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account the protective letter with which March must credit him with having
covered his exposed flank. He couldn't believe that the ungodly would have him
killed without first having dealt with that contingency. And yet there was
very little sense left in any supposition which could make his projected call
on Mr Gallipolis seem foolproof.
The Saint shrugged defeatedly. After all, there was still only one positive
way to find out.
He tested the freeness of his gun in his shoulder holster, dropped to the
ground, and began to crawl.
4
The palmetto bushes made a barrier that jabbed stinging points through his
light clothing. Saw-edged grass rasped smartingly against his face and neck.
His shirt was soaked with perspiration before he had gone fifty yards; and he
was cursing artistically under his breath by the time the sandy ground pitched
sharply up, barring his way with the dredged-out bank of the canal.
The bank was bare of vegetation. He lay flat and wriggled his way to the top
of the ten-foot rise of sand and clay. Working one eye warily over the summit,
he took stock again of the houseboat twenty paces away. The boarded windows
stared blankly back at him. Except for a pair of grey socks dangling limply
from a line on the top deck near the bow, the ancient craft might have been
abandoned for years.
A foot from his head, something moved; and the dampness of his shirt turned
cold.
It was something that had been so still, blending so well into the baked
desolation of its background, that without the movement he might have missed
it entirely. The movement brought it to life in mosaic coils of deadly beauty,
while he lay rigid and felt his muscles tautening like shrinking leather.
Black, unwinking eyes stared impersonally into his, making the skin of his
face creep as if cobwebs had touched it. Then the coils straightened fluidly
out, and a five-foot cottonmouth moccasin slithered gracefully away.
The Saint used his forearm to wipe clammy dew from his brow. There might not
actually be any sniper waiting on the barge for him to show himself, but the
dangers of his present method of approach had been unmistakably demonstrated.
In any case, the decision to abandon them was now virtually taken out of his
hands. Between the point he had reached, and the sluggish water where the
barge floated, there was literally no cover at all. The space had to be
crossed, and the only way was to do it quickly.
He raised himself up on to his toes and fingertips, and took off over the top
like a sprinter. Bent low to the ground, he shot across those few perilous
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yards with the sure-footed soundlessness of a fiddler crab scooting for its
hole, and boarded the stern with no more uproar than a fragment of rising
mist.
There was no shot.
He stood with his back to the bulkhead and got his breath, listening to a
clink of chips and a mumble of voices that were audible through a torn screen
door. But it seemed that the sounds came from some distance away amidships,
and he opened the door and sidled through into dimness. As his eyes adjusted
themselves to the gloom, he saw an oil stove, racked-up dishes, a sink, and a
stained table. Across from him was another door, and beyond that he found a
narrow hall The voices came from an open door which made a rectangle of light
in the dark passage. A game seemed to be unconcernedly in progress, and there
were no other symptoms at all of an alarm. Unless the stage had been very
carefully set for him, his entrance seemed to have been achieved without a
hitch.
And once again, there was only one way to find out.
He sauntered noiselessly down the hall and walked into the open room.
Five men sat around a baize-covered table. A tired-looking man in a green
eyeshade sat with his back to a window dealing stud. An even more
tired-looking cigarette drooped from his lower lip. As he called the bets in a
tired monotone, the cigarette wobbled up and down. The five men raised their
heads from the cards as the Saint came in. One of them looked horsy; the other
three were in shirtsleeves and seemed about as menacing as bookkeepers on a
holiday.
The dealer flipped up five cards and said: "King bets." He lowered his
eyeshade again and continued in his breath-saving tone: "Five dollar limit
stud. The house kitty's fifty cents out of each pot over five dollars. It's an
open game. Don't stand around watching. If you want to play, take a chair."
He shoved one out beside him with some pedal jugglery, while he dealt the
second round, and Simon sat down because the chair faced the door.
The dealer pushed chips in front of him.
"The yellows are five, the blues one, the reds a half, and the whites a
quarter. Fifty bucks, and you pay now."
Simon peeled money off his roll, and looked over the room while the hand was
finished. There was nothing much to it. A double gasoline lantern hung over
the table. The light from the window, which was on the water side of the barge
and open, cut a square shaft of light through a fog of cigarette and cigar
smoke. The walls had two or three Petty drawings tacked up on them.
The dealer ladled chips towards a winner, gathered up cards, and shuffled
them with the speed of a boy's stick rattling along a picket fence. He dealt
once around face down, and a second round face up. The Saint was high with a
queen.
"Queen bets." The cigarette moved up and down.
The Saint squeezed his hole card up, peeped at it, and flattened it down. He
had a pair, back to back, and he didn't like to start that well in a game.
"A buck," he said, and tossed a blue chip in.
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The dealer stayed on a ten. Two of the bookkeepers dropped out, but the horsy
man with a nine and the other bookkeeper with a seven spot stayed in. More
cards fluttered from the dealer's agile hand, and finished up by leaving him a
second ten.
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