The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror) Page 17

  The car was held up at an Oxford Street crossing, and the Saint's back was towards him. Perrigo thought he had it all his own way.

  But he had reckoned without the driving-mirror. For several minutes past the Saint had been doing a lot of Perrigo's think­ing for him, and the imminence of some such manoeuvre as that had been keeping him on the tip-toe of alertness. Throughout that time the driving-mirror had never been out of the tail of his eye, and he spotted Perrigo's stealthy move­ment almost before it had begun.

  He turned his head and smiled sweetly.

  "No," he said.

  Perrigo squinted at him, sinking back a trifle.

  "I can look after myself now," he grunted.

  "You can't," said the Saint.

  He was turning round again when Perrigo set his teeth, jumped up, and wrenched at the handle of the door.

  It flew open; and then the Saint put one foot on the front seat and went over into the tonneau in a flying tackle.

  He took Perrigo with him. They pelted over into the back seat in a lashing welter of legs and arms, fighting like savages. Perrigo had the weight, and brute strength, but Simon had the speed and cunning. The car lurched forward again while they rolled over and over in a flailing thudding tangle. After a few seconds of it, the Saint got an arm loose and whipped in a couple of pile-driving rib-binders; the effects of them put him on top of the mess, and he wedged Perrigo vigorously into a corner and held him there with a knee in his chest.

  Then he looked up at the familiar helmet of a police con­stable, and found that the car had stopped.

  They were in one of the narrow streets in the triangle of which Regent and Oxford form two sides. A heavy truck and a brace of taxis had combined to put a temporary plug in the meagre passage, and the constable happened to be standing by. Patricia was looking round helplessly.

  "Wot's this?" demanded the Law, and Simon smiled win­ningly.

  "We are secret emissaries of the Sheik Ali ben Dova, and we have sworn to place the sacred domestic utensil of the Caliph on top of the Albert Memorial."

  "Wot?"

  "Well, what I mean is that my friend is rather drunk, and that's his idea."

  The Law produced a notebook.

  "Any'ow," he said, "you got no right to be treating 'im like that."

  Perrigo's mouth opened, and Simon shifted some more weight on to his knee. Perrigo choked and went red in the face.

  "Ah, but you've no idea how violent he gets when he's had a few," said the Saint. "Goes quite bats. I'm trying to get him home now before he does any damage."

  "Help!" yapped Perrigo feebly.

  "Gets delusions, and all that sort of thing," said the Saint. "Thinks people are trying to kidnap him and murder him and so forth. Fancies everyone he meets is a notorious criminal. Doesn't even recognise his own wife—this is his wife, officer. Leads her an awful life. I don't know why she married the fool. And yet if you met him when he was sober, you'd take him for the most respectable gentleman you ever saluted. And he is, too. Man with a big diamond business. Right now, he's worth more money than you could save out of your salary if you were in the Force another three hundred years and lived on air."

  Patricia leaned over pleadingly.

  "Oh, officer, it's dreadful" she cried. "Please try to under­stand—please help me to save a scandal! Last time, the mag­istrate said he'd send my husband to prison if it happened again."

  "I'm not your husband!" howled Perrigo. "I'm being robbed! Officer——"

  "You see," said the Saint. "Just what I told you. Three weeks ago he fired a shot-gun at the postman because he said he was trying to put a bomb in the letter-box."

  The policeman looked doubtfully from him to the lovely anxious face of Patricia, and was visibly moved. And then Perrigo heaved up again.

  "Don't you know who this guy is?" he blurted. "He's the Sgloogphwf——"

  This was not what Perrigo meant to say, but Simon clapped a hand over his mouth.

  "Uses the most frightful language, too, when he's like this," said the Saint confidentially. "I couldn't even repeat what he called the cook when he thought she was sprinkling arsenic on the potatoes. If I had my way he'd be locked up. He's a dangerous lunatic, that's what he is ——"

  Suddenly the policeman's eyes glazed.

  "Wot's that?" he barked.

  Simon glanced round. His automatic lay in a corner of the seat, clear to view—it must have fallen out of his pocket during the scramble. It gleamed up accusingly from the glossy green-leather upholstery, and every milligram of the accusation was reflected in the constable's fixed and goggling eyes. . . .

  Simon drew a deep breath.

  "Oh, that's just one of the props. We've been to a rehearsal of one of these amateur dramatic shows—"

  The constable's head ducked with unexpected quickness. It pressed down close to the face of Perrigo, and when it raised itself again there was a blunt certitude written all over it.

  "That man ain't bin drinking," it pronounced.

  "Deodorised gin," explained the Saint easily. "A new inven­tion for the benefit of a A.W.O.L. matrimoniates. Wonderful stuff. No longer can it be said that the wages of gin is breath."

  The policeman straightened up.

  "Ho, yus? Well, I think you'd better come round to the station, and let's 'ear some more about this."

  The Saint shook his head.

  He looked over the front of the car, and saw that the jam ahead had sorted itself out, and the road was clear. One hand touched Patricia's shoulder. And he smiled very seraphically.

  "Sorry," he said. "We've got that date with the Albert Memo­rial."

  He struck flat-handed at the policeman's shoulder, sending him staggering back; and as he did so Patricia engaged the gears and the Hirondel rocketed off the mark again like a shell from a howitzer.

  Simon and Perrigo spilled over in another wild flurry. This time the objective was the gun on the seat. Simon got it. He also got Perrigo effectively screwed down to the mat, and knelt heavily on his biceps. The cold muzzle of the automatic rammed up under Perrigo's chin.

  "That will be the end of your bonehead act, brother," said the Saint tersely. "You'd better understand that the only chance you've got is with me. You're a stranger over here. If I left you on your own, Teal would have you behind bars in record time. You wouldn't last twenty-four hours. And if you'd been able to make that cop take notice of you the way you wanted, you wouldn't have lasted twenty-four minutes—he'd have lugged you off to the station with the rest of us, and that would have been your finale. Get that up under your skull. And then put this beside it: you can't make your getaway now without consulting me. I've got your passport and your ticket to New York right next my heart—dipped them out of your pocket before we left Isadora's. Which is why you're going to stick as close to me as you know how. When I'm through with you, I'll give you the bum's rush quick enough—but not before!"

  Chapter VI

  The Hirondel skimmed round a corner and flashed out into Regent Street. The bows of an omnibus loomed up, bear­ing down upon them. Patricia spun the wheel coolly; they swerved round the wrong side of an island, dodged a taxi and a private car, and dived off the main road again.

  Perrigo, on the floor of the tonneau, digested the fresh set of facts that the Saint had streamed into him. However apocry­phal the first sheaf that he had meditated had been, these new ones were definitely concise and concrete—as was the circle of steel that bored steadily into his dewlap. He assimilated them in a momentous silence, while the stars gyrated giddily above him.

  "All right," he said at length. "Let me up."

  Simon hitched himself on to the seat; his gun went into his pocket, but retained command of the situation. As they en­tered Berkeley Square he watched Perrigo looking out to left and right, and was prompted to utter an additional warning.

  "Stepping off moving vehicles," he said, "is the cause of ump­teen street accidents per annum. If you left us now, it would be the cause of um
pteen plus one. Ponder the equation, brother. . . . And besides," said the Saint, who was starting to feel expansive again, "we've only just begun to know each other. The warbling and the woofling dies, so to speak, and we settle down to get acquainted. We approach the peaceful inter­lude

  When the cakes and ale are over

  And the buns and beer runs dry

  And the pigs are all in clover

  Up above the bright blue sky—

  as the poet hath it. Do you ever write poetry?" Perrigo said nothing.

  "He does not write poetry," said the Saint.

  The car stopped a few yards from the entrance of Upper Berkeley Mews, and Simon leaned forward and put his elbows on the back of the front seat. He rested his chin on his hands.

  "When we were interrupted, darling," he said, "I was on the point of making some remarks about your mouth. It is, bar none, the most bewitching, alluring, tempting, maddening, seductive mouth I've ever kiss—set eyes on. The idea that it should ever be used for eating kippers is sacrilegious. You will oblige me by eating no more kippers. The way your lips curl at the corners when you're not sure whether you'll smile or not——"

  Patricia turned with demure eyes.

  "What do we do now?" she asked; and the Saint sighed.

  "Teal's bloodhound saw you go out?"

  "Yes."

  "Then he'd better see you go in again. It'll set his mind at rest. Bertie and I will go our ways."

  He opened the door and stepped out, Perrigo followed, constrained to do so by a grip which the Saint had fastened on the scruff of his neck. Maintaining possession of Perrigo, Si­mon leaned on the side of the car.

  "When we get a minute or two to ourselves, Pat," he said, "remind me that my discourse on your eyes, which occupies about two hundred and fifty well-chosen words——"

  "Is to be continued in our next," said Patricia happily, and let in the clutch.

  Simon stood for a moment where she had left him, watching the car swing round into the mews.

  And he was realising that the warbling and the woofling were very near their end. His flippant parody had struck home into the truth.

  It was a queer moment for that blithe young cavalier of fortune. Out of the clear sky of the completely commonplace, it had flashed down upon him with a blinding brightness. The lights pointed to the end. No tremendous battle had done it, no breathless race for life, no cataclysmic instant of vision when all the intangible battlements of Paradise were shown up under the shadow of the sword. Fate, in the cussedness of its own inscrutable designs, had ordained that the revelation should be otherwise. Something simple and startling, a thing seen so often and grown so tranquilly familiar that the sudden unmasking of its inner portent would sweep away all the foundations of his disbelief like a tidal wave; something that would sheer ruthlessly through all sophistries and lies. A girl's profile against the streaking backcloth of smoke-stained stone. Yellow lamp-light rippling on a flying mane of golden hair. Commedia.

  On the night of the 3rd of April, at 10:30 p.m., Simon Templar stood on the pavement of Berkeley Square and looked life squarely in the eyes.

  Just for that moment. And then the Hirondel was gone, and the moment was past. But all that there was to be done was done. The High Gods had spoken.

  Simon turned. There was a new light in his eyes. "Let's go," he said.

  They went. His step was light and swift, and the blood laughed in his veins. He had drunk the magic wine of the High Gods at one draught, down to the last dregs. It is a brave man who can do that, and he has his reward.

  Perrigo walked tamely by his side. Simon had less than no idea what was passing in the gangster's mind just then. And he cared less than nothing. He would have taken on a hundred Perrigos that night, one after another or in two squads of fifty, just as they pleased—blipped them, bounced them, boned them, rolled them, trussed them up, wrapped them in grease­proof paper, and laid them out in a row to be called for by the corporation scavengers. And if Perrigo didn't believe it, Perrigo had only got to start something and see what hap­pened. Simon thought less of Perrigo than a resolute rhinoc­eros would think of a small worm.

  He ran up the steps of 104, Berkeley Square, turned his key in the lock, and switched on the lights. He made way for Perrigo with a courtly gesture. "In," he said.

  Perrigo walked in very slowly. Some fresh plan of campaign was formulating behind the gangster's sullen complicance. Si­mon knew it. He knew that the ice was very thin—that only the two trump cards of passport and tickets, and the superb assurance with which they had been played, had driven Per­rigo so far without a third bid for freedom. And he was not interested. As Perrigo's rearward foot lifted over the threshold, Simon shoved him on, followed him in a flash, and put his back to the closed door.

  "You're thinking," he murmured, "that this is where you slug me over the head with the umbrella-stand, recover your property, and fade out. You're wrong."

  He pushed Perrigo backwards. It seemed quite an effortless push, but there was an unsuspected kick of strength behind it. It flung Perrigo three paces towards the stairs; and then the hoodlum stopped on his heels and returned in a savage recoil. Simon slipped the gun out of his pocket, and Perrigo reined in.

  "You daren't shoot," he blustered.

  "Again you're wrong," said the Saint metallically. "It would give me great pleasure to shoot. I haven't shot anyone for months. Perhaps you're thinking I'll be scared of the noise. Once more you're wrong. This gun isn't silenced, but the first three cartridges are only half-charged. No one in the street would hear a sound." For a tense second the Saint's gaze snapped daggers across the space between them. "You still think I'm bluffing. You've half a mind to test it out. Right. This is your chance. You've only to take one step towards me. One little step. . . . I'm waiting for you!"

  And Perrigo took the step.

  The automatic slanted up, and hiccoughed. It made less noise than opening up a bottle of champagne, but Perrigo's hat whisked off his head and floated down to the carpet be­hind him. The gunman looked round stupidly at it, his face going a shade paler.

  "Of course," said the Saint, relapsing into the conversational style. "I'm not a very good shot. I've been practising a bit lately, but I've a long way to go yet before I get into your class. Another time I might sort of kill you accidental like, and that would be very distressing. And then the question arises, Perrigo; would you go to Heaven? I doubt it. They're so particular about the people they let in. I don't think they'd like that check suit you're wearing. And can you play a harp? Do you know your psalms? Have you got a white nightie?"

  Perrigo's fists clenched.

  "What game are you playing?" he snarled.

  "You know me," said the Saint rhetorically. "I am the man who knocked the L out of London, and at any moment I may become the man who knocked the P out of Perrigo. My game hasn't changed since we first met. It's a private party, and the police seemed to want to interfere, so we commuted to another site. That's the only reason why we're here, and why I took the trouble to get you away from Regent's Park. In short, if you haven't guessed it already, I'm still after those diamonds, my pet. They mean the beginning of a new chapter in my career, and a brief interlude of peace for Chief Inspector Teal. They are my old-age pension. I want that packet of boodle more than I've ever wanted any loot before; and if you imagine I'm not going to have them, your name is Mug. And now you can pass on—this hall's getting draughty."

  "I'll see you in hell first," grated Perrigo.

  "You won't see me in hell at all," said the Saint. "I like warm climates, but I'm very musical, and I think the harps have it. Forward march!"

  He propelled Perrigo down the hall to a door which opened on to a flight of stone steps. At the bottom of these steps there was a small square cellar furnished with a chair and a camp bed. The door, Perrigo noticed, was of three-inch oak, and a broad iron bar slid in grooves across it. Simon pointed, and Perrigo went in and sat on the bed.

  "When you kno
w me better," said the Saint, "you'll discover that I have a cellar complex. So many people have taken me into cellars in order to do me grievous bodily harm that the infection has got into my system. There's something very sin­ister and thrilling about a cellar, don't you think?"

  Perrigo hazarded no opinion.

  "How long do I stay here?" he asked.

  "Until tomorrow," Simon told him. "You'll find the place rather damp and stuffy, but there's enough ventilation to save you from suffocating. If you decide to strangle yourself with your braces, you might do it under that loose flagstone in the corner, which conceals a deep grave all ready dug for any corpses I might have on my hands. And in the morning I'll be along with some breakfast and a pair of thumbscrews, and we'll have a little chat. Night-night, old dear."

  He left Perrigo with those cheering thoughts to chew over, and went out, bolting the iron bar into place and securing it with a steel staple.

  A silver-noted buzzer was purring somewhere above him as he ran up the stairs, and he knew that the next development was already on its way. He was not surprised-—he had been expecting it—but the promptitude with which his expectations had been realised argued a tenacious implacability on the part of Chief Inspector Teal that would have unsettled the serenity of anyone but a Simon Templar. But the Saint was lining up to the starting-gate of an odyssey quite different from that of Mr. Teal. He let himself through the linen cupboard of the first-floor bathroom into No. 1, Upper Berkeley Mews, and went quickly down the runway to No. 7; and he was smiling as he stepped out of it into his own bedroom and slid the mirror panel shut behind him.

  Patricia was waiting for him there.

  "Teal's on his way," she said.