” said the Saint, without the foggiest notion of what the man had said, but gathering that the general sense of the answer as affirmative. “You must see a lot of people, then—different people.” This, Simon was uncomfortably aware, was not destined to be remembered among his more sparkling pieces of dialogue. “I suppose that might help to keep it from getting too boring.”
The boatman looked at him quizzically from under sunbleached eyebrows.
“Aaredaiz doant zee mahren wunniz dahg.”
The Saint thought he might have caught an entire syllable here: he was almost sure he had heard the word “don’t.” He took encouragement and plunged on.
“I’m hoping to find out what happened to a friend of mine who may have gone missing down this way a few days ago,” he said, articulating with special care as if in compensation. “As a matter of fact it was on the same day as the boat-race accident just down here and he was due to travel up to London that evening. But he never arrived. He had no car, so I suppose he would have been meaning to use the train. What would be the nearest station around here?”
The man manoeuvred the boat into its berth. He chewed steadily and slowly for a while on another wad of tobacco while the watery eyes regarded the Saint. Then he spoke.
He said: “Oiklaff.”
“You … what?” queried the Saint, for once helplessly stuck for something to say.
“Oiklaff,” said the boatman more loudly and positively.
“Oiklaff?” the Saint repeated weakly.
“Aas roik,” said the man, as if giving encouragement to a moron. “Eedaga’a trine a Lunnun frathahr ahrroik.”
Simon’s aural deciphering system reeled under the strain, clutched desperately at the “Lunnun”, which could have been interpreted as “London”, and shifted into a higher gear to begin coming to grips with the rest.
“A train!” he almost shouted in triumph after a pause. “He could have got a train from there. From Highcliffe!”
“Aas wah’oisaad, Oiklaff. Eecada gahnnair boi the bahs.”
“Ah, there’s a bus, is there?” Simon said, mainly to convince himself he had it right. “And how far’s Highcliffe from here?”
The man spat out another tobacco wad.
“Bate foive moiwe.”
“And do you happen to know when the next bus goes?”
The boatman fumbled for an ancient pocket watch and studied it interminably.
“Bate aafenaouer fmnay,” he said at last.
“I see,” said the Saint with a sense of real accomplishment. “I think you
For this his eccentric garb might not be ideal, but he thought it would do. He walked briskly along the foreshore until he came to the narrow stretch of water—a mere fifty yards or so across—which forms the entrance to Christchurch Harbour and divides Hengistbury’s curled fingertip from the main coastline at Mudeford, a pleasant seaside village.
As he had done his swimming for the day, he hailed an old local salt who was reclining in a rowing-boat on the other side. A cool breeze had sprung up during the day.
“Can you take me across?” he called out amiably.
In due course an eye was opened and a pair of lips moved. But the man’s reply was a jumbled confusion of palatals lost on the wind.
Then the boatman held up both fists and opened his ten fingers to indicate his price.
“Ten shillings!” the Saint muttered under his breath. “Dick Turpin at least wore a mask.” But he signalled his agreement and the man inched his way across the water with rhythmically plodding oars.
“D’you do this every day?” Simon asked conversationally, when the plodding had been resumed in the opposite direction with himself aboard. “Row people back and forth, I mean.”
The man spat out a well-masticated wad of tobacco into the sea. He had a leathery red face; his blue eyes were watery and deeply recessed behind inscrutable walls of eyebrow and eyelid.
“Aas roik. Meamoi maik,” he said gruffly.
“Ah,” said the Saint, without the foggiest notion of what the man had said, but gathering that the general sense of the answer as affirmative. “You must see a lot of people, then—different people.” This, Simon was uncomfortably aware, was not destined to be remembered among his more sparkling pieces of dialogue. “I suppose that might help to keep it from getting too boring.”
The boatman looked at him quizzically from under sunbleached eyebrows.
“Aaredaiz doant zee mahren wunniz dahg.”
The Saint thought he might have caught an entire syllable here: he was almost sure he had heard the word “don’t.” He took encouragement and plunged on.
“I’m hoping to find out what happened to a friend of mine who may have gone missing down this way a few days ago,” he said, articulating with special care as if in compensation. “As a matter of fact it was on the same day as the boat-race accident just down here and he was due to travel up to London that evening. But he never arrived. He had no car, so I suppose he would have been meaning to use the train. What would be the nearest station around here?”
The man manoeuvred the boat into its berth. He chewed steadily and slowly for a while on another wad of tobacco while the watery eyes regarded the Saint. Then he spoke.
He said: “Oiklaff.”
“You … what?” queried the Saint, for once helplessly stuck for something to say.
“Oiklaff,” said the boatman more loudly and positively.
“Oiklaff?” the Saint repeated weakly.
“Aas roik,” said the man, as if giving encouragement to a moron. “Eedaga’a trine a Lunnun frathahr ahrroik.”
Simon’s aural deciphering system reeled under the strain, clutched desperately at the “Lunnun”, which could have been interpreted as “London”, and shifted into a higher gear to begin coming to grips with the rest.
“A train!” he almost shouted in triumph after a pause. “He could have got a train from there. From Highcliffe!”
“Aas wah’oisaad, Oiklaff. Eecada gahnnair boi the bahs.”
“Ah, there’s a bus, is there?” Simon said, mainly to convince himself he had it right. “And how far’s Highcliffe from here?”
The man spat out another tobacco wad.
“Bate foive moiwe.”
“And do you happen to know when the next bus goes?”
The boatman fumbled for an ancient pocket watch and studied it interminably.
“Bate aafenaouer fmnay,” he said at last.
“I see,” said the Saint with a sense of real accomplishment. “I think you
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