The Saint Bids Diamonds (The Saint Series) Page 15

  “Well, boss, it’s like dis. I wake up in de morning, an’ de old buzzard is still knockin’ off de hours, so after a bit I figure I may as well see if I can promote some breakfast. I get hold of a chambermaid, an’ I say ‘Breakfast.’ She looks at me like a parrot, as if I was nuts, so I say ‘Breakfast’ again. So she says ‘Does I you know?’ I begin to t’ink she has de bugs herself. ‘Does I you know?’ she says. ‘What de hell kind of a jernt is dis?’ I say. ‘Have you gotta know me before you can get me some breakfast?’ All she does is go on saying ‘Does I you know?’ Are all dese spicks screwy, woujja t’ink, boss?”

  “Just about all of them,” said the Saint. “But she was only saying desayuno. It’s the Spanish for breakfast.”

  Mr Uniatz looked at him admiringly.

  “Now woujja believe dat?” he asked of the un-answering world. “I said dey were screwy, didn’t I? So what happens if dey want to say ‘Do I know ya?’ ”

  “That’s something quite different,” said the Saint hurriedly. “Anyway, I gathered that you got your breakfast. I saw the tray in your room.”

  “Sure. In de end she wakes up an’ goes away, an’ in about half an hour somebody knocks on de door—”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to open the door to anybody?”

  “I know dat’s what you tell me, boss, but how was I to know de waiters were in wit’ dese mugs?”

  “That wasn’t a waiter, you ass! Apart from anything else, you can always tell a Canary Islander on sight because there just aren’t any other people in the world who can look so ugly and unwashed and so pleased about it. The bloke who brought you your breakfast was one of what you call the mugs.”

  A pleased look of comprehension smoothed the scowl of concentration from Mr Uniatz’s brow.

  “Ah,” he said. “Maybe dat’s why he hits me on de head!”

  “Probably that had something to do with it,” Simon agreed, with powerful restraint. “What happened after that?”

  “I dunno, boss. I dunno what he hits me wit’, but when I wake up I’m all tied up on de bed.”

  “Didn’t you hear anything?”

  “No, I don’t hear nut’n or see nobody, only de skoit. She comes in an’ takes a gander at us an’ goes out again. Den I hear you talkin’ when you get here, an’ dat’s all.”

  Simon slid back his sleeve to examine his watch. It seemed that the girl had been a long time finding a taxi…Hoppy Uniatz tilted his bottle again and allowed the refreshing fluid to gurgle freely down his parched throat. When he paused for breath, he made an indicative movement of his head towards the bedroom.

  “De old buzzard,” he said. “How’s he makin’ out?”

  The Saint shrugged.

  “He’ll be all right,” he said shortly.

  He knew that it would only be a waste of time to attempt to explain his diagnosis of Joris Vanlinden’s condition to the audience he had at his disposal. But the reminder creased two thin lines of anxiety between his brows.

  Joris Vanlinden was slipping away—that was all there was to it. It wasn’t from any definite physical injury; although the beating he had taken the night before, and the crack on the head which had doubtless followed the one which Hoppy’s skull had received with so much less effect, had contributed their full share to his present condition. The fundamental injury was the injury to Vanlinden’s mind. He was an old man, and he had already been well worn down by the things that had happened to him in the years before: now, he was simply ceasing to fight. The drive of hope and will which any man must have to survive disaster, which the instinct of self-preservation gives to nearly every man in a greater or less degree, had been exhausted in him. Simon could recognise the state even though he had never actually encountered it before. Vanlinden was sinking into the state of inert despair in which men of earlier days are said to have turned their faces to the wall and died for no other reason than that the will to live had dried up within them. And Simon knew that it was only one added reason why he must lose no time.

  The girl was taking a fantastically long time to find a taxi…

  Simon found a piece of paper and scribbled on it the address where he had left Christine. He gave it to Hoppy, who had drained the last drops out of his bottle and was edging towards the kitchenette to look for more.

  “This is where Christine is,” he said. “As soon as we get out of here, I want you to go there and stick around. Your boyfriends caught me when I’d just come back from there in a taxi, and they got the number. One of them’s gone off already to look for it and see what he can find out. He’d still have a job to get Christine out, but I’m not taking any chances. You’re going to park yourself there, and if anybody comes prowling around you give them the works.”

  “Wit’ my Betsy?” said Mr Uniatz, cheering up.

  “With the blunt end of it,” said the Saint. “If you start any shooting around this town they’ll turn the army out on you—the police here are very excited about shooting today, from what I read in the paper this morning.”

  Mr Uniatz sighed.

  “Okay, boss,” he said dutifully.

  “And maybe by this time you’ll have learnt a few lessons about who you open doors to. Or do I have to tell you again?”

  “Boss,” said Mr Uniatz earnestly, “I hoija de foist time. I been a sucker once, but dey won’t catch me no more. De foist mug who tries to come in dat door, I’ll give him de heat—”

  “You won’t.”

  “I mean I’ll clop him on de tiles so hard he’ll t’ink he walked under an oitquake.”

  “See you don’t forget it,” said the Saint grimly. “Because if you do, Mrs Uniatz is going to be sorry about her son.”

  Hoppy shook his head.

  “Dey ain’t no Mrs Uniatz,” he said reminiscently. “My fader never knew who my ma was.”

  Simon considered this for a moment, and decided it would be safer not to probe further into it. He consulted his watch again and took a quick turn up and down the room. What the hell could the girl be doing?…With a sudden resolution, he went back into the bedroom.

  Vanlinden hadn’t moved. He looked up at the Saint with the same peacefully empty eyes.

  “Do you think you could walk a little way?” Simon asked gently.

  The old man remained motionless, without any change in his expression.

  “Christine wants to see you,” said the Saint.

  A pale wraith of a smile played momentarily on the other’s lips. Presently he raised his head, then his body. Simon helped him to his feet. He stood holding the Saint’s arm.

  “Where is she?”

  “We’ll take you to the hotel and bring her to see you.”

  Simon led him into the living room, and Hoppy greeted him with a brotherly wave of his hand.

  “Hi ya, pal,” said Mr Uniatz genially. “Hi ya makin’ out?”

  Vanlinden smiled at him with the same childish serenity.

  “Come on,” said the Saint. “We’ll be downstairs waiting for that god-damn taxi when it does get here. I want to catch up with your other boyfriend.”

  “What about dis punk?” demurred Mr Uniatz dubiously, indicating the still unconscious Palermo. “Do I give him de—”

  “No, you don’t. I’ll do that myself some other day. Come on.”

  They helped the old man down the stairs, although he needed less assistance than the Saint had feared. Physically, Vanlinden seemed to have more life than he had had the night before; only now his ability to move was more like that of a sleepwalker. It was his mind which had been drained of strength, which seemed to want nothing but to be left in timeless and effortless passivity.

  As they reached the hall, Simon heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. He left Hoppy to look after the old man and went to the front door. There was a small grille in one of the panels, and the slide which should have closed it was partly open. Something made the Saint look through it as he put his hand on the latch to open the door, and that one glance was enough to
make him whip his fingers away from the knob again as if it had stung him. For the car outside was not a taxi—it was Graner’s Buick.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  HOW MR PALERMO CONTINUED TO BE UNLUCKY AND HOPPY UNIATZ OBEYED ORDERS

  1

  Simon didn’t wait to see any more. He spun round as he heard Hoppy coming up behind him, and his eyes blazed a warning which even Mr Uniatz couldn’t misunderstand. Hoppy came to a halt, with his jaw drooping.

  The Saint’s glance scorched round the hall, dissecting all its possibilities in one sizzling survey. It didn’t offer cover for a mouse. Upstairs was a dead end. Outside the door were the new arrivals. Around him there was nothing but the door of the ground-floor apartment. Simon felt the handle. As he had anticipated, it was locked. He drew back to arm’s length and flung his weight against it, and the lock ceased to function…

  The Saint caught Hoppy by the elbow with one hand and Joris Vanlinden with the other. He almost lifted them up bodily and threw them into the room.

  “He’ll take you to the hotel to wait for Christine,” he said to Vanlinden. Then he looked at Hoppy. “Wait till the coast’s clear. Take him to the Orotava, put him in the room next to mine—Christine’s. Then go and look after her at the address I gave you. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get rid of these guys and follow along.”

  Hoppy’s mouth opened wider as the full meaning of these orders for desertion penetrated through his ears.

  “Boss—”

  “Don’t argue!” said the Saint, and pushed him back into the room.

  He closed the door in his face and leapt silently to the foot of the stairs as the key rattled in the lock of the front door. He realised what a desperate risk he was taking in every direction, but there was no other way. He couldn’t send Vanlinden with Hoppy to Keena’s apartment, because Aliston was searching for that hide-out and might already have found it, in which case Hoppy would have his hands full enough without any added encumbrances. The hotel was dangerous enough, with Graner’s chauffeur watching it from the other side of the road, but at least he couldn’t stop them going in, and Vanlinden would be safe there for a little while—so long as the gang didn’t know about Christine’s room. And the Saint himself had to stay behind, because apart from the more manifest obstacles to a joint getaway there was the matter of a loud crash when he disarranged the lock of the downstairs apartment which must have been audible outside and would want accounting for.

  All these things streaked through his mind like a volley of tracer bullets as he dropped himself on the ground at the foot of the stairway, and as the front door opened he began ostentatiously picking himself up. He heard quick steps coming towards him, and raised his eyes to the figures silhouetted against the light of the open door.

  “Put your hands up!”

  It was Graner’s voice.

  Simon completed the job of fetching himself upright and went on brushing the dust off his clothes.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said calmly, as if it had never occurred to him that the order was caused by anything but a mistake in his identity due to the dim light. “Why the hell can’t they put a light on these damn stairs? I nearly broke my neck. Did you ever hear anyone come down with such a thump?”

  The other man who had come in was Lauber. He ranged himself at Graner’s side, and both of them kept their guns trained on the Saint.

  “What are you doing?” said Graner.

  Simon continued to ignore the artillery.

  “Didn’t the girl tell you?” he asked innocently.

  He had already formed his own theory about why she had taken such a long time to find a taxi, and the response to the feeler he had put out confirmed his suspicion in the next instant.

  “She said you had had a fight with Palermo.”

  “That’s right,” said the Saint coolly. “I beat the hell out of him too. Come upstairs and I’ll show you.”

  He turned and started up the stairs so confidently that he heard the other two following him without protest.

  Mr Palermo still slept. The Saint turned him over and raised him by his collar to examine him. Palermo’s head lolled back limply. The new bruise on his chin was coming along nicely. He moaned in his sleep as though he might be wondering whether it was time to wake up. Simon let him flop down so that the back of his head cracked heavily on the tiles, and hoped that that would discourage the idea for a while.

  Graner and Lauber kept their guns in their hands while they studied Palermo in his slumber. Graner was the first to turn back to the Saint.

  “What is this about?” he demanded in his aloof sneering way.

  “I told the girl to give you a message.”

  “She rang up for Aliston and gave the message for him.”

  “For sheer half-wittedness give me a spick any day. I told her to tell you that Aliston was in it, in case you knew where he was!”

  “Was this in Spanish?”

  Simon shook his head and inwardly promised himself a kick in the pants at the first convenient opportunity. That made two bricks he had nearly dropped on the same dynamite; although there are few deceptions so difficult as to pretend ignorance of a familiar language.

  “Maybe that was the trouble,” he said. “But she said she understood. How much else did she get wrong?”

  “She said you had finished with Palermo and you were going to take away the two men who were here.”

  Simon nodded.

  “That’s almost right, although I said I wanted you to take them away.”

  “What was she talking about?”

  “Vanlinden and his pal.”

  “They were here?”

  “Sure. This is where Aliston and Palermo brought them after they grabbed them in the hotel this morning!”

  It was as if invisible nooses had been looped around the necks of his audience and suddenly tightened. Their eyes seemed to swell in their sockets, and their mouths opened as if their lungs had been unexpectedly deprived of air. Lauber’s heavy, sullen features darkened, and Graner’s brows drew together in an incredulous frown. Simon could see the shock he had sprung on them thump into the pits of their stomachs like a physical blow, so violent that it even robbed them of the ability to gasp.

  Again Graner was the quicker to recover—although Simon reflected that this might have been partly accounted for by the fact that the announcement must have given Lauber a few extra things to think over on his own.

  “How did you know?”

  “Christine told me first,” said the Saint. “Then Palermo and Aliston admitted it. I thought there was something fishy about their story that Joris and the other guy had cleared off on their own, when we knew they’d left Christine behind, but I didn’t like to say so at the time.”

  “How did Christine know where they were?”

  “She didn’t. Aliston and Palermo brought me here.”

  “Why?”

  The Saint rested himself side-saddle on the edge of the table. He knew that he had his audience on a string now—whatever they might be thinking, they would drink in every word he had to say on the subject, even if they formed their own conclusions afterwards—and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t make the most of his limelight while Hoppy and Joris removed themselves as far as possible from the vicinity.

  “I’d better begin at the beginning,” he said. “In the first place, I talked to Christine as soon as she awakened—told her the tale exactly as we arranged. She fell for it—well, like I fell down those blasted stairs. Bang! I made her believe I was serious about the proposition I was working up to when I put her to sleep, and we closed the deal on it. She told me plenty.”

  He paused to light a cigarette, while the other two waited impatiently. Their guns had drooped down until they were pointing at the floor, as if the two men had almost forgotten that they were still holding them.

  “As far as this Joris business is concerned,” he went on, “Christine told me she had a room on the floor below. She was jus
t coming out of the bathroom when she heard Aliston’s voice, and she ducked back in. She didn’t dare to come out for about an hour. She stood there with the door open a crack, scared stiff and wondering what was going to happen. There were some heavy trunks brought downstairs while she was there—we can guess what they had in them. Then Palermo and Aliston came down—she could hear them talking. They went on after the trunks, and as soon as she could pull herself together she rushed up to Joris’s room. He’d gone, and so had the other bloke. Once again, we can guess why and where and how. But she couldn’t. She almost had a fit. Then she heard someone coming up the stairs, and she was afraid it might be Palermo or Aliston coming back. She just rushed into the nearest room, which happened to be mine. I gather that she had some sort of idea that she’d fall into the arms of anyone who was there and make him look after her. Since there wasn’t anyone, she just stayed, having hysterics on and off. She didn’t dare to go back to her own room, because she thought Palermo and Aliston would still be looking for her; in fact, she didn’t dare to move at all. So that’s how we found her.”

  It was a lovely story to reel off on the spur of the moment, thought the Saint, and wondered if he had really mistaken his vocation in life. One way and another, the complications of that fantastic game of beggar-my-neighbour in which he had got himself tied up were developing him into a master of the art of applied fiction beside whom Ananias would have looked like a barker outside a flea circus.

  “But why did Palermo and Aliston bring you here?” Graner prompted him tensely.

  “I’m getting to that. First of all, I shifted Christine. After what she told me, I guessed Palermo and Aliston might be beetling along as soon as they could after they heard your news, in case I found out they were double-crossing you. I moved her out of the hotel—”

  “I told Manoel to follow you if you went out.”

  “I know that,” said the Saint blandly. “I saw him standing on the other side of the square after you’d gone. He was frightfully decorative. But I’d already told you my terms of business, and I wasn’t changing them. I took her out the back way.”