The Saint Goes West (The Saint Series) Page 10

  “You’ll have to move into the house, of course,” Pellman said, and they drove to the Mirador Hotel to redeem the Saint’s modest luggage, which had already run up a bill of some twenty dollars for the few hours it had occupied a room.

  Pellman’s house was a new edifice perched on the sheer hills that form the western wall of the town. Palm Springs itself lies on the flat floor of the valley that eases imperceptibly down to the sub-sea level of the Salton Sea, but on the western side it nestles tightly against the sharp surges of broken granite that soar up with precipitous swiftness to the eternal snows of San Jacinto. The private road to it curled precariously up the rugged edges of brown leaping cliffs, and from the jealously stolen lawn in front of the building you could look down and see Palm Springs spread out beneath you like a map, and beyond it the floor of the desert mottled gray-green with greasewood and weeds and cactus and smoke tree, spreading through infinite clear distances across to the last spurs of the San Bernardino mountains and widening southwards towards the broad baking spreads that had once been the bed of a forgotten sea whose tide levels were still graven on the parched rocks that bordered the plain.

  The house itself looked more like an artist’s conception of an oasis hideaway than any artist would have believed. It was a sprawling bungalow in the California Spanish style that meandered lazily among pools and patios as a man might have dreamed it in an idle hour—a thing of white stucco walls and bright red tile roofs, of deep cool verandahs and inconsequential arches, of sheltering palm trees and crazy flagstones, of gay beds of petunias and ramparts of oleanders and white columns dripping with the richness of bougainvillea. It was a place where an illusion had been so skilfully created that with hardly any imagination at all you could feel the gracious tempo of a century that would never come again; where you might see courtly hacendados bowing over slim white hands with the suppleness of velvet and steel, and hear the tinkle of fountains and the shuffle of soft-footed servants, and smell the flowers in the raven hair of laughing señoritas; where at the turn of any corner you might even find a nymph—

  Yes, you might always find a nymph, Simon agreed, as they turned a corner by the swimming pool and there was a sudden squeal and he had a lightning glimpse of long golden limbs uncurling and leaping up, and rounded breasts vanishing almost instantaneously through the door of the bath house, so swiftly and fleetingly that he could easily have been convinced that he had dreamed it.

  “That’s Esther,” Freddie explained casually. “She likes taking her clothes off.”

  Simon remembered the much-publicised peculiarities of the Pellman ménage, and took an even more philosophical attitude towards his new job.

  “One of your secretaries?” he murmured.

  “That’s right,” Freddie said blandly. “Come in and meet the others.”

  The others were in the living-room, if such a baronial chamber could be correctly designated by such an ordinary name. From the inside, it looked like a Hollywood studio designer’s idea of something between a Cordoban mosque and the main hall of a medieval castle. It had a tiled floor and a domed gold mosaic ceiling, with leopard and tiger skin rugs, Monterey furniture, and fake suits of armor in between.

  “This is Miss Starr,” Freddie introduced. “Call her Ginny. Mr Templar.”

  Ginny had red hair like hot dark gold, and a creamy skin with freckles. You could study all of it except about two square feet which were accidentally concealed by a green Lastex swim-suit that clung to her soft ripe figure—where it wasn’t artistically cut away for better exposures—like emerald paint. She sat at a table by herself, playing solitaire. She looked up and gave the Saint a long disturbing smile, and said, “Hi.”

  “And this is Lissa O’Neill,” Freddie said.

  Lissa was the blonde. Her hair was the color of young Indiana corn, and her eyes were as blue as the sky, and there were dew-dipped roses in her cheeks that might easily have grown beside the Shannon. She lay stretched out on a couch with a book propped up on her flat stomach, and she wore an expensively simple white play suit against which her slim legs looked warmly gilded.

  Simon glanced at the book. It had the lurid jacket of a Crime Club mystery.

  “How is it?” he asked.

  “Not bad,” she said. “I thought I had it solved in the third chapter, but now I think I’m wrong. What did he say your name was?”

  “She’s always reading mysteries,” Ginny put in. “She’s our tame crime expert—Madam Hawkshaw. Every time anyone gets murdered in the papers she knows all about it.”

  “And why not?” Lissa insisted. “They’re usually so stupid, anyone but a detective could see it.”

  “You must have been reading the right books,” said the Saint.

  “Did he say ‘Templar’?” Lissa asked.

  The door opened then, and Esther came in. Simon recognised her by her face, a perfect oval set with warm brown eyes and broken by a red mouth that always seemed to be whispering “If we were alone…” A softly waved mane the color of smoked chestnuts framed the face in a dark dreamy cloud. The rest of her was not quite so easily identifiable, for she had wrapped it in a loose blue robe that left a little scope for speculation. Not too much, for the lapels only managed to meet at her waist, and just a little below that the folds shrank away from the impudent obtrusion of a shapely thigh.

  “A fine thing,” she said. “Walking in on me when I didn’t have a stitch on.”

  “I bet you loved it,” Ginny said, cheating a black ten out of the bottom of the pack and slipping it on to a red jack.

  “Do we get introduced?” said Esther.

  “Meet Miss Swinburne,” said Freddie. “Mr Templar. Now you know everybody. I want you to feel at home. My name’s Freddie. We’re going to call you Simon. All right?”

  “All right,” said the Saint.

  “Then we’re all at home,” said Freddie, making his point. “We don’t have to have any formality. If any of the girls go for you, that’s all right too. We’re all pals together.”

  “Me first,” said Ginny.

  “Why you?” objected Esther. “After all, if you’d been there to give him the first preview—”

  The Saint took out his cigarette-case with as much poise as any man could have called on in the circumstances.

  “The line forms on the right,” he remarked. “Or you can see my agent. But don’t let’s be confused about this. I only work here. You ought to tell them, Freddie.”

  The Filipino boy wheeled in the portable bar, and Pellman threaded his way over to it and began to work.

  “The girls know all about that threatening letter. I showed it to them this morning. Didn’t I, Lissa? You remember that note I showed you?” Reassured by confirmation, Freddie picked up the cocktail shaker again and said, “Well, Simon Templar is going to take care of us. You know who he is, don’t you? The Saint. That’s who he is,” said Freddie, leaving no room for misunderstanding.

  “I thought so,” said Lissa, with her cornflower eyes clinging to the Saint’s face. “I’ve seen pictures of you.” She put her book down and moved her long legs invitingly to make some room on the couch. “What do you think about that note?”

  Simon accepted the invitation. He didn’t think she was any less potentially dangerous than the other two, but she was a little more quiet and subtle about it. Besides, she at least had something else to talk about.

  “Tell me what you think,” he said. “You might have a good point of view.”

  “I thought it sounded rather like something out of a cheap magazine.”

  “There you are!” exclaimed Freddie triumphantly, from the middle distance. “Isn’t that amazing? Eh, Simon? Listen to this, Ginny. That’s what she reads detective stories for. You’ll like this. D’you know what Simon said when I showed him that note? What did you say, Simon?”

  “I said it sounded a bit corny.”

  “There!” said Freddie, personally vindicated. “That’s the very word he used. He said it was c
orny. That’s what he said as soon as he read it.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” said Esther, “only I didn’t like to say so. Probably it’s just some crackpot trying to be funny.”

  “On the other hand,” Simon mentioned, “a lot of crackpots have killed people, and plenty of real murders have been pretty corny. And whether you’re killed by a crackpot or the most rational person in the world, and whether the performance is corny or not, you end up just as dead.”

  “Don’t a lot of criminals read detective stories?” Lissa asked.

  The Saint nodded.

  “Most of them. And they get good ideas from them, too. Most writers are pretty clever, in spite of the funny way they look, and when they go in for crime they put in a lot of research and invention that a practising thug doesn’t have the time or the ability to do for himself. But he could pick up a lot of hints from reading the right authors.”

  “He could learn a lot of mistakes not to make, too.”

  “Maybe there’s something in that,” said the Saint. “Perhaps the stupid criminals you were talking about are only the ones who don’t read books. Maybe the others get to be so clever that they never get caught, and so you never hear about them at all.”

  “Brrr,” said Ginny. “You’re giving me goose-pimples. Why don’t you just call the cops?”

  “Because the Saint’s a lot smarter than the cops,” said Freddie. “That’s what I hired him for. He can run rings round the cops any day. He’s been doing it for years. Lissa knows all about him, because she reads things. You tell them about him, Lissa.”

  He came over with clusters of Manhattans in his hands, poured out in goblets that would have been suitable for fruit punch.

  “Let her off,” said the Saint hastily. “If she really knows the whole story of my life she might shock somebody. Let’s do some serious drinking instead.”

  “Okay,” said Freddie amiably. “You’re the boss. You go on being the mystery man. Let’s all get stinking.”

  The fact that they did not all get stinking was certainly no fault of Freddie Pellman’s. It could not be denied that he did his generous best to assist his guests to attain that state of ideal ossification. His failure could only be attributed to the superior discretion of the company, and the remarkably high level of resistance which they seemed to have in common.

  It was quite a classic performance in its way. Freddie concocted two more Manhattans, built on the same scale as milk shakes. There was then a brief breathing spell while they went to their rooms to change. Then they went to the Doll House for dinner. They had two more normal-sized cocktails before the meal, and champagne with it. After that they had brandy. Then they proceeded to visit all the other bars up and down the main street, working from north to south and back again. They had Zombies at the Luau, Planter’s Punches at the Cubana, highballs at the Chi Chi, and more highballs at Bil-Al’s. Working back, they freshened up with some beer at Happy’s, clamped it down with a Collins at the Del Tahquitz, topped it with Daiquiris at the Royal Palms, and discovered tequila at Claridge’s. This brought them back to the Doll House for another bottle of champagne. They were all walking on their own feet and talking intelligibly, if not profoundly. People have received medals for less notable feats. It must be admitted nevertheless that there had been a certain amount of cheating. The girls, undoubtedly educated by past experiences, had contrived to leave a respectable number of drinks unfinished, and Simon Templar, who had also been around, had sundry legerdemains of his own for keeping control of the situation.

  Freddie Pellman probably had an advantage over all of them in the insulating effect of past picklings, but Simon had to admit that the man was remarkable. He had been alcoholic when Simon met him, but he seemed to progress very little beyond that stage. Possibly he navigated with a little more difficulty, but he could still stand upright; possibly his speech became a little more slurred, but he could still be understood; certainly he became rather more glassy-eyed, but he could still see what was going on. It was as if there was a definite point beyond which his calloused tissues had no further power to assimilate liquid stimulus: being sodden already, the overflow washed over them without depositing any added exhilaration.

  He sat and looked at his glass and said, “There must be some other joints we haven’t been to yet.”

  Then he rolled gently over sideways and lay flat on the floor, snoring.

  Ginny gazed down at him estimatingly and said, “That’s only the third time I’ve seen him pass out. It must be catching up with him.”

  “Well, now we can relax,” said Esther, and moved her chair closer to the Saint.

  “I think we’d better get him home,” Lissa said.

  It seemed like a moderately sound idea, since the head waiter and the proprietor were advancing towards the scene with professional restraint.

  Simon helped to hoist Freddie up, and they got him out to the car without waking him. The Saint drove them back to the house, and the lights went up as they stopped at the door. The Filipino boy came out and helped phlegmatically with the disembarcation. He didn’t show either surprise or disapproval. Apparently such homecomings were perfectly normal events in his experience.

  Between them they carried the sleeper to his room and laid him on the bed.

  “Okay,” said the boy. “I take care of him now.”

  He began to work Freddie expertly out of his coat.

  “You seem to have the touch,” said the Saint. “How long have you been in this job?”

  “’Bout six months. He’s all right. You leave him to me, sir. I put him to bed.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Angelo, sir. I take care of him. You want anything, you tell me.”

  “Thanks,” said the Saint, and drifted back to the living-room.

  He arrived in the course of a desultory argument which suggested that the threat which had been virtually ignored all evening had begun to seem a little less ludicrous with the arrival of bedtime.

  “You can move in with me, Ginny,” Lissa was saying.

  “Nuts,” said Ginny. “You’ll sit up half the night reading, and I want some sleep.”

  “For a change,” said Esther. “I’ll move in with you, Lissa.”

  “You snore,” said Lissa candidly.

  “I don’t!”

  “And where does that leave me?” Ginny protested.

  “I expect you’ll find company,” Esther said sulkily. “You’ve been working for it hard enough.”

  Simon coughed discreetly.

  “Angelo is in charge,” he said, “and I’m going to turn in.”

  “What, so soon?” pouted Esther. “Let’s all have another drink first. I know, let’s have a game of strip poker.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the Saint. “I’m not so young as I was this afternoon. I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be a bodyguard,” said Ginny.

  The Saint smiled.

  “I am, darling. I guard Freddie’s body.”

  “Freddie’s passed out. You ought to keep us company.”

  “It’s all so silly,” Lissa said. “I’m not scared. We haven’t anything to be afraid of. Even if that note was serious, it’s Freddie they’re after. Nobody’s going to do anything to us.”

  “How do you know they won’t get into the wrong room?” Esther objected.

  “You can hang a sign on your door,” Simon suggested, “giving them directions. Goodnight, pretty maidens.”

  He made his exit before there could be any more discussion, and went to his bedroom.

  The bedrooms trailed away from the house in a long L-shaped wing. Freddie’s room was at the far end of the wing, and his door faced down the broad, screened verandah by which the rooms were reached. Simon had the room next to it, from which one of the girls had been moved; their rooms were now strung around the angle of the L towards the main building. There was a communicating door on both sides of his room. He tried the o
ne which should have opened in to Freddie’s room, but he found that there was a second door backing closely against it, and that one was locked. He went around by the verandah, and found Angelo preparing to turn out the lights.

  “He sleep well now,” said the Filipino with a grin. “You no worry.”

  Freddie was neatly tucked into bed, his clothes carefully folded over a chair. Simon went over and looked at him. He certainly wasn’t dead at that point—his snoring was stertorously alive.

  The Saint located the other side of the communicating door, and tried the handle. It still wouldn’t move, and there was no key in the lock.

  “D’you know how to open this, Angelo?” he asked.

  The Filipino shook his head.

  “Don’t know. Is lock?”

  “Is lock.”

  “I never see key. Maybe somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” Simon agreed.

  It didn’t look like a profitable inquiry to pursue much further, and Simon figured that it probably didn’t matter. He still hadn’t developed any real conviction of danger over-shadowing the house, and at that moment the idea seemed particularly far-fetched. He went out of the room, and the Filipino switched off the light.

  “Everything already lock up, sir. You no worry. I go to sleep now.”

  “Happy dreams,” said the Saint.

  He returned to his own room, and undressed and rolled into bed. He felt in pretty good shape, but he didn’t want to start the next day with an unnecessary headache. He was likely to have enough other headaches without that. Aside from the drinking pace and the uninhibited feminine hazards, he felt that a day would come when Freddie Pellman’s conversational style would cease to hold him with the same eager fascination that it created at the first encounter. Eventually, he felt, a thousand dollars a day would begin to seem like a relatively small salary for listening to Freddie talk. But that was something that could be faced when the time came. Maybe he would be able to explain it to Freddie and get a raise…