The Saint Sees It Through s-26 Page 10

  "Vaguely," Zellermann said in bored tones.

  "All the wretched Chinese wanted was their own country back," said the Saint. "But the—ah, Powers, made a great pitch about rescuing their missionaries, and so put down the rebellion and so saved the market."

  "Isn't this rather non sequitur?" asked the doctor.

  "Is it?" Simon asked. "If you're tired of Chang, throw him, away—in his millions. He means no more personally than a treeful of yaks, because we have no contact with his daily so-called living. But take Joe Doakes in Brooklyn."

  "Really, Mr. Templar, your train of thought is confusing."

  "It shouldn't be, dear boy. Just translate Chang into Joe, and consider the identical operation in New York. Even America the Beautiful, leave us face it, contains certain citizens who don't much care how they make a million dollars so long as they make it. And particularly don't care who gets hurt in the process. So now Joe's the boy we're after. He's like Chang, in the low income group, not averse to a bit of petty thievery, possibly ready for a pipe after a hard day's pocket-picking."

  "Who," Zellermann inquired, "are 'we'?"

  "We here at the table," the Saint said expansively, "for purposes of hypothetical discussion."

  "Not me," Avalon interpolated. "I got troubles of my own, without including pipes."

  "Let's say you are 'we,' Doctor. Your problem is twofold. You must transport the stuff, and then sell it. If you solve the transportation problem, you have to find Joe. The first problem is fairly elemental. Who goes to the Orient these days? Sailors. They can bring in the stuff. Finding Joe is easy, too. Go into the nearest pool hall and turn to your right."

  "This leads us where, Mr. Templar?" Dr. Zellermann asked. "Though I admit your conversation has its scintillating aspects, I fail to see——" He let it hang.

  "To this point, comrade. A group of men putting drugs into the hands—mouths—of persons rendered irresponsible by economic circumstance are creating tools. Governments learned that a long time ago. Beat a man down enough, and he'll come to think that's the normal way to be. But private groups—shall we say rings—who are foolish enough to think they can get away with it couldn't be expected to do anything but follow an established lead."

  The Saint watched for any reaction from the doctor. He would have settled for a tapping ringer, but the Park Avenue psychiatrist would have made the Great Stone Face look like Danny Kaye.

  Simon shrugged.

  He looked at Avalon and winked.

  "In other words, your theory—'Faites ce que voudras,' if I may borrow from an older philosopher—is jake so long as you and I are the guys who are doing what they damn please. So far I only know one of your forms of self-indulgence, and you only know one of mine. I have others."

  Avalon smiled; and the Saint marvelled that all those people who were so busy clattering their silverware, churning the air with inanities, and trying to impress a lot of people who were only interested in impressing them, shouldn't feel the radiance of that smile and halt in the middle of whatever they were doing. They should feel that smile, and pause. And think of things lost, of beauties remembered, and recapture rapture again.

  But they didn't. The bebosomed Helen Hokinson woman at the nearest table giggled at the young man opposite her; the promoter type over there went right on citing figures, no doubt, blowing a bugle of prosperity; the Hollywood actress went on ogling the Broadway producer, who went on ogling her, being just as happy to get her in his highly speculative play as she was to have the chance of reviving a career which had failed to quite keep up with her press agent.

  The Saint sighed.

  He turned his attention back to Dr. Zellermann, waiting for a hint of the point that must be shown sometime.

  "Another drink?" asked the doctor.

  They had another drink; and then Zellermann said, with a thread of connection which was so strained that it sang: "I imagine one of the things you would like is forming theories about current crimes as the newspapers report them. That Foley murder in Brooklyn, for instance, rather intrigues me."

  The Saint took a deep pull on his cigarette; and a little pulse began to beat way inside him as he realised that this, at last, whatever it was, was it.

  His own decision was made in a split second. If that was how Zellermann wanted it, okay. And if Zellermann favored the shock technique, Simon was ready to bounce it right back without batting an eyelid and see what happened.

  "Yes," he said, "even in these days of flowing lucre, it must be sad to lose a good patient."

  "I wasn't thinking of the money," Dr. Zellermann began. He broke off suddenly, leaving the remainder of the thought unexpressed. "How did you know he was a patient of mine?"

  The Saint sipped at his Manhattan.

  "I saw his name on your secretary's appointment pad," he said calmly.

  "But look here, Templar. When were you in my office?"

  "Oh, I thought you knew," Simon said with a touch of sur­prise. "I broke in on Thursday night."

  3

  This brought motionless silence to Dr. Zellermann. He eyed the Saint coldly for a long moment. Then he said: "Are you in the habit of breaking and entering?"

  "I wouldn't say it's a habit, old boy. The word habit has connotations of dullness. As a matter of fact, I should say I have no habits whatever, as such, unless you classify breathing as a habit. That is one to which I cling with—on occasion—an almost psychotic firmness. There have been times, I admit, when certain persons, now among the dear departed, have tried to persuade me to give up breathing. I am glad to say that their wiles had no effect on my determination."

  The doctor shook his head irritably.

  "You know you committed a felony?"

  "By going on breathing?"

  Dr. Zellermann raised his voice slightly. "By breaking into my office."

  "Technically, I suppose I did," Simon confessed. "But I was sure you'd understand. After all, I was only applying your own pet philosophy. I felt like doing it, so I did."

  "As the victim," Zellermann said, "I'm surely entitled to hear your reason."

  The Saint grinned.

  "Like the bear that came over the mountain, to see what I could see. Very interesting it was, too. Did Ferdinand Pairfield do your decorating?"

  Dr. Zellermann's face was impassive.

  "A philosophy, Mr. Templar, is one thing. Until the world adopts that philosophy, the law is something else. And under the present laws you are guilty of a crime."

  "Aren't you sort of rubbing it in a bit, Ernst?" Simon protested mildly.

  "Only to be sure that you understand your position."

  "All right then. So I committed a crime. I burgled your office. For that matter, I burgled the late Mr. Foley's apartment too—and his murder intrigues me just as much as you. So what?"

  Dr. Zellermann turned his head and glanced across the room. He made an imperious gesture with a crooking finger.

  The Saint followed his gaze and saw two men in incon­spicuous blue suits at a far table detach themselves from the handles of coffee cups. One of them pushed something small and black under the table. Both rose and came towards Dr. Zellermann's table. They had that deadpan, slightly bored ex­pression which has become an occupational characteristic of plainclothes men.

  There was no need for them to show their badges to convince the Saint, but they did.

  "You heard everything?" Dr. Zellermann asked.

  The shorter of the two, who had a diagonal scar on his square chin, nodded.

  Simon ducked his head and looked under the table. He saw a small microphone from which a wire ran down the inside of one of the legs of the table and disappeared under the rug. The Saint straightened and wagged an admiring head.

  "That, my dear doctor, is most amusing. Here I thought that I was talking privately, and it would be your word against mine in any consequent legal name-calling. It simply didn't occur to me that you'd—er—holler copper."

  Dr. Zellermann paid no attention to S
imon. He spoke to Scar-chin.

  "You know this man is the Saint, a notorious criminal, wanted in various parts of the world for such things as mur­der, blackmail, kidnaping, and so forth?"

  "Not wanted for, chum," the Saint corrected him amiably. "Merely suspected of."

  Scar-chin looked at his partner, a man with sad spaniel eyes. "Guess we better go."

  Spaniel Eyes laid a hand on the Saint's arm.

  "One moment," Simon said. This was said quietly, but there was the sound of bugles in the command. Spaniel Eyes withdrew his arm. The Saint looked at Zellermann. "Your information came from somewhere. You didn't deduce this by yourself and so lay a trap. Did Avalon tip you off?"

  "Oh, Simon!" she cried. "No, darling, no!"

  Her voice was brimming with anguish and outrage. Real or simulated, the Saint couldn't tell. He didn't look at her. He held the doctor's eyes with his own.

  Dr. Zellermann showed no expression whatever. He looked at the Saint woodenly, with a supreme disinterest. He might have been watching a fly he was about to swat.

  "Once one understands a certain type of mind," Dr. Zellermann said almost contemptuously, "predictions of action patterns are elementary——"

  "My dear Watson," the Saint supplied.

  "You visited Mrs. Gerald Meldon and James Prather," Zellermann continued. "Theirs were two of the three names on my appointment pad. It follows that you also visited Foley. It was obviously you who telephoned the police—the phrasing of the message fits your psychological pattern exactly. Foley was dead when you left. The police are looking for a murderer. I knew that my office had been entered, of course, because someone answered the telephone when no one should have been there. I suspected that that 'someone' was you; and the rest followed. It was only necessary to have you confirm my deductions your­self."

  The Saint's smile held a wholly irrational delight.

  "I see," he said softly. "You know, Ernst, my esteem for you has raised itself by its mouldy bootstraps. I bow to you. From now on, life will have a keener edge."

  "Life, if any, Templar. In spite of what you read in the papers, murderers frequently do go to the chair."

  "Not this one, dear old wizard." The Saint turned to Spaniel-Eyes. "Shall we begin our invasion of Sing Sing?"

  "Yerk, yerk," Spaniel Eyes said.

  As the Saint got to his feet, Avalon stood beside him. He looked into her dark eyes deeply and ironically. Her gaze didn't waver.

  "I didn't," she whispered. "I didn't."

  Simon kissed her lightly.

  "Be a good girl. Don't forget to eat your vitamins."

  "But you're not going like a lamb," she cried. "Aren't you even going to try to do something?"

  That gay and careless smile flashed across his face. "My dear old Aunt Harriet always said that as long as there's life there's life. Thanks for the drinks, Doctor."

  He was gone, walking straight as a magician's wand between Scar-chin and Spaniel-Eyes. Their passage between the tables was leisurely and attracted no notice, aside from a bold and admiring glance now and then from women lunchers. They might have been three executives headed back to their marts, or three friends popping off to green and manicured pastures to chase a pellet of gutta percha from one hole to another. Certainly no one would have suspected that the Saint was a prisoner—in fact, any speculations would have tended to reverse their roles.

  But under his calm exterior, thought processes moved at incredible speed, toying with this idea, discarding that. He didn't put it beyond himself to stage a spectacular escape as soon as they were outside but on the other hand it would be no help to him to become a fugitive. He even wondered whether Dr. Zellermann's system of psychological projection had antici­pated an attempt to escape and was even now listening with one ear for the rattle of shots which would mean that the shadow of the Saint's interference had perhaps been lifted permanently.

  Simon saw too many arguments against obliging him. His best bet at the moment seemed to be discretion, watchful wait­ing, and the hope that the cell they gave him to try on for size would have southern exposure.

  Spaniel-Eyes hailed a cab. Scar-chin climbed in first, followed by the Saint, and Spaniel-Eyes gave short inaudible directions to the driver.

  "Well," the Saint said after a few moments of riding, "how about a swift game of gin rummy?"

  "Shaddup," Spaniel-Eyes said, and looked, at his watch.

  "By the way," Simon asked, "what are visiting hours in the local calaboza?"

  "Shaddup," Spaniel Eyes said.

  They rode some more. They wound through Central Park, entering at Columbus Circle, curving and twisting along the west side of that great haven for nurses, sailors, nurses and sailors, up around the bottleneck end of the lake, south past the zoo.

  The Saint looked significantly at the flat backs of the animal cages. "What time," he asked Spaniel Eyes, "do you have to be back in?"

  "Shaddup."

  "This," the Saint said conversationally to Scar-chin, "has been most illuminating. I suppose I shouldn't ever have taken this drive otherwise. Very restful. The lake full of rowboats, the rowboats full of afternoon romance, the—oh, the je ne sais quoi, like kids with ice creamed noses."

  Scar-chin yawned.

  Simon lighted another cigarette and brooded over the routine. He considered his chances of getting a lawyer with a writ of habeas corpus before things went too far. Or was it the scheme of Scar-chin and Spaniel-Eyes to spirit him away to some obscure precinct station and hold him incommunicado? Such things had been done before. And at that stage of the game the Saint knew he could not afford to disappear even for twenty-four hours.

  Spaniel Eyes looked at his watch as they neared the exit at Fiftyninth Street and Fifth Avenue.

  "Okay," he called to the cab driver.

  The driver nodded and drove to—of all places—the Algon­quin. Scar-chin came back to life.

  "Awright," he said. "Go on up to your room."

  "And then what?"

  "You'll see."

  Simon nodded pleasantly, and went up to his room. The tele­phone was ringing.

  "Hamilton," said the voice at the other end. "I wish you'd be more careful. Do you think I haven't anything else to do with my men except send them to pull you out of jams?"

  4

  For a considerable time after the Saint had left, there was a nominal silence in the dining room of 21. Nominal, because of course there was never any actual silence in that much-publicised pub except when it was closed for the night. The chatter of crocks, cutlery, concubines and creeps went on with­out interruption or change of tempo, a formless obbligato like the fiddling of insects in a tropic night which could only be heard by forced attention. It washed up against the table where Zellermann and Avalon sat, and still left them isolated in a pool of stillness.

  Of Avalon one could only have said that she was thinking. Her face was intent and abstracted but without mood. If it suggested any tension, it was only by its unnatural repose.

  Dr. Zellermann avoided that suggestion by just enough play with cocktail glass and cigarette, with idle glances around the room, to convey a disinterested expectation that this hiatus was purely transitory, and that he was merely respecting it with polite acceptance.

  He turned to Avalon at last with a sympathetic smile.

  "I'm so sorry," he said in his best tableside manner.

  She shrugged.

  "Sorry? For what?"

  "It is not my desire, Miss Dexter, to cause you anguish or heartache."

  "I've been watching out for myself for some time, Doctor."

  "That, my dear, is your chief attraction. One would expect a girl who is as beautiful as you to be dependent. You have a magnificent—er—contempt for the conventional behavior of beautiful women. If I may say so."

  "You have, Doctor. Which all leads up to an exit line. Goodbye."

  He raised a soft white hand.

  "Don't go. You haven't had your lunch."

  "I'm not h
ungry."

  "Then please listen. I have information that may be to your advantage to know."

  She settled back, but did not relax. She had the appearance of a motionless cat, not tense, yet ready to leap. Her dark eyes were alert, wide and bright.

  "About Mr. Templar," the psychiatrist began. "Although I am glad to confess a personal interest in your welfare, what I am about to say is of an academic nature."

  Avalon smiled with one side of her mouth.

  "Anyone will grant that he is a romantic figure, Miss Dexter. He must have a tremendous attraction for women, especially young and beautiful girls who are trying to carve out a career. He represents all they strive for—poise, charm, fame and respect from many psychological types. But he is not a stable person, Miss Dexter."

  Avalon smiled with both sides of her mouth. It was a tender smile, with secret undertones.

  "His path through life," said Zellermann—"and I don't mean to sound like a text book—is inevitably beset with adven­ture, crime, and personal danger. I happen to know that many who have allied themselves with him have died. Somehow, he has come through all his adventures. But the day will come, my dear Miss Dexter, when Lady Luck will frown on her favorite protege."

  Avalon rose abruptly.

  "And so on and so on," she said. "Let's skip the soul analysis. You heard him fling me to the wolves. I informed on him, he said. I told you about what he's been doing. I don't think I'm in danger of being hurt—or even being near him, for that matter. So long."

  She walked out of the hotel, straight and tall and lovely. When she was on the sidewalk, three cab drivers rushed up to claim her for a fare. She chose one.

  "The Tombs," she said; and the man blinked.

  "Caught up with th' boy friend, hey? 'Stoo bad, lady."

  "My grandmother," Avalon said icily, "is in jail for matri­cide. I'm taking her a hacksaw. Will you hurry?"