Read Online Señor Saint by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online Page B

idled out into the darkening harbor.
    “Tell us where we are to go,” Manuel said.
    “Northeast,” Inkier said, “and twenty miles out.”
    Enriquez translated to the captain at the wheel.
    “Let us go inside and be comfortable,” he said. “I have whisky, gin, and tequila. In an hour we should be able to see your boat.”
    The time did not pass too badly, although Simon would have preferred to stay on deck. It was noisy in the cabin, with the steady drone of the engines and the rush of water, so that a certain effort had to be made to talk and to listen. But fortunately for their comfort there was very little sea, and the speeding boat did not bounce much.
    He was checking his watch for the exact end of the estimated hour when the engines reduced their volume of sound suddenly and the boat sagged down off the step and surged heavily as its own wake overtook it. They all went out with unanimous accord into the after cockpit, and Simon saw the lights and silhouette of a ship ahead of them. A moment later, Enriquez switched on a spotlight and sent its beam sweeping over the other vessel. It was a squat and very dilapidated little coastal freighter of scarcely three hundred tons which certainly looked as if it would have a rough voyage to Iran, if anybody but the Saint had been critical of such details at that moment. An answering light blinked from her bridge, three times.
    “That’s it,” Inkler said.
    “What you call, on the nose?” Enriquez said with solid satisfaction.
    As the Chris-Craft drew alongside, the freighter lowered a boarding ladder. Doris Inkier stood beside the Saint.
    “We’ll wait for you here,” she said.
    They watched Inkler and Enriquez clamber up over the side and disappear. Simon lighted two cigarettes and gave her one. She stayed close to him, watching the Mexican captain and mate as they made a rope fast to the ladder and hung fenders over the rubbing strake.
    “This is the first place we could have trouble,” she said in a low voice. “If Manuel wants one of the wrong cases opened …”
    “Don’t worry until it happens,” he said.
    But he could feel her tenseness, and he was a little tense himself for what seemed like an interminable time, but by his watch was less than a half-hour, until at last Inkler and Enriquez came down the ladder again and joined them in the smaller boat’s cockpit. Then he could tell by the subtly different confidence of both men that there had been no trouble.
    Manuel spoke briefly to the captain, who yelled at the mate, and the bow line was cast off. Water widened between the two hulls, and the Chris-Craft engines grumbled again. Manuel shepherded the Inklers and the Saint below.
    He poured four drinks in four clean glasses, and raised one of them.
    “To our good fortunes,” he said.
    “Is everything all right?” Doris asked, holding on to her glass.
    “Your husband is a good businessman. He has the right things for the right customers.”
    Only the most captious analyst might have thought she was a fraction slow with her response.
    “Oh, Sherman!”
    She flung her arms around Inkler’s neck and kissed him joyously. Then she turned to the Saint and did the same to him. Inkler watched this with a steady smile.
    “Your boat is now following us to a little fishing village, where I have men waiting to unload the cargo,” Manuel said.
    “Is it far?”
    “We have to go slower, of course. But it will not be too long. About three hours. And we have plenty to drink.”
    “Pablo Enriquez is waiting there with the money,” Inkler said to the Saint.
    Simon remembered that he had the privileged role of a partner.
    “Exactly when is it to be paid?” he inquired. “I hope Mr. Enriquez won’t be offended, but business is business. He wanted to see what we had to offer before he committed himself, and quite rightly. Now I don’t think we should have to unload all that stuff until it’s paid for.”
    Manuel grinned like a genial saurian.
    “As soon