Alias the Saint (The Saint Series) Read online

  He flashed a glance round the barely furnished room. There was a table, a couple of chairs, and precious little else. The Saint heaved those three items of furniture against the door, and made for the window.

  This did not appear to have been opened since the day when it was first installed—both upper and lower sashes resisted his efforts. And at that moment Farnberg crashed against the slenderly barricaded door.

  A small cupboard stood under the window. The Saint snatched it up in his two hands and hurled it bodily through the glass. It left a wide jagged hole which he had no time to negotiate carefully. He stepped back four paces, took a short run, and launched himself through it horizontally, in a high flat dive.

  As he went through, he heard the items of furniture collapse before Farnberg’s terrific onslaught.

  Then the waters of the river engulfed him with a mighty splash.

  He came up for a breath and dived again, this time like a porpoise. He swam a dozen yards under water, and let himself rise again gently. Even so, a shot plopped into the water a moment after his head broke the surface. He dived again, changing his direction, and heard the muffled sounds of further shooting as he went down, but there was no more of it when he came up again.

  He paddled silently along in the deep shadows under the walls of the buildings that came right down to the water’s edge. Presently a little jetty loomed up ahead of him. He turned alongside it, and a few seconds later he was pulling himself over the stern of the light electric launch that he had parked there the previous evening to await his need.

  As he started it up, he heard the engine of a River Police launch chattering officiously over the dark stream, and a spotlight wobbled along the line of warehouses and picked up the face of Reginald Friste framed in the broken window. Simon heard the shouted question, and the word “burglar,” among others, in reply; and he was smiling serenely as he let in the clutch and was borne swiftly and soundlessly up the stream.

  3

  Patricia Holm carried the bowl of bronze chrysanthemums from the sideboard to the window seat to give the blossoms a sunbath. The Saint, who was also taking a sunbath, turned his head.

  “It dawns upon me,” he said, “that we are stagnating rapidly. For a whole fortnight I have done nothing either desperately wicked or stickily virtuous. Also, I have run out of cigarettes. And the thought of having to walk two hundred yards to the nearest tobacconist’s makes me want to burst into tears.”

  Patricia handed him a case of dainty white cylinders tipped with rose leaves. The Saint took one, lighted it, and shuddered faintly; and his lady regarded him with indignation.

  “What’s the matter with them?” she demanded.

  “Probably, like barley water and spats, they’re an acquired taste,” said the Saint. “They have one good point—a seductive element of doubt. Is the flavour vanilla, or just mulligatawny with a dash of scented hair-oil?”

  Patricia detached the abomination from his fingers and sat on the arm of his chair.

  “What are you going to do, lad?”

  “Blowed if I know,” said the Saint gloomily. “Of course, I could always murder a bishop. I could bring you his scalp, and you could use it to trim your new coat—the one that looks as if we’d found a way of using up last year’s eiderdowns. But I have a dreadful feeling that bishops are mostly bald. Can you think of a bishop with a really luxuriant growth?”

  “Ass,” said Patricia, and she kissed him.

  The Saint gazed through the brightly curtained windows at the charmingly sunlit scenery of Upper Berkeley Mews. From the middle distance came the swishing and whoofling sounds of the morning wash and brush-up parade. Invisible taxis honked and spluttered in the adjacent streets, but in the quiet backwater of Upper Berkeley Mews brooded an atmosphere of autumn calm.

  And then into the peace and quiet burst the rattle of an intruding taxi. It stopped just beyond the open windows; and the Saint, leaning forward, saw the man who alighted from it, and groaned.

  “Gawd!” said the Saint sepulchrally. “Our one and only Teal is paying us a visit. Open the door to him, sweetheart, and brain him with the hat-rack if you get a chance. Maybe he’s got some decent cigarettes on him.”

  Patricia departed; and the Saint put his feet on the window-sill and closed his eyes. He was in that position when Chief Inspector Teal came in.

  “Good morning,” said Teal, and the Saint opened one eye and focused his visitor.

  “It was,” he agreed wearily, and closed the eye again. “Have you got a cigarette?”

  Teal drew up a chair and sat down.

  “I haven’t,” he said.

  “That makes you, if possible, even more unwelcome,” said the Saint. “You’ll probably be murdered before you leave—we were just looking round for someone to kill. Pat, where are your manners? Pass Claud Eustace the garbage tubes.”

  Patricia obeyed, and Teal took one look at the offering and declined gracefully.

  “Beer, then?” said the Saint.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” said Teal, “fat men didn’t ought to drink.”

  “Teal,” said the Saint wearily, “if you were a blanket, you’d be the wettest thing that ever happened. But if you’ll allow me—”

  He proceeded to the barrel in the corner, filled a tankard, and returned to his chair.

  “Now what’s the worry?”

  “What are you doing these days, Saint?”

  “To the most casual observer,” said the Saint, “it should be obvious that I’m winding up the parish clock.”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  “Sorry,” said the Saint, “I can’t. I’m employed to wind it up.”

  “Been getting into any trouble lately, Saint?”

  Simon appeared to consider the point carefully.

  “Not that I can remember,” he said at length. “Of course, I may have bumped somebody off in my sleep. Or do you mean something else? There was a little blonde I met at the Berkeley the other night—”

  Teal unwrapped a wafer of Mr Wrigley’s unrivalled jaw exerciser, and engulfed it ponderously.

  “I was thinking maybe you’d have something helpful to say about that Gaydon’s Wharf case,” he said.

  “Don’t,” said the Saint pathetically. “I’m not well enough. I don’t want any of those Sherlock Holmes stunts, my dear Watson. They’re as dead as the dodo. You found a cigarette coupon rolled up and concealed in the murdered man’s left ear. If he had collected five hundred of them he would have obtained a pair of fish knives and a sardine opener. From this we deduce that the murdered man was fond of fish. Therefore the man whose bitter hatred he had aroused was the local butcher. Arrest the butcher, and the thing’s done. Next case, please.”

  Teal looked at him.

  “Suppose you come along and talk down at my office,” he suggested, and the Saint sighed.

  “Is this another arrest?” he inquired.

  “Not yet,” said Teal ominously.

  The Saint drank deeply.

  “Then we’ll hear your trouble now,” he said. “I’ll come for a walk with you later, if it sounds interesting enough.”

  Teal nodded slowly, and masticated in silence for some moments. Then again he turned his round, red face towards the Saint.

  “Have you been lying low because you knew Duncarry was over here?”

  “Nope. That hatchet-faced New York sleuth and I have entombed the tomahawk.”

  “I wondered,” said Teal. “Somehow, we got discussing you.”

  “And what did you hear?”

  “Nothing against you,” said Teal, almost regretfully. “He doesn’t seem to bear any malice. He asked me to get hold of you and give you a message.”

  “I’ll hear it.”

  “Duncarry said, ‘Break the glad news to that reformed and Saintly guy. Give him a big earful of the joyous tidings that Jack Farnberg has busted his corral and is rampaging around somewhere on this side with his war paint on and feathers in his hair.’ But what he
meant was—”

  “I know the language,” murmured the Saint mildly. “Did you think you were the only man in London who went to the movies? But what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I just thought you might be interested,” said Teal. “Also, that’s another matter you might be able to help me over. We’re looking for Farnberg—we don’t want him over here. And as soon as he’s found he’s going to be put on the first boat and shipped back to his home town. Duncarry had an idea that you’d be the first person Farnberg would want to see on this side.”

  “But not to give me his love and kisses,” drawled the Saint. “Sure—I understand. And if Jack comes beetling in here, all hung around with howitzers, you want me to collect him and pass him along to the Export Department.”

  “I’d be obliged if you would,” Teal admitted. “But that’s nothing to do with the Gaydon’s Wharf business. Now, look here, Templar—”

  “Shoot.”

  “I don’t mind telling you that’s stumped me. It’s stumped every single man at the Yard. A man shot dead in a room that no one could possibly have got into, and no trace of a weapon. We aren’t miracle men, and it just occurred to me—”

  “That I might have one of my brilliant inspirations?”

  “That’s about the strength of it.” Teal regarded the Saint seriously. “If you’re at a loose end—”

  The Saint stroked his chin, and slowly a light dawned in his eyes.

  “It’s an idea,” he murmured.

  Then he stood up.

  “Teal, it’s the hell of an idea! I shouldn’t think you’ll have another idea like that in the next thirty years—with a brain like yours.”

  “You’ll see what you can do?”

  “I will. For the first time in his life the Saint shall hunt on the side of law and order. The coruscations of his astounding intellect shall dazzle the nitwits of Scotland Yard. You have only to lead me to the body.”

  He swung round with his quick laugh. The idea had fired his volatile brain as the Saint’s ideas always did, with a dazzling, dancing suddenness.

  “Sorry, Pat, old dear, but you’ll have to wait for your bishop. Duty calls, and these lighter pastimes must wait for their turn.

  But if a rural dean will satisfy you until Friday—eyes right for a moment, Claud.”

  Patricia put up her mouth, and the Saint dealt with it suitably.

  “The sailor’s farewell to his horse. And so we pass on to the perils of our calling. O.K., Claud Eustace.”

  He swung himself out of the window.

  “Your hat,” said Patricia.

  The Saint caught his head furniture.

  “Thanks,” he said, smiling up at her. “Don’t expect me back to lunch—I have to tell Teal the stirring story of the cardinal and the pig of the aunt of the gardener.”

  “I haven’t heard that one,” said Patricia.

  “Neither have I,” said the Saint. “But I shall invent it as we go along. I’ve just woken up after a fortnight’s sleep, and my brain is buzzing. So long, old darling!”

  He disappeared with a gay wave of his hand; and as Teal emerged more sedately through the door, the long, lean Hirondel purred up with the Saint at the wheel.

  “I seem,” said the Saint, as he spun the great car into Piccadilly in his cheerfully murderous way, “I seem, Claud, to have heard that there’s a fair lady floating somewhere in the background of this spot of bother.”

  “You’ve seen the newspapers?” The Saint nodded.

  “Eileen Wiltham,” he said. “I presume you’ve inspected her?”

  “I have.”

  “Pimples?”

  “No.”

  “Squint?”

  “No.”

  “Bow legs?”

  “No.”

  “Shall I be allowed to meet her in the course of my profound investigations?” “No.”

  “Teal, as a prophet you’re bum,” said the Saint happily, and concentrated on manoeuvring the car through a gap between two omnibuses that would conveniently have accommodated an emaciated visiting card.

  4

  When they arrived at Scotland Yard, Teal was greeted with a message to say that the Assistant Commissioner desired converse with him, and the Saint strolled on alone to the office in which the detective was accustomed to think his great thoughts, earn a certain amount of his salary, and qualify for the pension which the patient British tax-payer would one day have to provide.

  The Saint, with his hands in his pockets, kicked open the door, and then stopped on the threshold; and the lean figure of Detective Duncarry of New York City shot out of an easy chair with outstretched hand.

  “Hullo, Saint!”

  They gripped. Once upon a time, in some gay days on the other side of the Atlantic, when the Saint had been on the run and Detective Duncarry had been doing the chasing, they had fallen down an elevator shaft together; but the smile with which the American greeted the man to whom he owed his limp that would go with him to the end of his life was innocent of all animosity.

  “It’s good to see you again, Saint.”

  “And damned good to see you,” murmured Simon. “Hell—this was worth waiting for! I always had an idea I’d like to take a look at you without any artillery blocking the view.”

  “Have a stogie?”

  Simon shook his head. He lighted a cigarette and seated himself on the desk, and for a few moments there was a reminiscent silence.

  “Did you get my message?” asked the New Yorker presently.

  “I did. And has any more stuff like Jack Farnberg leaked out of your tanks?”

  “One or two have faded out,” said Duncarry, nodding curtly. “We’ve been having a bit of a clean-up lately. There was some rough stuff down in Canal one night last month, and four of Farnberg’s bunch got between the fresh air and some lead that was floating around. But Farnberg was the guy we wanted, and he was the guy we didn’t get. From what trickles through he wants you like a butcher wants sheep—in the form of mutton.”

  The Saint grinned.

  “He’s not the only one,” he murmured. “But he’s got more reason for it than some of the others. Those were the days!”

  “Is Teal coming along?”

  “Some time. He’s having a heart-to-heart chat with the Ass. Comm. at the moment. Let’s forget him. He’s all balled up with a murder case these days—spends all his waking hours on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass and a bottle of glue, looking for clues.”

  “He said he was going to talk to you about that.”

  “He has,” said the Saint. “You’d better watch your step, Dun—you see in me an incipient sleuth, full of righteousness and chemical beer. Which reminds me—have you started thinking about lunch?”

  “I had started,” admitted Duncarry.

  “Then let’s go and see if we can get some poured out,” said the Saint. And Duncarry intimated that the idea was O.K. with him.

  Simon scribbled a message and spiked it to the desk with Teal’s favourite pen. They walked round to the Victoria, and it was there that Duncarry harked back to a matter of curiosity.

  “How did you come to get in trouble with Farnberg, Saint?”

  “It just happened—that night in Brooklyn. He bothered me, and I had to tread on him. The trouble was that he was just going down for the third time when the raid started. Farnberg stopped a nasty one right at the beginning, and I was slightly plugged myself. I did a two-mile swim that night with a couple of bullets in me for ballast.” He smiled. ‘‘There always seems to be some water around to spoil my clothes whenever I meet Jack,” he said cryptically.

  “Have you heard Jack’s end of the story?”

  “Not yet.”

  “His yarn is that it was a frame-up—that you just waded into him and got him mixed and held him till the cops came in. That was the story he told the court, and he went over the Bridge of Sighs still saying it.”

  “And then?”

  “Ardossi worked
his get-away. Where they went to nobody knows for certain, but we know they got over to Europe somehow, and I’ve more than a good idea that they’re right here in London. That’s the reason why I’m over on this side of the big pond.”

  “That’s just your idea?”

  “That’s all I know so far—I’ve only been over a few days.”

  The Saint was lounging with his back to the bar, and for a moment Duncarry failed to notice his sudden immobility. And then the Saint spoke again—quietly and gently.

  “Then from information received,” he drawled, “I can tell you that that’s more than your own private hunch—it’s just plain fact.”

  He shifted off the bar, straightening up with his most Saintly smile.

  “Come right on in, Vittorio,” he said clearly, and Duncarry spun round. “What the hell—”

  The Saint laughed.

  “Too late, old dear,” he murmured. “You missed the vision.”

  He strolled forward and picked up a glossy silk hat, and returned with it to the bar.

  “He bolted as soon as I spoke—just let go his lid and skidded for the tall timber. But if it wasn’t Vittorio Ardossi himself, I’m at this moment selling fish and chips in the Commercial Road. You were dead right, son—there are some bright days coming.”

  He gazed thoughtfully at the swing doors through which the flying Italian had made his exit; and then, radiant again, he waved a hand to Teal, who at that moment opened them. Something in Duncarry’s lean face indicated trouble, and Teal blinked at the two men speculatively.

  “What’s been happening?”

  “Nothing much—I’ve just been collecting Duncarry part of his outfit for next year’s Ascot.”

  The Saint waved the silk hat.

  He up-ended the head-piece on the bar, and pencilled in the lining an artistic sketch of a little man with a circle for a head and straight lines to designate body and limbs. Above the circle he perpetrated something that might equally well have suggested a halo or a starved and suicidally-minded sausage making a ferocious attack on its own tail; and Teal looked over his shoulder and watched the performance curiously.