Alias the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 15

  “Good afternoon,” said Mr Teal.

  The Saint sighed, performed the necessary introductions, and invited the detective to be seated. Sir Enoch offered a cigar.

  “Sorry the number of that car didn’t help you,” said the Saint.

  “Faked plates,” said Teal sleepily. “I wasn’t expecting it would be any use.”

  He refused brandy, and chewed monotonously. It did not seem to be his radiant morn.

  “There’s nothing else you can tell me?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “There wouldn’t be. I could murder that guy with the machine-gun with my own hands, and smile while I was doing it. Why didn’t he hit you?”

  “Probably wanted to annoy you, Claud.” The Saint blew a perfect smoke-ring and turned to Duncarry. “The way this country is run is weird and wonderful. I pay rates and taxes which go towards maintaining the comic-opera police force of which Claud Eustace is such a distinguished member, but if I put in a claim for a rebate on account of a nice new suit ruined because I was compelled to lie down and soak up the London mud while the police allowed someone to spray the landscape with bullets, I’ll bet any money it would be turned down.”

  “If you’d stood up and got sprayed yourself, I’d have stood you a coffin,” said Teal acidly.

  He departed soon afterwards, with the air of a Christian martyr going into cold storage.

  Again Duncarry glanced at the Saint as if expecting a cue, and this time he received one. The tip of the Saint’s cigar traced a word in the air; and Duncarry rose, muttering something about a forgotten telegram, and cruised off in quest of his overcoat and hat. He finished his cigar in the lounge, and there the Saint rejoined him later.

  “Dun, I have been had for a mug. I’ve promised his Knighthood to clear Charles Barringer. I suppose we all have our moments of insanity.”

  “How come?”

  “I saw your inquiring eye fixed on me like a gimlet, and guessed you were on the point of asking the old boy the name of the man who was going to handle his cargo. But I’d sized him up. Knowing who you were, he’d have seen trouble coming for those birds, and the question would have frozen him stiff. I set about it in another way. Enoch really is fond of Barringer, and really does want to get him out of this police mess. That’s where I made my break. I promised to clear Barringer as white as if he had just been bleached.”

  “And what did you get for that?”

  “Kellory,” answered the Saint briefly.

  Duncarry pursed his lips and emitted a low whistle.

  “Blinder Kellory? Is that where Jack Farnberg drifted to, then? “

  “Seems like it. And it seems that Jack is proposing to work a bit of business into his trip over here.”

  “And Ardossi, and that yacht of his—”

  “Fits in. Vittorio told me he was still in the old game. The rest seems fairly easy—but the promise I gave about Barringer is going to give real trouble.”

  The lean American meditated for a moment.

  “If Jack Farnberg’s in this, and you meet, I suppose you’ll bump him off?”

  “Yeah.” The Saint gazed glumly at the table-cloth. “Killing Jack has never been the ambition of my young life, but it’s one of the things that are thrust upon one. If I don’t kill him, he’ll certainly kill me—and that would be too dreadful.”

  Duncarry frowned.

  “If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “I’d like to know why you’re so sure Barringer didn’t kill Friste.”

  The Saint looked at him.

  “Because I know who did,” he said.

  Something in the set of his mouth discouraged further questions, and there was silence for a few moments. And then the Saint laughed, and all the old careless gaiety danced back into his eyes.

  “My brain seems to improve every day,” he said. “In the last two hours I’ve had two brilliant inspirations.”

  “And what are they?”

  “At the moment I can only tell you one of them. You remember my mentioning a dragon when we were having a look at Gaydon’s Wharf? The idea I’ve just had about that dragon is probably one of the most brilliant ideas I shall ever have. The first time I said anything about it, I wasn’t any too sure how it was going to fit in, but I think it’s in its place now. You may get ready to scream at the joke when the time comes, sonny boy.”

  8

  “Taxi, sir?”

  The thick-set man who had just emerged from Pattman Buildings nodded. “Farringay Mansions, Chelsea.”

  The door of the cab closed with a bang. It was a fairly long journey from the heart of the City to Chelsea, but the driver made good time of it, and, without consulting the meter, his passenger pushed a ten-shilling note into his hand.

  Ten seconds later, the taxi driver entered the building and approached the hall porter with an envelope in his hand.

  “Where does the chap I just drove up live?” he asked. “I found this in the cab. Will you take it?”

  “Take it yourself, and he may spring a couple of bob,” said the porter. “Number eleven.”

  “Thanks, mate.”

  The driver hurried up the carpeted staircase, and near the end of a corridor he saw the number of the flat blinking at him in polished brass figures above a shining knocker. He lifted the knocker and rapped.

  The passenger opened the door himself. “You left this on the floor of the cab, sir.”

  The man frowned.

  “It isn’t mine,” he said.

  “Better look at it and make sure, sir. It isn’t sealed.”

  The thick-set man with the drawling nasal accent turned back the flap of the envelope, and drew out a card. Then he saw what was drawn on it, and his heavy jaw dropped.

  “Jolly sort of day, isn’t it, Jack?”

  The taxi driver took off his peaked cap and straggling walrus moustache, and Farnberg stared at him. The silent automatic which Detective Duncarry had admired gleamed blue-black in the Saint’s right hand.

  Jack Farnberg dropped the card, and his big hands went up slowly.

  “Am I on the spot, Saint?” he asked huskily.

  “Near enough.”

  The gunman’s tongue flicked over his lips. He was the abysmal brute, but he had no lack of courage. He gave his shoulders a shrug, and grinned crookedly.

  “Get on with it, then,” he said. “You stacked this deck, Saint, and it’s your ante this time.”

  “Yes, I’m going to kill you, Jack,” said Simon Templar softly. “And if Vittorio happens along, he’ll be able to split the funeral with you. I’m a forgiving sort of bloke, honey, but the man who says that the Saint framed him is asking for something hot and nasty.”

  “Shoot—and preach the damned sermon afterwards,” snarled Farnberg, and again his tongue slid over his dry lips.

  “Not yet, dear one,” answered the Saint gently. “Just now I’ve got a promise to keep, and that lets you out. But I wanted you to know what was coming to you. Now yelp, Jack. There’s a hall porter down below. Open your mouth and exercise your lungs!”

  Someone came pattering along the corridor, and the Saint took two swift steps backwards and shifted his automatic to his left hand. In the mirror behind Farnberg he saw the handle turn.

  Then the door opened, and a woman came in. In the mirror, with one watchful eye fixed on Farnberg and the other looking behind him, the Saint took stock of her swiftly and comprehensively. She wore a brown, fur-trimmed coat, brown close-fitting hat, silk stockings, and high-heeled shoes. Between her carmined lips was a lighted cigarette. Her face was powdered and her cheeks were rouged.

  The Saint crooked his arm and straightened it again. His fist smashed against the hat just where the lobe of an ear, with an ear-ring in it, showed below the felt. It was a mule-kick of a punch, and the slim figure sprawled face downwards on the carpet without a sound.

  The Saint shifted his gun back into his right hand, closed the door, and put his foot on a smouldering cigarette.

>   “Not good enough, Jack,” he said regretfully. “Vittorio hasn’t practised enough with those shoes—it was the way he walked gave him away. Come on, Jack—let’s hear you yell.”

  Farnberg showed his teeth.

  “See here,” he said, “if you didn’t sell me to the cops in Brooklyn, I know you’re in with them now, and I guess you’ve got a squad of them outside. I couldn’t shoot straight the other night because the car lurched. So it’s your turn now.”

  “Beautiful,” said the Saint, “you may tell me one thing before I go. And you may say it quick. What have you done with Patricia Holm?”

  He saw the sudden crinkling of Farnberg’s forehead. And all at once he had a blinding, dazzling flash of understanding. Yet the most amazing thing about it was that it made him wonder why he had never thought of it before. It was superb, splendiferous—far too good to be true. But true it must have been. He had no further doubt on that score, and the realisation filled him with a real and wild delight.

  “Don’t bother to answer,” he said quickly. “I guess we’ll be hearing from you again pretty soon. Till then, you can hold that for me!”

  In one lightning movement the Saint lashed a terrific undercut into the point of the gunman’s jaw, garnered him with a sweep of his arm as his body sagged, and let him drop gently forward over his outstretched leg. Smiling happily at the scene of slaughter, he paused to light a cigarette. Then he went out, shutting the door behind him.

  “Did he drop?” asked the hall porter, and the taxi driver smiled seraphically under his replaced face-hair.

  “Not half,” he answered. “And now—where do we go?”

  “There’s one round the corner,” replied the porter.

  They went round the corner together.

  Simon treated the porter to a pint of beer and a packet of cigarettes, and drove him back to the flats.

  “Married?” he asked, as his unrecorded fare stepped out.

  “Don’t I know it! One kid, eighteen months, and the best yeller in England.”

  “Put that in its money-box,” said the Saint.

  He crammed the ten-shilling note that Farnberg had paid him into the porter’s hand and drove away.

  Two hours later, resplendent in perfectly fitting evening clothes, the Saint was filling a slim, gold cigarette-case in preparation for what he reckoned was a well-earned reward for his afternoon’s work.

  Simon had repaired his previous omission and made Duncarry a member of the Jericho Club, and there he knew he would find the American.

  The Club was down by the river, within a furlong of Farringay Mansions. On his way the Saint passed the door, and saw his friend the porter standing there looking up at the moon.

  “Have you got a match?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  The porter fished out his matchbox and was rewarded with a cigarette. Not for a moment did he suspect that the slim and supremely elegant young man was none other than the princely taxi driver who had given him the ten-shilling note which even then was warming his pocket.

  As he passed on, Simon Templar glanced up at the windows of the flats which fronted the river. In one of them—unless they had already taken fright and wing—there were two people with sore and sorry heads.

  He chuckled and passed on. At the Jericho Club there was no crowd at that hour, for most of the members were late birds. In a quiet corner of the supper-room he discovered Duncarry entertaining a select company with some bewildering card tricks. Seeing the Saint, Duncarry put the cards aside and drifted over to the bar. His quick eyes noticed the slight abrasions on the Saint’s knuckles at once.

  “More trouble?” he inquired laconically.

  “Nothing much.”

  The New Yorker pulled thoughtfully at his cigar.

  “Both of them?” he asked lazily.

  The Saint told his story briefly, and Duncarry listened in silence. At the end he grunted.

  “I’ll bet you don’t tell Teal that story,” he said. “Gee, he’d murder you.”

  “He’d want to.”

  Duncarry gave him a puzzled look.

  “I still don’t know why you left ’em.”

  “I explained that long ago,” said the Saint. “Furthermore, Wiltham came through on the phone this morning to say he had fixed up the sale of his cargo to Kellory, and that Kellory’s representative would come to his office at five o’clock to pay for it. I guessed that representative would be Jack Farnberg, and so I was waiting outside.”

  “Sure. But when you’d got the skunks down and out—”

  “Why didn’t I collect and deliver them to Scotland Yard? Well, for one thing I wanted Jack Farnberg for myself; and for another, I’ve got to let Jack run around until his cheque’s cleared—according to my terms to Ali Baba of the forty chins.”

  “Beats me,” said Duncarry helplessly. “That precious pair will never stop running now—and they’ve still got that girl.”

  “That’s why I’m letting them run,” said the Saint. “Nothing will happen to Eileen—you can take that from me.”

  “But does Wiltham know that the man who shot you up the other night is the same man that’s got his daughter?”

  “He doesn’t—naturally. But he’d be a fool if he hadn’t noticed that there was something in the wind and that you were some of it. If I’d told him what we know, he mightn’t have been so keen to make me promise that you’d do nothing to ball up his sale.”

  “You’re playing with fire,” said Duncarry grimly. “Not that I expect that’s news to you, but you’d better take my tip and watch your step. If I was interested in that Wiltham girl, I wouldn’t be too sure she’s safe.”

  “And yet I know she is—for a day or two.”

  Duncarry shrugged.

  “It’s your affair,” he said briefly. “Are we free for the rest of the evening?”

  “So far as I know,” said the Saint, and Duncarry expressed his unqualified approval.

  The band struck up, and Duncarry produced and placed upon his head a most outrageous paper hat. From another pocket he brought a contraption which he elongated into a diabolical instrument of noise and discord. Blowing shrill blasts, he proceeded to give a gratuitous example of what he considered a one-man cabaret should be.

  It was later when the Saint was presented with the banjo and requested to give one of his blasphemous recitals. But in these days he seemed destined to leave everything of that sort unfinished.

  “Roes in the bud,

  Sweet ova of the sturgeon—”

  Again a waiter approached, and the Saint abandoned his attempt and went out to find Barringer in the vestibule.

  “I had a letter tonight—”

  “I know,” said the Saint, and the young man stared.

  “How do you know?”

  Simon smiled.

  “My spies are everywhere,” he said calmly. “The letter said that you will disclose the secret of your alcohol invention in an arranged manner, or something unpleasant will happen to Eileen.”

  Barringer gaped at him wide-eyed.

  “How the devil did you know that?”

  “There’s precious little I don’t know, son,” replied the Saint airily. “But I produced that brainwave by concentration alone, combined with many hours of fasting and prayer.”

  “But what are we going to do?”

  “Nothing—tonight.”

  The Saint’s hand fell on Barringer’s shoulder, and the Saintly smile was quiet and reassuring.

  “Don’t think twice about answering that letter or obeying it. The occasion will not arise. Tomorrow night you shall see Eileen again—I give you my word for that.”

  A few minutes later the Saint was continuing his song as if nothing had happened.

  The Saint had not brought his car, but that night he had no wreckage to deliver to the hotel in Elmbury Square, for at the close of play Detective Duncarry was showing no signs of unsteadiness or sleeping sickness.

  “We’ll take a strol
l and get some fresh air, Dun, and then pick up a taxi.”

  The night was crisp and dry, and they walked slowly along the Embankment enjoying the peace of the evening. As they came near the Farringay Mansions, Simon pointed upwards.

  “That’s where Jack and I had our little heart-to-heart talk.”

  Detective Duncarry looked. Except for a light in the entrance hall, the flats were in darkness, and the face of the building was broken only by arrays of drawn blinds.

  “It must have been a great moment when they both woke up,” grinned the New Yorker.

  “They’re awake now,” said the Saint. “See that?”

  A pale light suddenly gleamed through three of the lowered blinds. Then one of the windows went dark again, and the other two followed suit.

  “It beats me why they haven’t made their getaway hours ago,” said Duncarry.

  The Saint glanced round.

  “There’s an empty taxi with its flag down—I guess they’re making that getaway this minute. Fade into the sheltering shadows, Dun. I shouldn’t think Jack’s temper is any too good just now, and if he sees two suspicious characters hovering around he might do something sticky with a gun. I’ve promised to go and help Pat buy a new hat tomorrow and I couldn’t cope with the problem on a stretcher.”

  The taxicab stopped before the front entrance, and the driver jumped down and swung his arms, for there was a frosty nip in the air. He had to wait several minutes for his fares, but they emerged in due course—a man and a woman. Duncarry, sheltering behind the iron cage round an almost leafless tree, almost wept as the cab moved away.

  “This country of yours is a damned sight too civilised,” he said bitterly. “I suppose over here you’ve got to have a written permission from the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury to kill a mosquito. I’ve a gun in my pocket, and I could have settled the whole thing in two pops.”

  The Saint laughed.

  “Keep off the grass,” he said. “That couple of hoodlums is my preserve. But I’ll tell you something, Dun.”