12 The Saint in London (The Misfortunes of Mr Teal) Page 15

  In a very few seconds the door was opened, and Teal pushed past the butler unceremoniously. It would not be true to say that Mr. Teal's heart was singing, but at least he had not yet plumbed the most abysmal caverns of despair.

  "I want to see Mr. Vickery," he said; and the butler turned from the door.

  "My name is Vickery, sir," he replied.

  A spectral shade of ripe muscatel infused itself slowly into the detective's round ruddy face. His eyes protruded slowly, as if they were being grad ually inflated by a very small air pump. The wob-blings of his rotund body were invisible beneath his clothes, but even without those symptoms there was something about his general aspect which suggested that a piece of tinder laid on his brow would have burst instantly into flame. When at last vocal expression could no longer be denied, his voice cracked. He practically squeaked.

  "What?"

  "Vickery, sir," repeated the butler. "My name is Vickery."

  Mr. Teal had been looking at him more closely.

  "Your name is Trusaneff," he said. "You did three years at Parkhurst for robbery with violence."

  "Yes, sir," said the butler respectfully. "Nevertheless, sir, I have changed my name to Vickery."

  Teal glowered past him at a man with a scarred face who was lounging at the other end of the hall.

  "And I suppose his name is Vickery, too?" he said scorchingly.

  The butler looked round and nodded.

  "Yes, sir. His name is also Vickery."

  "How many more Vickerys are there in this house?" Teal howled, with his brain beginning to reel.

  "Three, sir," said the butler imperturbably. "Everyone in this house is called Vickery, with the exception of Mr. Nordsten. Even the kitchen-maid," he added with a sigh, "is now known as Vickery. It is highly confusing."

  Something that would have made a self-preservative rattlesnake wriggle away to hide itself down the nearest length of gas pipe welled into the detective's bulging glare. There was a strange springy sensation in his legs, as if they had been separately hitched onto two powerful steam tractors and simultaneously extended in all directions, It was, as we have already admitted, very unfortunate. It gave Mr. Teal no chance. He ploughed on doggedly; but his hold on his temper was never again the firm commanding grip of a heavyweight wrestler subduing a recalcitrant urchin it was more akin to the frantic clutch on the pants of a man whose suspenders have come apart.

  "I'll see Mr. Nordsten," he announced gratingly; and the saturnine butler bowed.

  "This way, sir."

  He led the simmering detective to the library; and Mr. Teal followed him in and looked the room over with a pair of eyes in which the habitual affectation of sleepiness had to be induced with a bludgeon. Two men were sitting there, smoking cigars. One of them was a pale and tired-looking Ivar Nordsten--Teal, who made it his business to have at least a sight acquaintance with every important man in the country, had no difficulty in recognizing him--the other man called for no effort of recognition.

  "Good-evening, sir," Teal said curtly to Nordsten; and then he looked at the Saint. "You're also Vickery, I take it?"

  The Saint smiled.

  "Claud," he said penitently, "I'm afraid we've been pulling your leg."

  Mr. Teal's tonsils came up into his mouth, and he gulped them back. The effort brought his complexion two or three shades closer to the tint of the sun-kissed damson.

  "Pulling my leg," he repeated torridly. "Yes, I suppose you were."

  "You see, Claud," Simon explained frankly, "when I heard you were on your way round here looking for a bloke named Vickery, I thought it would be rather priceless if you beetled in and found that the place was simply infested with Vickerys. I could just see your patient frog-like face------"

  "Could you?" Teal's voice was thick and curdled with the frightful tension of his restraint. "Well, I'm not interested in that. WThat I want to hear from you is why you've been going under the name of Vickery yourself." Nordsten cleared his throat. "I suppose," he remarked coldly, "you consider that you have some right to come in and behave like this, Mr.--er------"

  "Teal is my name, sir," said the detective tersely. "Chief Inspector Teal." "Inspects anything," said the Saint. "Gas meters, drains, hen roosts------"

  "I'm from Scotland Yard," Teal almost shouted. "Where the Highlanders hang out their washing," Simon explained.

  Mr. Teal's collar strained on its studs; and Nordsten nodded.

  "That need not prevent you stating your business in a proper manner," he said stiffly. "What is all this fuss about?"

  "That man," said the detective, with a sweltering glance at the Saint, "is a well-known criminal. His real name is Simon Templar; and I want to know what he's doing in this house pretending to be Vickery!"

  "I can easily tell you that," answered Nordsten promptly. "Mr. Templar is an intimate friend of mine. I know his reputation, though I should hardly go so far as to call him a criminal. But he is certainly well known, and of course servants will always talk. I think he exaggerates the powers of gossip, but whenever he comes to stay with me he always insists on calling himself Vickery to save me from any embarrassment."

  "And how long has he been staying with you this time, sir?" Teal inquired roughly.

  "Since last night--or perhaps I should say yesterday morning."

  "Can you remember the time exactly?"

  "It must have been a few minutes after two o'clock. I met him in Bond Street, and he had just left the Barnyard Club. I was driving home rather late from a dinner, and I asked Mr. Templar to come down with me."

  It may be confessed at once that Chief Inspector Teal had never been kicked in the stomach by a sportive mule. But if that sublime experience had ever befallen him, it is safe to affirm that the expression on his face would have been practically indistinguishable from the one which came over it as he gaped speechlessly at Nordsten. Twice he attempted to force words through his larynx, which appeared to have become clogged with glue; and at the third attempt he succeeded.

  "You tell me," he said, "that you met Templar in Bond Street at two o'clock yesterday morning and brought him straight down here?"

  "Of course," answered Nordsten shortly. "Why not?"

  Mr. Teal took in a mouthful of air and wedged his bouncing tonsils down with it. Why not? When a taxi driver had been found that very afternoon who said that a man whom he identified from Simon Templar's photograph had paid him fivc hundred pounds for his taxi, his overcoat, and his cap, shortly after two o'clock. It was true that this man had said that he wanted the taxi for a museum . . .

  "Did he have a taxi with him?" Teal blurted sudorifically.

  "As a matter of fact, he had," said Nordsten with faint surprise. "He had just bought it because he wanted to present it to a museum. We had to take it to a garage before we drove down."

  "How on earth did you guess that, Claud?" asked the Saint admiringly.

  Mr. Teal's pudgy fists clenched.

  "Guess it?" he yapped and cleared his obstructed throat. There were so many other things he wanted to say. How did he guess it? Words failed him. It was true that no one had been able to take the number of the taxi in which that par- ticular train of trouble had begun, on account of its defective rear light; it was true that no one could positively identify the taxi, which was exactly the same as any other standard cab of prewar vintage; it was true that no one could positively identify the man who had driven it; but there was a limit to coincidences. The Saint had met Mr. Teal outside the club and seen him go in. The Saint had bought a taxi. Mr. Teal had ridden in a taxi shortly afterwards and sustained adventures such as only the Saint's evil genius could have originated. How did he guess it? Mr. Teal's protruding eyes turned glassily back to the Saint; but what court in the kingdom would ac-cept his description of Simon's smile of gentle mockery as evidence? Teal swung round on Nord-sten again. "How long had he had this taxi when you met him?" he croaked.

  "It can't have been many minutes," said Nord-sten. "When I came down Bond
Street he was standing beside it, and he pointed out the driver walking away and told me what had happened.'

  "Was anyone else with you?"

  "My chauffeur."

  "You know that your butler is a convicted criminal?"

  Nordsten raised his eyebrows.

  "I fail to see the connection; but of course I am familiar with his record. I happen to be inter-ested in criminal reform--if that is any concern of yours." Erik was very tired; but the nervous tension of his voice and hands, at that moment was very easily construed as a symptom of rising anger. "If I am to understand that you want my evidence in connection with some criminal charge, Inspector," he said with some asperity, "I shall be glad to give it in the proper place; and I think my reputation will be sufficient support of my sworn word."

  Simon Templar eased a cylinder of ash off his cigar and uncoiled his lazy length from the armchair in which he had been relaxing. He stood up, lean and wicked and tantalizing in the silk dressing gown which he had thrown on over his scanty clothing, and smiled at the detective very seraphically.

  "Somehow, Claud," he murmured, "I feel that you're shinning up the wrong flagpole. Now why not be a sportsman and admit that you've launched a floater? Drop in again some time, and we'll put on the whole works. There will be a trapdoor in the floor under the carpet and a sinister cellar underneath with two dead bodies in it------"

  "I wish one of them could be yours," said Mr. Teal, in a tone of passionate yearning.

  "Talking of bodies," said the Saint, "I believe your tummy is getting bigger. When I prod it with my finger------"

  "Don't do it!" brayed the infuriated detective.

  The Saint sighed.

  "I'm afraid you're a bit peevish tonight, Eustace," he said reproachfully. "Never mind. We all have our off moments, and a good dose of castor oil in the morning is a great pick-me-up. . . . And so to bed."

  He steered the detective affectionately towards the door; and, having no other instructions, the inarticulate Sergeant Barrow joined in the general exodus. Mr. Teal could not forbid him. Looked at from every angle that Chief Inspector Teal's overheated brain could devise, which included a few slants that Euclid never dreamed of, the situation offered no other exit. And in the depths of his soul Teal wanted nothing better than to go away. He wanted to remove himself into some un-fathomed backwater of space and sit there for centuries with a supply of spearmint in his pocket and an ice compress on his head, figuring out how it had all happened. And in his heart was some of the outraged bitterness which must have afflicted Sisera when the stars in their courses stepped aside to biff him on the dome.

  "Mind the step," said the Saint genially, at the front door.

  "All right," said the detective grittily. "I'll look after myself. You'd better do the same. You can't get away with it for ever. One day I'm going to catch you short of an alibi. One day I'm going to get you in a place that you can't lie yourself out of. One day------"

  "I'll be seein' ya," drawled the Saint and closed the door.

  He turned round and looked at the butler, Trusaneff, who had come forward when the library door opened; and put his hands in his pockets.

  "I gather that you remembered your lines Trotzky," he said.

  "Yes, sir," answered the man, with murderous eyes.

  Simon smiled at him thoughtfully and moved his right hand a little in his dressing-gown pocket.

  "I hope you will go on remembering them," he said, in a voice of great gentleness. "The Vickery joke is over, but the rest goes on. You can leave this place as soon as you like and take any other thugs you can find lying around along with you. But you are the only man in the world who knows that we've had a change of Ivar Nordstens, so that if it ever leaks out I shall know exactly whom to look for. You know who I am; and I have a key to eternal silence."

  He went back to the library, and Erik Nordsten looked up as he came in.

  "Was I all right?" he asked.

  "You were magnificent," said the Saint. He stretched himself and grinned. "You must be just about all in by this time, my lad. Let's call it a day. A hot bath and a night's sleep in clean sheets'll make a new man of you. And you will be a new man. But there's just one other thing I'm going to ask you to do tomorrow."

  "What is it?"

  "There's a rather pretty kid named Vickery round at my house who put me into the whole thing, if you haven't forgotten what I told you. I can smuggle her out of the country easily enough, but she's still got to live. One of your offices in Sweden might find room for her, if you said the word. I seem to remember you telling Claud Eustace that you were interested in reforming criminals, and she'd be an excellent subject."

  The other nodded.

  "I expect it could be arranged." He stood up, shrugging himself unconsciously in the unfamiliar feeling of the smart lounge suit which Simon had found for him in Nordsten's wardrobe; and what must have been the first smile of two incredible years flickered momentarily on his tired mouth. "I suppose there's no hope of reforming you?"

  "Teal has promised to try," said the Saint piously.

  Ill

  THE ART OF ALIBI

  I

  Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal unfolded the paper wrapping from a leaf of chewing gum with slow-moving pudgy fingers, and the sleepy china-blue eyes in his pink chubby face blinked across the table with the bland expressionlessness of a doll.

  "Of course I know your point of view," he said flatly. "I'm not a fool. I know that you've never done anything which I could complain about if I were just a spectator. I know that all the men you've robbed and"--the somnolent eyes steadied themselves deliberately for a moment--"and killed," he said--"they've all deserved it--in a way. But I also know that, technically, you're the most dangerous and persistent criminal outside of prison. I'm a police officer, and my job is technicalities."

  "Such as pulling in some wretched innkeeper for selling a glass of beer at the wrong time, while the man who floats a million-pound swindle gets away on a point of law," Simon Templar suggested gently; and the detective nodded.

  "That's my job," he said, "and you know it."

  The Saint smiled.

  "I know it, Claud," he murmured. "But it's also the reason for my own career of crime."

  "That, and the money you make out of it," said the detective, with a tinge of gloomy cynicism in his voice.

  "And, as you say, the boodle," Simon agreed shamelessly.

  Mr. Teal sighed.

  In that stolid, methodical, honest, plodding, unimaginative and uninspired mechanism which was his mind, there lingered the memory of many defeats--of the countless times when he had gone up against that blithe and bantering buccaneer, and his long-suffering tail had been mercilessly pulled, stretched, twisted, strung with a pendant of tin cans and fireworks, and finally nailed firmly down between his legs; and it was not a pleasant recollection. Also in his consciousness was the fact that the price of his dinner had undoubtedly been paid out of the boodle of some other buccaneering foray, and the additional disturbing fact that he had enjoyed his dinner immensely from the first moment to the last. It was very hard for him to reconcile those three conflicting emanations from his brain; and his heavy-lidded eyes masked themselves even deeper under their perpetual affectation of weariness as he rolled the underwear of his spearmint ration into a small pink ball and flicked it across the restaurant tablecloth. He might even have been phrasing some suitable reply which should have comprehended all the opalescent facets of his paradox in one masterly sentence; but at that moment a waiter came to the table.

  The chronicler, a conscientious and respectable citizen whose income-tax payments are never more than two years in arrears, hesitates over those last ten words. He bounces, like an inexpert matador on the antlers of an Andalusian bull, upon the horns of a dilemma. All his artistic soul, all that luminescent literary genius which has won him the applause and reverence of the reading world, rises in shuddering protest against that scant dismissal. He feels that this waiter, who
rejoiced in the name of Bassanio Quinquapotti, should have more space. He is tempted to elaborate at much greater length the origin and obscure beginnings of this harbinger of fate, this dickey-bird of destiny; to expatiate in pages of elegant verbiage upon the psychological motivations which put him into permanent evening dress, upon his feverish sex life, and upon the atrophied talent which made him such a popular performer on the sackbut at informal Soho soirees. For this waiter who came to the table was the herald of five million golden pounds, the augur of one of the Saint's most satisfactory adventures, and the outrider of yet another of the melancholy journeys of Mr. Teal. With all these things in mind, the sensitive psyche of the historian revolts from that terse unceremonious description --"a waiter came to the table." And only the bloodthirsty impatience of editors and publishers forces him to press on.

  "Excuse me, sir," said this waiter (whose name, we insist on recording, was Bassanio Quinqua-potti), "but are you Mr. Teal?"

  "That's right," said the detective.

  "You're wanted on the telephone, sir," said the waiter (Bassanio Quinquapotti).

  Mr. Teal got up and left the table. Ulysses, at some time or another, must have got up and left a table with the same limpid innocence, undreaming of the odyssey which lay before him. . . . And the Saint lighted a cigarette and watched him go.

  It was one of those rare occasions when Simon Templar's conscience carried no load; when his restless brain was inevitably plotting some fresh audacious mischief, as it always Was, but there was no definite incident in the daily chronicles of London crime which could give Scotland Yard cause to inquire interestedly into his movements; and Chief Inspector Teal was enjoying a brief precarious interlude of peace. At those times the Saint could beguile Mr. Teal into sharing a meal with him, and Mr. Teal would accept it with an air of implacable suspicion; but they would both end their evening with a vague feeling of regret.