As he slid easily through the cool smooth water he looked back and saw the bright yellow bathing cap of the Spanish Cow bobbing in the sunlight close to the shore, as she paddled about with her clumsy breast stroke. He pillowed his face in the blue sea and drifted on with a sweep of long effortless arms, gazing down through the crystalline transparency to the misty depths where tiny fish flicked and turned like silver sparks, and decided that the time was ripe for Mrs Nussberg and her jewels to meet Romance.
2
It all began the day after Simon arrived at Juan-les-Pins. He was sitting on a high stool in a sandwich bar, refreshing his interior with a glass of iced orange juice, when the Spanish Cow came in. Simon did not then know her real name, nor had he become sufficiently interested to christen her, but, observing that she wore voluminous beach pyjamas with broad horizontal stripes of purple and yellow, which made her look like a great blowsy wasp, it is probable that some of the emotion he felt might have been detected by an eagle eye. The Saint’s sense of humor was very human, and the barman looked at him and grinned sympathetically, as one who in his day had also been confronted by the spectacle for the first time. It is therefore possible that the Saint’s face was not quite so woodenly disciplined as a meticulous politeness might have wished. It is possible that one of his eyebrows may have twitched involuntarily, or the corners of his mouth widened a slight half-millimetre, in answer to the barman’s confidence. And then he glanced at the vision again, and saw that it was staring at him through a pair of lorgnettes and pulling faces at him.
The Saint blinked. He regarded his orange juice suspiciously. To a man of his abstemious habits, it was a remarkable hallucination to affront the brain at eleven o’clock in the morning — even in a morning of such potent sunshine as those shores boast in July.
He looked again. Mrs Nussberg put out her tongue in a grimace of bloodcurdling menace.
Simon swayed slightly on his stool. His friends had frequently told him that he was quite mad, but he had never expected to lose his last vestige of sanity in quite so disturbing a way. He turned uneasily to an inspection of the other patrons of the bar, wondering if the portly Dutchman on his left would suddenly seem to be elongating and turning bright green, or if the charming honey-blonde damsel on his right would be pulling off her pink ears and stirring them into her coffee. Instead he found the other customers still of normal shape and hue, smiling broadly. He braced himself to look at the striped vision again. It applied its thumb to its nose and extended its fingers towards him, waggling them with hideous glee.
The charming damsel on his right spoke, through the daze of alarm that was rapidly enveloping him.
“Don’t pay any attention to her,” she said. “She’s always like that.”
“Bless you, darling,” murmured the Saint fervently. “For a moment I thought the heat had got me.”
“Who’s always like what?” screamed Mrs Nussberg.
The charming damsel sipped her coffee.
“We’re off,” she remarked.
“I can pull faces just as well as you can,” yelled Mrs Nussberg, with justifiable pride and the little imps of Satan elected that instant to enter into the Saint.
He turned.
“Madam,” he said generously, “you can pull them better.”
Simon had never spoken boastfully of the encounter. He was ordinarily a very chivalrous bloke, kind to the fat and infirm, and willing to oblige a lady in any manner that was in his power, but there were moments when he ceased to be a truly responsible captain of his soul, and that was one of them.
The result was that three minutes later he found himself strolling back to the beach with the charming damsel on his arm and a delirious bar behind him. Few people had ever been known to score off the Saint in an exchange of back-chat, and Mrs Nussberg was certainly not one of them. It was that same night, in the Casino, that he saw Mrs Nussberg plastered with all her jewels, and the modest glow of those three minutes of light-headed revelry abruptly vanished.
Which explained his abstracted thoughtfulness on this subsequent morning.
For it was a principle of the Saint’s sparsely principled career that one never exchanged entirely carefree badinage with anyone so liberally adorned with diamonds as Mrs Porphyria Nussberg. On the contrary, one tended to be patient — almost long-suffering. Following the example of the sun-worshippers simmering in their grease, one stewed to conquer. Diamonds so large and plentiful could not be gazed upon at any time by any honest filibuster without sentiment, and when they chanced to be hung around a woman who pulled faces and shouted wrathfully across bars, it became almost a sacred duty to give that sentiment full rein. Unfortunately Simon saw the grimaces first and the jewelry afterwards, and he had spent some days regretting that chance order of events — the more earnestly when he discovered that Myra Campion had helped to spread the fame of his achievement, and that he was widely expected to repeat the performance every time he and Mrs Nussberg passed close enough to speak.
He hoped speechlessly that the call of Romance, which he had at last decided was the only possible approach, might be strong enough to obliterate the memory of that earlier argument. The Spanish Cow had no friends — he had had some difficulty in learning her official name, which no one had apparently troubled to inquire. From local gossip he learned that she had once had a gigolo, a noisome biped with tinted fingernails and a lisp, but even that specimen had found the penalties of his job too high, and had minced on to pastures less conspicuous. It seemed as if a cavalier with stamina to last the course might get near enough to those lavish ropes of gems to pay his expenses, and having reached that decision Simon made up his mind to go ahead with it before his nerve failed him.
He had his chance at the Casino that evening. Miss Campion was safely settled at the boule table with a pile of chips, and the Saint looked around and saw Mrs Nussberg emerging majestically from the baccarat room and proceeding towards a table in the lounge. Simon drew a deep breath, straightened his tie, and sauntered after her.
She stared at him belligerently.
“What do you want?”
“I think I owe you an apology,” said the Saint quietly.
“You’ve found that out, have you?” she barked.
A smirking waiter was dusting off the table. Simon sat down opposite her and ordered a fine à l’eau. Parties at adjoining tables were already glancing curiously and expectantly towards them, and the movement cost Simon a clammier effort than anything he had done for a long time.
“That morning a few days ago,” he explained contritely, “you misunderstood me. I wasn’t being fresh. But when you called me down, I sort of forgot myself.”
“I should think you did,” rasped Mrs Nussberg, without friendliness.
“I’m sorry.”
“So you ought to be.”
It dawned on the Saint that this vein of dialogue could be continued almost indefinitely, if Mrs Nussberg insisted on it. He looked around somewhat tensely for inspiration, wondering if after all the jewels could be worth the price, and by the mercy of his guardian angel the inspiration was provided.
It was provided in the person of Maurice Walmar, who at that moment came strolling superbly across the lounge and recognized an acquaintance in the far corner. With an elegant wave of his hand he started in that direction. His route took him past the table where Simon was prayerfully groping for the light. Walmar recognized the Spanish Cow, and flashed a mean sneer towards his acquaintance. As he squeezed past the table, he deliberately swerved against Mrs Nussberg’s arm as she raised her glass. The drink spilled heavily across her lap.