(Editorial note: Needless to say, it was revived...)
1
“People,” said Myra Campion languidly, “ought to have to pass an examination and get licensed before they’re allowed to exhibit themselves on a bathing beach.”
Simon Templar smiled vaguely and trickled sand through his fingers. Around them spread the sun-baked shambles of Juan-les-Pins — a remarkable display of anatomy in the raw. As far as the eye could see in either direction, men and women of all nationalities, ages, shapes, sizes, and shades of color, stripped to the purely technical minimum of covering demanded by the liberal laws of France, littered themselves along the landscape and wooed the ultra-violet ray with a unanimous concentration of effort that would have restored world prosperity if it had been turned into the channels of banking or breeding pedigree wombats or some such lucrative field of endeavor. Reclining on straw mat, under beach umbrellas, in deck chairs, or even on the well-worn sand itself, they sprawled along the margin of that fashionable stretch of water in a sizzling abandon of scorched flesh that would have made a hungry cannibal lick his lips. To the Saint’s occasionally cynical eye there was something reminiscent of an orgy of human sacrifice in that welter of burnt-offerings on the altar of the snobbery of tan. Sometimes he thought that a keen ear might have heard the old sun-god’s Homeric laughter at the childish sublimation that had repopulated his shrine, as the novices turned themselves like joints on a spit, basted their blistered skin with oils and creams, and lay down to roast again, suffering patiently that they might triumph in the end. Simon looked at teak-bronzed males with beautifully lubricated hair parading themselves in magnificent disdain amongst the pink and peeling and furtively envious newcomers, and, being as brown as they were, only larger-minded, he was amused.
But not at that moment. At that moment he was interested exclusively in Mrs Porphyria Nussberg.
Mrs Nussberg, at that moment, was methodically divesting herself of a set of boned pink corsets, preparatory to having her swim. The corsets were successfully removed under cover of her dress, defiantly rolled up, and deposited in her canvas chair. The dress followed, and Mrs Nussberg was revealed in a bright yellow bathing costume of nineteenth-century cut, which rose to the base of her neck and extended itself along her limbs almost to the knees and elbows. The completion of her undressing was hailed with irreverent applause from several parties in her neighbourhood.
“I wonder,” said Myra Campion languidly, making her observation more particular in all the arrogance of her own golden slenderness, “how that woman has the nerve to come here.”
“Maybe it amuses her,” suggested the Saint lazily, with his blue eyes narrowed against the sun. “Why do fat men feel an urge to wear check suits?”
His vagueness was rather an illusion. As a matter of fact he was quite pleasantly conscious of the sum blonde grace of the girl beside him, but he had the gift of splitting his mind between two distinct occupations, and one half of his mind had been revolving steadily around Mrs Nussberg and Mrs Nussberg’s jewels for several days.
Of late Mr Nussberg he knew little, except that he had lived in Detroit and manufactured metal buttons for attachment to cheap overalls, and had in due course died, full of honor and indigestible food. Simon rather suspected that he had been a small man with a bald head and baggy trousers, but he admitted that this suspicion was based on nothing more substantial than the theory that women of Mrs Nussberg’s size and demeanour are usually married by small men with bald heads and baggy trousers. The point was purely academic, anyway: it was now Porphyria Nussberg who carried the burden of a reputedly fabulous fortune on her massive shoulders, and whose well-padded physique, which in some respects did actually resemble that of a camel, should have been speculating anxiously about the size of the needle’s eye through which it might one day be called upon to pass.
Mrs Nussberg had arrived on the same day as the Saint himself, but she had since become far better known. She was popularly referred to by a variety of names, of which “The Queen of Sheba,” “Cleopatra,” and “The American Tragedy” were a fairly representative selection. But to Simon Templar she would always be the Spanish Cow.
From this it should not be nastily assumed that the Saint was unnecessarily vulgar. To those of cosmopolitan education, the Spanish Cow is an allusion hardly less classical than others that had been bestowed upon Porphyria. The Spanish Cow — la vache espagnol — is, curiously enough, a creature of the French mythology, and is indignantly repudiated by Spain. It is the symbol of everything clumsy, inefficient, and absurd. When a Frenchman wishes to say that he speaks English excessively badly, he will tell you that he speaks comme une vache espagnol — like a Spanish Cow. In the same simile he may dance, play bridge, butt into a petting party, or remember that he owes you a few thousand francs. For the benefit of those in search of higher education, it might be explained that this does not stem from any ancient national antagonism or occult anthropomorphic legend; it is, etymologically, a corruption of Basque espagnol, and originated in the belief of French purists that the Basques speak atrociously, but this is not the place to enter that argument. To Simon, the name fitted Mrs Nussberg like a glove, with a pleasing ambivalence that included her swarthy complexion and distinctly bovine build.
She waddled on towards the water’s edge through a cloud of giggles, grins, and whispered comments that were pitched just loud enough to reach her ears, and Simon kicked his toes through the sand and gazed after her thoughtfully. The daily baiting of the Spanish Cow had lost most of its novelty as a spectacle for him, though the rest of the beach showed no signs of tiring of it. It had already rivalled water-skiing among the sports of that season. It had the priceless advantage of costing nothing, and of giving a satisfactory reaction to the most awkward tyro. Goaded far enough, Mrs Nussberg could always be relied upon to give a demonstration in return which dissolved the onlookers into shrieks of laughter. It happened, according to plan, that morning. As Mrs Nussberg tested the temperature of the water with her toes, the Adonis of the beach came swaggering along the rim of wet sand, rippling his rounded muscles — Maurice Walmar, heir to millions and one of the oldest titles to the Almanach de Gotha, a privileged person at any time, and the most daring leader of the new sport. His dark sensual eyes took in the situation at once, and a smile touched his lips. He fell on his knees and bowed his head to the ground in an elaborate mockery of homage.
Mrs Nussberg put out her tongue at him. The beach howled with delight.
“She must be screwy,” opined Myra Campion, fascinated.
The opinion was pretty generally held. Properly provoked, Mrs Nussberg could be depended on to pull the most horrible faces at her tormentors, squawk abuse at them like a trained parrot, and even put her fingers to her nose. Far from bringing forbearance, that apparent screwiness seemed to fan a spark of pure sadism in the onlookers — the same savage instinct that impels urchins to throw stones at an idiot village boy.
“Have you seen that caricature of her outside the Fregate?” asked Miss Campion. “The boy who draws portraits on the beach did it. It’s too perfect. She tried to make them take it down, and they said she could have it if she bought it. They told her she could have it for fifty thousand francs, but it’s still there. In a frame, hanging up in the entrance.”
“I’ll have to take a look at it,” said the Saint. He stood up, dusting the sand from his legs. “Do you think you could get around that buoy again before lunch?”