Except the thrill of a sporting burglary—such as a raid upon the home of a famous detective with the said detective in residence and, for preference, entertaining a select party of his fellow-sleuths—there is no thrill to be compared to the thrill of a refined form of piracy.
So Patricia realised as she stole down the dimly lighted alleyway aft in search of the galley. There she was, on the Tiger’s ship, with only two assistants, one of whom was temporarily hors de combat, and the odds against them were five to one, at a conservative estimate. The very forlornness of the adventure took away half its terrors, for with everything to lose—and as good as lost at the first slip—there was nothing to gain by footling and fiddling over the job. The only earthly chance of success was to blind recklessly ahead and chance the consequences. To funk the bold game would be fatal. The bold game was the only one which offered the vaguest possibility of success—a plan such as they had set themselves to carry out could only hope to succeed if it were executed in the same spirit of consummate cheek and hell-for-leather daring as that in which it had been conceived. And that was what Patricia Holm intended to do, starting in at that very instant.
Even so, sir and madam—that was the determination which was glowing like hot steel in Patricia’s brain. Orace had gone off to deal with an engineer, and Orace could look after himself as well as anybody. Having laid out the engineer, he would repair to the rendez-vous, and when the girl failed to put in an appearance, after a reasonable time, he would set out in search of her—incidentally disposing of any Tiger Cubs whom he encountered on the way. And, therefore, in a little while, there would be two vengeful people creeping about the ship and striking shrewd, secret blows at the enemy—here one moment, there the next, coming and going like wraiths, and leaving no more evidence of their passage than a Tiger Cub sleeping peacefully in the scuppers here and there. The girl guessed that Orace was still troubled with fears for her safety and doubts of her ability to pull her weight in the undertaking, and so, to save bothersome argument, she was going to take the bit between her teeth and leave him to fall into line behind— and, once she was started, he would have no option but to do exactly that, for the pace would be too hectic to allow any intervals for discussion.
There is this about the thrill of action, the electric omnipresence of danger, and the necessity for keeping yourself keyed up taut and ready to make lightning decisions: it takes up all the time of all your faculties and holds your brain buzzing round and round that one sole pin-point of motive. Patricia was not callous. It wasn’t that she had forgotten the Saint and gone gaily cavorting off on this new spree in a manner that would make you think that piracy amused her just as much as petting. It was simply that, having resolved to call the Tiger down to an audit of the ledger, the concentration which that task demanded would, until it was accomplished, leave no room in her mind for any of the thoughts which had inspired it.
And so, as she crept nearer to the end of the alleyway, Patricia’s nerve was neither dulled nor unbalanced by any irrelevant considerations. She was just one hundred and thirty pounds of smoothly functioning Tophet, actuated by one grim purpose, waiting to detonate all over anyone who got in her way. And that road ran straight as an arrow flight to a point directly over the Tiger’s shoe-leather. . . .
Men of the trade known to Orace as “pertaterstoors” may not be quite as other men are, but one specimen at least can be certified as possessing the gumption of ordinary men, for he heard the metallic note in Patricia’s rapped command from the galley door, and, wisely, decided not to shout for help.
“Up with ’em!” crisped the girl. “Don’t even open your mouth to gasp—I might think you were going to yell, and then your children would all be orphans!”
The man turned slowly, saucepan in hand.
He saw a slim, straight slip of a girl in a tight-fitting Jantzen that emphasised the calmly efficient poise of her body. Beads of salt water glistened on her brown skin in the lamplight, and her wet hair was swept back from her forehead in an unruly mop. At any other time, the cook, who was a connoisseur, would have been able to admire the perfection of her figure and the miracle of a complexion which could survive a two-mile swim and lose no jot of its beauty—in his somewhat coarse and practical fashion. But now his eyes were riveted on the blue-black gleam of the automatic which her small brown hand pointed so steadily at his middle; and, raising those dilated eyes from the gun to her face, he was able to appreciate only the firm set of her lips and the bleak purposefulness of her gaze.
“I’m getting tired of waiting.” The words bit through the steamy air with the chilly menace of bright steel. “Stick ’em up. And jump to it!”