The Saint Meets the Tiger s-1 Page 16

  As silently as she had descended she climbed the stairs again. The door of Miss Girton's room stood open, and she went in, crossed swiftly, and opened the casement windows. This room was on the opposite side of the house to the drawing room, and just beneath the windows was a kind of shed with a sloping roof. As a schoolgirl, Patricia had often clambered through those windows and taken perilous toboggan rides down the slates, saving herself from the drop by catching her heels in the gutter. Now she was bigger, and the stunt had no terrors for her.

  Slithering swiftly over the sill she gathered up her skirt, held on for a second, and then let herself slide. Rotten as it was, the gutter stopped her as safely as it had ever done, in spite of her increased weight. Then she worked herself over the edge, let herself down as far as she could, and let herself fall the remaining five feet, landing lightly on the grass below.

  She doubled round the house, and then she had a setback, for the curtains of the drawing-room windows were drawn, and the windows themselves were closed. This had not been so when she came in. Returning from Lapping's, she approached the house from the drawingroom side, and she could not have failed to notice anything so out of the ordinary, for Aunt Agatha verged on the cranky in her passion for fresh air and light even in the most unseasonable weather. Had the visitor, then, arrived after Patricia, or had the curtains been drawn for fear of her nosing round in the garden?

  That, however, could be debated later. She stole up and examined both the French windows, but even from the outside she could see that they were fastened, and the hangings had been so carefully arranged that not even a hair's breadth of the room was visible. She could have cried with vexation.

  She meditated smashing a pane of glass and bursting in, but a moment's reflection showed her the futility of that course. Simon Templar might have brought it off, but she did not feel so confident of her own power to force the pace. And with two of them against her, in spite of the automatic she might be tricked and overpowered. At a pinch she would have made the attempt, but the issue was too great to take such a chance when a man far more competent to deal with the matter was waiting to do his stuff if she could learn enough to show him where to make the raid. And the one certain thing in a labyrinth of mystery was that a man who visits somebody else's house generally leaves it again sooner or later.

  She looked around for a hiding place, and saw at once the summerhouse in a corner of the garden. From there she could watch both the drawing-room windows and the front door — no observation post could have been better placed. She sprinted across to it. There was a window ideally placed, half overgrown with creeper, and through that she could see without being seen. Patricia settled down to, her vigil.

  It was about then that her name cropped up in the conversation which was taking place in the drawing room, but that she could not know.

  "One little pill — and such a little one!" remarked the man who was talking to Agatha Girton, and he placed the tiny white tablet carefully in the centre of the table. "You wouldn't think it could make a grown woman sleep like a log for about six hours, would you? But that's what it'll do. Just put it in her coffee after dinner — it'll dissolve in no time — and she'll pass out within five minutes. Lay her out comfortably on the sofa, and I'll collect her about eleven."

  He was a tall, sparsely built man, and although they were alone he kept his soft hat pulled low down over his eyes and his coat collar was turned up to his chin so that only part of his face was visible.

  "You can do your own murdering," snapped Agatha Girton in a strained voice, but the man only laughed.

  "Not murder, I promise you. She's strong, and all she'll get will be a slight headache to-morrow morning. You can't imagine I'd kill such a charming girl!"

  Miss Girton leaned across the table, thrusting her face down close to him, but in the gloom the shadow of his hat brim fell across his features like a mask.

  "Swine!" she hissed.

  He moved his hand protestingly.

  "Your newly acquired righteousness isn't wasted," he said. "I'm honestly very fond of Patricia, but I'm afraid she wouldn't take me seriously as things are. So let us say that I propose to apply the rather unconventional methods of Miss Hull's sheiks"

  "I am also very fond of Patricia," said Miss Girton.

  "You ought to tell her," replied the man sardonically. "But mind you break it to her gently. No, my dear, that shouldn't trouble you very much. On a suitable occasion I shall ask Patricia to marry me, and nothing could be more respectable than that."

  Miss Girton stared:

  "Why lie?" she asked bitterly. "There are no witnesses."

  "But I mean it," persisted the man.

  The woman's gaunt face twisted in a sneer, and there was a venomous hatred in her eyes,

  "Some people say that all crooks are slightly mad," she answered. "I'm beginning to think they're right."

  The man lifted his face a trifle, so that he could look reproachfully at her. He ignored her sally, but he spoke again in a soft, dreamy, singsong tone.

  "I was never more serious in my life. I have succeeded in my profession. In my way I am a great man. I am educated, clever, cultured, travelled, healthy, entertaining. I have all the wealth that a man could desire. My youth is passing away, though I still look very young. But I see the best years slipping past and leaving me alone. I love Patricia. I must do this to show her that I am in earnest; afterward she will refuse me nothing...."

  The voice trailed away, and Miss Girtoff wrenched a chair round savagely.

  "Mad!" she muttered, and hesatup with a start.

  "What was I saying?" His eye fell on the glistening white pellet marooned in the expanse of polished walnut, "Oh, yes. Do you understand?"

  Agatha Girton came close to him again.

  "You're mad," she rasped — "I'll tell you so again. With all this money, all this wealth you boast about, why did you have to put the black on me? If you're so rich, what was a mere twenty thousand to you?"

  "One can never have too much," said the man. "And now, as things have fallen out, it is all going back where it belongs — as a dowry. Anyway, is twenty thousand so much to pay for liberty, and even life? They might manage to get you for murder, you know, Aunt Agatha."

  "Don't call me Aunt Agatha,"

  "Then — ”

  "Nor that, either."

  The man shrugged.

  "Very well, O Nameless One," he said with calculated insolence. "Remember this. Nameless One, that I have taken a lot of money from you, but now I want something that money cannot buy. And you will give it to me.... Otherwise — But you dare not be stupid!"

  Miss Girton still looked at him with those deep-set eyes of hate.

  "I don't know," she said slowly. "For years you've made my life a misery. I've a mind to end it. And putting you where you belong might make them forget some of the things they know about me. The busies are always kind to squeakers."

  The man was silent for a short space; then he put up his hand and pulled his hat a little farther over his eyes. He turned his head, but he could only have seen her feet.

  "I am not like the busies," he returned in a voice that was cold and flat and hard like a sheet of ice. "Don't talk like that — or I might be tempted to put you where you will have no power to threaten me."

  He stood up and walked to the door, his hands in the side pockets of his coat and his shoulders hunched up. He turned the key and pulled the door open quickly and silently. Leaning out, he glanced up and down the hall, then half pulled the door to while he spoke to Miss Girton.

  "I can Jet myself out. The lady upstairs, isn’t she?"

  "I heard her moving about overhead a little while ago."

  He waited a moment, as though listening.

  "Your ears are better than mine," he said, and looked at her warningly. "Do exactly as I told you, and don't try to double-cross me. You mightn't succeed. Good-evening."

  The door closed behind him, and she could hear him moving across the hall
.

  For a moment she hesitated.

  Then she crossed the room swiftly and pulled out the drawer of the writing bureau. She felt in the cavity and tugged. When she straightened up there was a small automatic pistol in her hand. She went to the windows at the front, snapping back the jacket of the gun as she did so and pushing over the safety catch.

  The heavy curtains swung away as she jerked at the cord that controlled them, and she saw the man hurrying down the drive. Without looking round, he turned and went down the road to the left, and Agatha Girton opened the French windows and stepped out on to the terrace. The range was about twenty-five yards, but the hedge at the bottom of the garden was a low one, and his body could be seen above it from the waist upward.

  Miss Girton raised the gun and extended her arm slowly and steadily, as she might have done in a Bisley competition. At that moment the man turned to the right again into a field, and so his back was squarely presented to her.

  The echoes of the two rapid shots rattled clamorously in the still air of the evening. She saw the man fling up his arms, stagger, and fall out of sight.

  Suddenly she found Patricia beside her.

  "Who was it?" gasped the girl, white-faced and shaking. "What have you done?"

  "Killed him, I hope," said Agatha Girton coolly.

  She was standing on tiptoe, gazing out into the gathering dusk, trying to see the result other shooting. But there was the hedge at the end of the Manor garden and the hedge that lined the field into which the man had passed, both hiding the more distant ground from her, and she could see no sign of him.

  "Stay here while I go and see," she commanded.

  She walked quickly down the drive, and the automatic still swung in her hand. Patricia saw her enter the field.

  The man was lying on the grass, sprawled out on his back. His hat had fallen off, and he stared at the sky with wide eyes. Miss Girton put down her gun and bent over him, feeling for the beating of his heart...

  Patricia heard the woman's shrill scream', arid then she saw Agatha Girton standing up, swaying, with her hands over her face.

  The girl's fingers closed over tlie butt of the automatic in her pocket as she raced down the drive and out into the road. Miss Girton was still standing up with her face in her hands, and Patricia saw with a sudden dread that blood was streaming down between the woman's fingers. There was no trace of the man.

  "He was shamming," gasped Agatha Girton. "I put down my gun — he caught me — he had a knife...."

  "What's he done?"

  Miss Girton did not answer at once. Then she pointed to a clump of trees and bushes in the far corner of the field, which was not a big one.

  "He took the gun and ran that way — there's a sunken lane beyond."

  "I'll go after him," said Patricia, without stopping to think of the consequences, but Agatha Girton caught her arm in a terrible grip.

  "Don't be a little fool, child!" she grated. "That's death.... I lost my head.... All he said was: 'Don't do it again!'"

  The woman's hands were dripping red, and Patricia had to lead her back to the house and up the stairs.

  Agatha Girton went to the basin and filled it. She bathed her face, and the water was hideously dyed. Then she turned so that the girl could see, and Patricia had to bite back an involuntary cry of horror, for Miss Girton's forehead was cut to the bone in the shape of a capital T.

  Chapter XIV

  CAPTAIN PATRICIA

  "He branded me — the Tiger — " Agatha Girton's voice was pitched hysterically. "By God .. ."

  Her face had become the face of a fiend. Hard and grim it always was — now, with smears of blood from brow to chin and her hair straggling damply over her temples, it was devilish.

  "I'll get even for this one day.... I'll make him crawl.... Red-hot irons are too good for that — "

  "But, Aunt Agatha — "

  Patricia was full of questions, and it seemed the right moment to let some of them off, but Miss Girton turned on her like a wild beast, and the girl recoiled a step from the blaze of fury in those smouldering eyes.

  "Go away."

  "Was that the man who's been blackmailing you?"

  "Go away."

  "And is he the Tiger?"

  Miss Girton took a pace forward and pointed to the door.

  "Leave me, child," she said in a'terrible voice. "Go back to your Saint before I forget — If you aren't outside in a second I'll throw you out."

  She meant it. Patricia had never seen and hoped she would never see again a woman's face so contorted with passion. There was nothing to do.

  "Very well," said Patricia steadily. "I'll go I hope you won't be sorry."

  "Go, then."

  The girl flung up her head and marched to the door.

  Go back to Simon? She would. There wasn't much risk about walking over to the Pill Box, she thought, and the feel of the automatic in her pocket gave her all the courage she needed. The Saint wouldn't be expecting her, but he could hardly object, considering the news she was bringing him. It had been an eventful afternoon — more eventful than he could possibly have foreseen — and, since there was nothing more that she could achieve on her own, it was essential that he should be provided with all the news up to date.

  The time had passed quickly. It was twenty to seven when she set out: she came in sight of the Pill Box toward a quarter past, having taken it easy, and by that time it was nearly dark.

  The sea shone like dull silver, reflecting all the last rays of twilight, and from the top of the cliff Patricia strained to see the ship they had observed that morning. She thought she could make out the tiniest of black dots on the horizon, but she would not have sworn to it. That was the ship that the Saint and Orace and she were scheduled to capture by themselves, and the monumental audacity of the scheme made her smile. But it was just because the scheme was so impossible that the prospect of attempting to carry it out did not bother her at all: it was the sort of reckless dare-devil thing that people did in books and films, the forlorn hope that always materialized in time to provide a happy ending. She could think of no precedent for it in real life, and therefore the only thing to go by was the standard of fiction — according to which it was bound to succeed. But she wondered if any man living except the Saint — her Saint — would have had the imagination to think of it, the courage to work out the idea in all seriousness, the heroic foolhardiness to try and bring it off, and the personality to captain the adventure. She and Orace were nothing but his devoted lieutenants: the whole fate of the long hazard rested on the Saint's broad shoulders.

  With a shrug and a smile that showed her perfect teeth — a smile of utter fearlessness that Simon would have loved to see — the girl turned away and strolled across to the Pill Box. There was a light in the embrasure which she knew served for a window in the dining-drawing-smoking-sitting room, but when she peeped in she saw only Orace laying dinner. She went in and he swung round at the sound other footsteps.

  She was amused but perplexed to see his face light up and then fall again as he recognized her.

  "Where's Mr. Templar?" she asked, and he almost glared at her.

  "Baek ut art pas'sevin," he growled.

  He picked up his tray and stalked off toward the kitchen, and the girl stared after him in puzzlement. Orace, though a martinet, was only actually rude to Tiger Cubs and detectives: she had already seen through his mask of ferocity and discovered the kindly humanist underneath. On the last occasion of his escorting her home his manner had been even paternal, for Simon Templar's friends were Grace's friends. But this, now, was a ruffled Orace.

  She followed him to the kitchen.

  "Can I help you with anything? She inquired cheerfully.

  "Naow, don't think sa, miss," he replied gruffly. "I'm use ter mannidging alone — thanks."

  "Then could you tell me where Mr. Templar's gone? I could walk on and meet him."

  Orace hammered the point of a tin opener into a can of salmon with q
uite unnecessary violence.

  "Dunno anythink about it," he said. "You can betcha life, miss, 'e'll be 'ome when 'e said 'e would, if 'e can 'umanly possibly do ut. Most thunderin' punctual man alive, 'e is, an 'e'll come in the door just when the clock strikes. So yer got nuffin ta worry about."

  He ended on a more gentle note, but there was no doubt that he was very upset.

  "Why — has anything happened to make you think I'd be likely to worry?" Patricia queried, with her heart thumping a little faster. "Was he going to do anything special this afternoon?"

  "Naaow!"snarled Orace, unconvincingly derisive, and went on hacking at the tin.

  The girl went back to the sitting room and dropped into a chair. The Saint's cigarette box was handy to her elbow, and she took a cigarette and lighted it thoughtfully.

  Whether she was intended to worry or not, there could be no denying the obvious fact that Orace was distinctly agitated. She found it was twenty minutes and a bit past seven, and wondered if the Saint would be as punctual as Orace had predicted, and whether they would have to assume that something had happened to him if he hadn't arrived within five minutes of the half-hour. Where could he have gone? There was nothing to be done about the Tiger's ship at that hour. Had he gone on a preliminary reconnaissance of the island? Had he taken it into his head to inspect the Old House at closer quarters? Or had he gone over to beard Bittle or Bloem again — the sort of senseless bravado that would give a man like him a thrill?

  She watched the minute hand of her watch travel down to the twenty-five-past mark, and reflected that she had been spending a good deal other time lately with one eye on the clock, wondering if the Saint was going to be punctual or not. Heavens; he wasn't the only one who could be worried!

  Orace came in and laid a place for her. Then he lugged an enormous silver turnip from his trousers pocket.

  "In a minnit er two," he said. "Thunderin’ punctual, 'e always is."