14 The Saint Goes On Page 18

  "We'll go down to the waterfront and smell some ozone." There was a rough grey stone promenade where the lowest houses straggled along the edge of the bay, and at one end of the village a similar stone causeway sloped down from it and ran out for some distance along the edge of the channel through which the river found its way seawards through the mud. Apparently it had been laid out at some time to give easier access to the boats moored in the channel at low tide. The usual fishing village's collection of miscellaneous hardy craft was scattered out across the inlet, with here and there a hull whose brighter paint and more delicate lines spoke of some more fortunate resident's pleasure. A little way out on the darkening water he could see a few scraps of sail, and a curiously shaped vessel at anchor which looked like a dredger.

  He was rather surprised to see a signpost on the quay- one arm pointed to Seaton, the other to Sidmouth. He had not known that there was another through road besides the one by which he had arrived. Later that evening he looked it up on a map and found that there was an alternative route along the coast which took a big loop seawards, rejoining his own road near Lyme Regis.

  The knowledge did not immediately give him any clue to the mystery. He sat on a bollard and watched the tide lap in through the gathering dark, smoking a steady series of cigarettes and trying to coordinate his meagre information. There was a girl who did not look particularly hysterical, who had heard strange things at night. There was an innkeeper who was undoubtedly a badly frightened man. There was a red-haired road hog who seemed to have something to do with something. There were four hikers untouched by the weather who talked like traditional conspirators in the accents of Sandhurst. He could see one rather obvious theory which might somehow embrace them all, but it failed to satisfy him. Larkstone was some way east of the historical smugglers' country; and in any case the popularisation of aerial transport had changed all the settings of that profession.

  Mr. Uniatz had no theories. He had been trying very hard to work several things out for himself, but after a while the effort gave him a headache and he laid off.

  It was quite dark when they strolled back to the hotel. Jeff-roll was locking up. He bade the Saint a distantly polite good night, and Simon remembered the lorry which was taking up more than its fair share of the garage.

  "Do you think it could be moved?" he asked. "I'm likely to be here for two or three days."

  The landlord pursed his lips apologetically.

  "As a matter of fact, it was left here on account of a debt by a man I've never seen again. It won't go-the propeller shaft is broken. And it's too heavy to push. I don't want to spend any money on repairing it, and I'm trying to sell it as it stands. I'm afraid it is a bit of a nuisance, but I'd be very much obliged if you could put up with it."

  Simon went upstairs with the knowledge that he was unlikely to get much sleep that night, but the prospect did not trouble him. He had gone without sleep before, and could give the appearance of going without it for phenomenal periods, although by cat-napping at appropriate moments he could secure more rest than many people gain, from a night's conventional slumber. At the same time he wished that he could have heard more from Julie Trafford first, and it might have been a telepathic fulfillment of his unspoken thought when the door of his bedroom opened again almost as soon as he had closed it and she came in.

  Almost every woman has some setting in which she can look astonishingly beautiful: for Julia Trafford, wide-trousered crepe de Chine pyjamas and a flimsy silk wrap, with the shaded lights striking unexpected glints of copper from her dark hair, was only one of many, Hoppy Uniatz, who had no natural modesty, stared at her dreamily. The Saint could have thought of many more interesting things to talk to her about than the troubles of her frightened uncle; but he hoped she was not going to fall in love with him, which was one of the most serious risks he ran when succouring damsels in distress.

  "I had to see you," she said. "That letter I wrote was so stupid-I didn't believe you'd pay any attention to it at all. Are you really the Saint?"

  "Scotland Yard is convinced about it," he said solemnly, "so I suppose I must be."

  He made her sit down and gave her a cigarette.

  "What exactly is this all about?" he asked.

  "I don't know," she said helplessly. "That's the trouble. That's why I wrote to you. There's something ugly going on. My uncle's terrified, even though he won't admit it. I've begged him to tell me several times, but he keeps on saying I'm imagining things. And I know that isn't true."

  The ginger-haired man, apparently, had been there before; and on his second visit he had been accompanied by two others whose descriptions sounded equally unpleasant. Each time he had seen Jeffroll alone, and each time the interview had left the innkeeper white and shaking. After both occasions she had made attempts to gain his confidence, but he had only denied that there was any trouble, and refused to talk about it any more. She knew, however, that since the second visit he had taken out a licence for a revolver, for the local police sergeant had come in with it one afternoon when he was out.

  "Do you think he's being blackmailed?" she asked.

  "I don't know," said the Saint mildly. "What about these noises you hear at night-would they be the blackmailers painting up their armour?"

  "They're-well, I told you nearly all I could in my letter. This is a very old place, and a lot of boards creak when they're stepped on. Sometimes when I've been lying awake reading at night I've heard them, even when I know Uncle Martin's gone to bed and nobody else has any business to be moving about. At first I thought we were being burgled, but I went downstairs twice and I couldn't find anybody."

  He raised his eyebrows.

  "You thought there were burglars in the place, and you went down to look for them alone?"

  "Oh, I'm not nervous-I think most burglars would run for their lives if they thought anybody was coming after them. But that was before that red-haired man came here."

  "And the noises have been going on-how long?"

  "Nearly all the time I've been here. And then there's the rumbling. It sounds like a train going by, very close, so that the house vibrates; but the nearest railway is five miles away." She looked at him with a sudden youthful defiance. "You don't believe in ghosts, do you?"

  "I've never seen one yet," he said coolly. "Certainly not a ginger-haired one in ginger plus fours."

  He finished his cigarette and lighted another, strolling thoughtfully about the room. He did believe in neurotic women, having been pestered by more than his share, but he knew no species which panicked over imaginary terrors and at the same time went single-handed in search of burglars. Besides, he had seen certain things for himself. The landlord's startling reaction to Mr. Uniatz's rasping voice, for instance- it had puzzled him considerably at the time, but he realised now that a man who had had disturbing interviews with a bloke like Gingerhead might have some reason to be frightened of a stranger who looked and talked like the most blatantly typical gangster that ever stepped. Obviously Jeffroll was being threatened; but ordinary blackmail was a very inadequate explanation, and the cruder forms of extortion were not likely to reach a small innkeeper in an obscure Devonshire village.

  "Who are the Four Horsemen?"

  She was baffled for a moment.

  "Oh, you mean the men who were having dinner? They were here before I came. My uncle seems to be quite friendly with them. They go out fishing every night-you never see them about before dinner."

  The fat fruity man, he learned, was Major Portmore; the big black-haired man was Mr. Kane; the grey moustache and pince-nez were worn by Captain Voss; and the thin man with the deficient chin who always talked to the table was blessed with the name of Weems.

  "They've always been perfectly nice to me," she said.

  "I'll believe you," he murmured. "I thought they were most refined. A bit sinister in their line of backchat, but very British. What happened to the ginger bloke?"

  She didn't know. Jeffroll had carted him into his
private office to revive him, leaving her in charge of the bar, and later on had announced that the patient had recovered and departed quietly. He had seemed pleased, and this was understandable.

  The Saint smiled.

  "I suppose there must be a good deal of head-scratching going on about us by this time," he said. "First of all we're taken for a couple of Gingerhead's strongarm guys, and then I sock Gingerhead on the jaw and put the whole thing cockeyed. I wonder if Uncle is tying himself in knots over it, or whether he thinks the whole show was a piece of low cunning especially staged to put him off the scent."

  "I couldn't tell you; but I'll let you know if I do find out. You've spoken to Major Portmore, then-what did he have to say?"

  "He was quite pleasant. They told us they didn't like gangsters, and gave us a few ideas about what they'd feel like doing if any hoodlums tried to muscle in on their preserves. It was all very nicely done, and if I'd been an ordinary thug I might have been quite impressed. Possibly. But I'll agree with you that they seem pretty harmless fellows at heart, and that only makes things more complicated. If they're quite innocent, why the hell don't they get some policemen to deal with Gingerhead and me?"

  He scowled over the enigma for a few moments longer, and then he shrugged.

  "Anyway, I suppose we'll find out. I'm going to do my sleeping in the daytime like the Four Horsemen-the night has a thousand eyes, and mine are going to be two of 'em."

  He got up out of the armchair into which he had thrown himself, with a quick smile that wiped the hard calculating lines out of his face in a flash of careless friendliness that was absurdly comforting. She really was rather beautiful, even if that moment found her at a loss for anything but the conventional answer.

  "I don't know why you should take so much trouble"

  "It's no trouble. Most of us have to earn our living, and if there is any useful racket working around here I shall get my percentage out of the gate. I'll let you know where I get to, and you can keep in touch with me. I haven't made up my mind yet what part I'm going to try to put over, so you'd better not take a lot more risks like this in case anybody got wise to us. If I want to tell you anything, I'll leave a note"- he glanced swiftly about the room-"under that corner of the carpet. And you'd better park your mail in the same place. Unless it's desperately urgent. Don't worry, kid-Hoppy and I are rough on rats, and when the ungodly think up a game that we didn't play in our cradles . . ."

  He left the rest of the sentence in the air, with the hairs at the back of his neck tingling.

  While he talked, he had become faintly aware of a queer vibration that was at first too deep in its choice of wavelength to be perceptible to any ordinary faculty. And then, gradually, it grew strong enough to be felt. A glass upturned over the neck of the carafe on the washstand trilled in a sudden shrill relay of the impulse. He listened, in utter silence, and heard something like the rumble of wheels roll through the earth and come to a thudding stop far underneath his feet.

  V JULIA TRAFFORD'S face was suddenly white in the dim light which robbed the tapestry covering of the chairback behind her of much of its hideousness. Her lips parted breathlessly.

  "That's it," she whispered, with her grey eyes widening against his. "You heard it yourself-didn't you? That's what I've been hearing."

  The lamplight cut dark lines and piratical masses of shadow out of his brown face, brought up the glint of blue steel in his mocking gaze. He stood checked in precarious stillness, with the white scrap of his cigarette clipped between steady fingers; and the lamp threw his shadow towering up the wall so that his head and shoulders stooped over the low ceiling.

  "How far away is this railway?" he said.

  "The line's about five miles inland-the nearest station is Colyford."

  He nodded.

  "Go back to your room, bright eyes," he said, and his hand touched her shoulder as she stood up. "And don't lose any sleep over it. Whatever this racket is, I'll take it apart and see what makes it go."

  He closed the door after her, and found Hoppy Uniatz gaping at it with the glazed other-worldly look of a man who is going to be seasick. For a couple of seconds he studied the phenomenon in fascinated silence; and then he cleared his throat tactfully, and Mr. Uniatz came out of his trance with a guilty start.

  "I could give dat dame a tumble sometime-when I ain't got nut'n better to do," he said, in a tone so overpoweringly blase that the Saint blinked at him in considerable awe.

  Simon would have liked to probe deeper into this remarkable statement, but he reserved his curiosity for a more leisured date.

  "I think I'll wander about the place and look at the architecture," he said.

  "Okay, boss." Mr. Uniatz roused himself finally out of his dreams, and dragged out his Betsy. He slid back the jacket and inspected the cartridge in the chamber with unromantic stoicism. "Wit' you an' me on de job, I guess dis racket is on de skids."

  "With me on the job, it may be," said the Saint calmly. "You're going to stay here and snore for both of us-and that ought to be a pushover for you."

  He was firm about this, in spite of Hoppy's injured protests. For a partner in a gun-fight, Simon would have asked nobody better; but for a tour of stealthy investigation he would as soon have chosen a boisterous young bison.

  "I want you to look after Julia," he said craftily, and Mr. Uniatz brightened. "Where are you going?"

  "Anyt'ing you say goes, boss," said Hoppy, with his hand on the door-knob.

  "You don't have to go," said the Saint coldly. "I said look after the girl, not at her. Her room's just down the passage on the other side, and if she's in trouble you'll be able to hear her. When she wants you in her bedroom I'm sure she'll ask for you."

  He left Mr. Uniatz brooding happily over this consoling thought, and went out into the dark corridor. At such times of emergency the Saint's fluency of shameless inventiveness was unparalleled-he had not the faintest idea where Julia Trafford's room was actually situated, and the fear of what might happen if an amorous and impatient Mr. Uniatz went prowling hopefully into the bedchamber of a hysterical cook was perhaps one of the most disturbing thoughts in his mind at that moment.

  The passage was more or less, rather less than more, lighted by the wavering gleam of a small oil lamp hung in a bracket on the wall-from the beginning he had noticed this prevalence of primitive illumination in the hotel, for he had seen the silver pylons of the national electric supply grid spanning the valley as he drove down. Downstairs it was quite dark; but on these ventures he carried his own illumination which was less conspicuous in any case than switching on the ordinary lights in any place he wanted to explore.

  The dim beam of an electric flashlight in his hand, irised down to the thinnest useful pencil of luminance by a circle of tinfoil pasted over the lens, guided him about the ground floor. No creaking boards betrayed his movements, for he had a tread like a cat when he chose to use it, and an uncanny instinct for treacherous footings. He covered the rooms which he had seen before, hall and dining-room and lounge bar, and others which he had not seen but which were roughly what he would have expected to find. The kitchen was behind the dining-room, a big stone-flagged room like a barn, which must have served for a staff dining-room as well, and might well have held even more distinguished company in the days when eating was a heartier and more earnest business. Opening off the kitchen was a long paved passage which seemed to run the length of the building. He tried the different doors, each with the same care and silence, and reviewed a series of sculleries, pantries, lavatories, coal and wood cellars, wine and beer stores, and a small staff sitting-room. The last door, at the end, appeared to lead out into a yard at the back--it was locked on the inside, and when he turned the key he found himself in the open under the shadow of the garage.

  He was retracing his steps when he heard the dull vibrant rumble under his feet again. It was much more distinct than it had sounded upstairs, with a definite metallic harshness, but even then it was not so loud that he
could fix it clearly in his mind. If he had been there as an ordinary unsuspecting guest, it might not have attracted his attention at all-he would probably have put it down subconsciously to a heavy lorry passing on the road outside, and would never have felt urged to probe into it further. Also, the place being what it was, he would very soon have been in bed and asleep; and there was nothing sufficiently startling about the muffled noise to wake him. But he was not asleep and he was not unsuspecting, and he knew that the sound was not quite the same as that of a passing lorry.

  He opened another door in the passage and found himself in another short length of corridor-it was scarcely large enough to be called an inner hall. On one side was a door carrying the painted word "Private": it was locked, and he guessed that this was Jeffroll's own sanctum. On the other side was a red curtain, and when he went through it he discovered himself back in the diminutive lounge, but on the serving side of the bar.

  There was one obvious thing to do there, and the Saint was nerveless enough to do it. He paid the money scrupulously into the till and sat on the bar with his modest glass and a completely brazen cigarette, waiting and listening in silence. Twenty minutes later he heard the noise again.

  This time it seemed to give birth to three faint echoes -they were about sixty seconds apart, and each of them was sharper and crisper in tone than the original sound. The effect was something like that of three slow spaced rollers of surf sweeping up a shingle beach. Again the noise was not startlingly loud, but it was closer and clearer.

  Simon ran thoughtful fingers through his hair. The rumble passed again, seeming to recede into the distance; and then the stillness settled down again. His watch told him that it was nearly midnight, but he had no superstitions.

  He slid down to the floor, broke up the stub of his cigarette and washed the fragments down the sink under the bar, dried his glass on a cloth and replaced it on its shelf, and picked up his torch. He was, for the moment, irritatingly stymied; but he felt that something ought to be done. He had verified the last fraction of Julia Trafford's story, and he was baffled to find any natural explanation. On the other hand, up to that moment he had also failed to find an unlawful solution. Secret passages of some kind were manifestly indicated, but to measure every room and corridor and draw up plans of the building to locate discrepancies in the sum total was a lengthy job for which he had very little patience and, prosaically enough, no implements at all.