Read Online The Saint in Trouble by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online
Authors: Leslie Charteris
Tags: Large Type Books, English Fiction
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it. He kept the speedboat headed towards Cap d’Antibes until well past the end of Ste. Marguerite, to stay safely away from the irregular reef which projects eastwards under water from the island, before making his U-turn back into the channel where the big yachts were parking for the day. And almost at once he saw the launch that he had previously been following, rushing towards him and away from the assemblage of statelier pleasure barges in the most sheltered center of the notch.
Simon cut his engine to a mere tick-over, and as the speedboat slumped in the water he slewed it directly across the path of the launch. He stood up in the cockpit, waving his arms in an unmistakeable request for communication.
Without slackening speed by a knot, the launch veered to miss him, but so closely that its water almost capsized the speedboat, and only the Saint’s fantastic reflexes and co-ordinating muscles saved him from being thrown down into or bodily out of the bucking cockpit.
As he recovered some semblance of vertical balance, he saw that the launch was resuming its course, unchecked, and with the clearest intention of declining to be detained. Three silhouettes against the now glaring sunlight looked back, it seemed with callous derision.
The Saint seldom lost his temper, but something about that exercise in nautical boorishness got under his skin. With something akin to the conditioned response of a Western gunfighter, he snatched up the Very pistol from the ledge in front of him and fired. The flare sped across the water like a coloured comet and exploded as it landed in the open stern of the launch.
Billows of smoke engulfed the launch, and with great satisfaction he heard the engine splutter and die. He loaded another cartridge into the pistol and held it at the ready as he brought the speedboat alongside.
As he did so he realised he had been fooled, beautifully lured and brilliantly snared.
There were three men in the launch. They wore the rough denims of fishermen, and their language was as colourful as the flare that one of them was busy stamping out. But Professor Maclett was definitely not one of them.
The Saint did not stop to join an altercation but simply gunned the speedboat around and headed back out of the channel.
It had been a very slick operation, and he had outsmarted himself with his own clever maneuver to help it to succeed. While out of his sight behind the island, the launch had simply drawn alongside one of the big yachts anchored there and stopped to allow one of the fishermen he had seen to replace Maclett. Which testified to an impressive degree of organisation.
He would have dearly loved to have cruised on through the channel in the hope of identifying the boat that now had Maclett aboard, but he could not have done that without blatantly exposing himself. But as he circled back towards Cannes, his mind was racing back to the ridiculous theory that had been hatched during his return from the Port Canto that afternoon, which began to seem a great deal more sane and logical.
He nudged the speedboat alongside the wharf from which he had taken it, and had scarcely picked up the mooring when he became aware of a reception committee on the quayside.
A small dapper figure stepped forward.
“Monsieur Templar, I am Inspector Lebeau. You are under arrest for the kidnapping of Professor Andrew Maclett.”
8
It was a little different from what the Saint had expected, but he accompanied Lebeau to the waiting car and allowed himself to be driven to the police station without protest.
He demanded a lawyer, and was told that he would have that privilege at the proper time. He asked for a consul to be contacted, and was assured that every formality would be ob served. A request or permission to collect some things from his hotel was politely refused.
He could imagine how hot the telephone lines would soon become as the news of his arrest reached Paris and then London in time for the first editions
Simon cut his engine to a mere tick-over, and as the speedboat slumped in the water he slewed it directly across the path of the launch. He stood up in the cockpit, waving his arms in an unmistakeable request for communication.
Without slackening speed by a knot, the launch veered to miss him, but so closely that its water almost capsized the speedboat, and only the Saint’s fantastic reflexes and co-ordinating muscles saved him from being thrown down into or bodily out of the bucking cockpit.
As he recovered some semblance of vertical balance, he saw that the launch was resuming its course, unchecked, and with the clearest intention of declining to be detained. Three silhouettes against the now glaring sunlight looked back, it seemed with callous derision.
The Saint seldom lost his temper, but something about that exercise in nautical boorishness got under his skin. With something akin to the conditioned response of a Western gunfighter, he snatched up the Very pistol from the ledge in front of him and fired. The flare sped across the water like a coloured comet and exploded as it landed in the open stern of the launch.
Billows of smoke engulfed the launch, and with great satisfaction he heard the engine splutter and die. He loaded another cartridge into the pistol and held it at the ready as he brought the speedboat alongside.
As he did so he realised he had been fooled, beautifully lured and brilliantly snared.
There were three men in the launch. They wore the rough denims of fishermen, and their language was as colourful as the flare that one of them was busy stamping out. But Professor Maclett was definitely not one of them.
The Saint did not stop to join an altercation but simply gunned the speedboat around and headed back out of the channel.
It had been a very slick operation, and he had outsmarted himself with his own clever maneuver to help it to succeed. While out of his sight behind the island, the launch had simply drawn alongside one of the big yachts anchored there and stopped to allow one of the fishermen he had seen to replace Maclett. Which testified to an impressive degree of organisation.
He would have dearly loved to have cruised on through the channel in the hope of identifying the boat that now had Maclett aboard, but he could not have done that without blatantly exposing himself. But as he circled back towards Cannes, his mind was racing back to the ridiculous theory that had been hatched during his return from the Port Canto that afternoon, which began to seem a great deal more sane and logical.
He nudged the speedboat alongside the wharf from which he had taken it, and had scarcely picked up the mooring when he became aware of a reception committee on the quayside.
A small dapper figure stepped forward.
“Monsieur Templar, I am Inspector Lebeau. You are under arrest for the kidnapping of Professor Andrew Maclett.”
8
It was a little different from what the Saint had expected, but he accompanied Lebeau to the waiting car and allowed himself to be driven to the police station without protest.
He demanded a lawyer, and was told that he would have that privilege at the proper time. He asked for a consul to be contacted, and was assured that every formality would be ob served. A request or permission to collect some things from his hotel was politely refused.
He could imagine how hot the telephone lines would soon become as the news of his arrest reached Paris and then London in time for the first editions
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