The Saint Meets his Match (The Saint Series) Page 3

  “Get her,” snapped the Chief.

  “Three weeks,” drawled the Saint laconically, and walked out of Scotland Yard warbling a verse of the comedy song hit of the season—written by himself.

  “I

  Am the guy

  Who killed Capone—”

  As he passed the startled doorkeeper, he got a superb yodelling effect into the end of that last line.

  And that was exactly thirty-six hours before he met Jill Trelawney for the first time.

  And precisely at three o’clock on the afternoon after he had first met her, Simon Templar walked down Belgrave Street, indisputably the most astonishingly immaculate and elegant policeman that ever walked down Belgrave Street, was admitted to No. 97, was shown up the stairs, and walked into the drawing-room. If possible, he was more dark and cavalier and impudent by daylight than he had been by night. Weald and the girl were there.

  “Good afternoon,” said the Saint.

  His voice stoked the conventional greeting with an infinity of mocking arrogance. He was amused, in his cheerful way. He judged that the rankling thoughts of the intervening night and morning would not have improved their affection for him, and he was amused.

  “Nice day,” he drawled.

  “We hardly expected you,” said the girl.

  “Your error,” said the Saint comfortably.

  He tossed his hat into a chair, and glanced back at the door which had just closed behind him.

  “I don’t like your line of butlers,” he said. “I suppose you know that Frederick Wells has a very eccentric record. Aren’t you ever afraid he might disappear with the silver?”

  “Wells is an excellent servant.”

  “Fine! And how’s Pinky?”

  “Budd is out at the moment. He’ll be right back.”

  “Fine again!” The mocking blue eyes absorbed Stephen Weald from the feet upwards. “And what position does this freak hold in the establishment? Pantry-boy?”

  Weald gnawed his lip and said nothing. There was a cross of sticking-plaster over the bruised cut in his chin to remind him that a man like Simon Templar is apt to confuse physical violence with abstract repartee. Stephen Weald felt cautious.

  “Mr Weald is a friend of mine,” said the girl, “and I’d be obliged if you’d refrain from insulting him in my house.”

  “Anything to oblige,” said the Saint affably. “I apologise.”

  And he contrived to make a second insult of the apology.

  The girl had to call up all her resources of self-control to preserve an outward calm. Inwardly, she felt all the fury that the Saint had aroused the night before boiling up afresh.

  “I wonder,” she said, with a strained evenness, “why nobody’s ever murdered you, Simon Templar?”

  “People have tried,” the Saint said mildly. “It’s never quite succeeded, somehow. But there’s still hope.”

  He seemed to enjoy the thought. It was quite clear that his detestableness was no unfortunate trick of manner. It was too offensively deliberate. He had brought discourtesy in all its branches to a fine art, and he ladled out his masterpieces with no uncertain enthusiasm.

  “How are the Angels this afternoon?” he inquired.

  “They are”—she waved a vague hand—“here and there.”

  “Nice for them. May I sit down?”

  “I think—”

  “Thanks.” He sat down. “But don’t let me stop you thinking.”

  She took a cigarette from the box beside her and fitted it into a long amber holder. Weald supplied a match.

  “You forgot to ask me if I minded,” said the Saint reproachfully. “Where are your manners, Jill?”

  She turned in her chair—a movement far more abrupt than she meant it to be.

  “If the police have to pester me,” she said, “I should have appreciated their consideration if they’d sent a gentleman to do it.”

  “Sorry,” said Simon. “Our gentlemen are all out pestering ladies. The Chief thought I’d be good enough for you. Back-chat. However, I’ll pass on your complaint when I get back.”

  “If you get back.”

  “This afternoon,” said the Saint. “And I shan’t worry if he takes me off the job. Man-size criminals are my mark, and footling around with silly little girls like you is just squandering my unique qualities as a detective. More back-chat.”

  Weald butted in, from the other side of the room: “Jill, why do you waste time—”

  “It amuses her,” said the Saint. “When she’s finished amusing herself, she’ll tell us why my time’s being wasted here at all. I didn’t fall through a trap-door in the hall, I wasn’t electrocuted when I touched the banister rail, no mechanical gadget shot out of the wall and hit me over the head when I trod on the thirteenth stair, I wasn’t shot by a spring-gun on the way up. Where’s your ingenuity?”

  “Saint—”

  “Of course, your father was English. Did you get your accent from him or from the talkies?”

  He was enjoying himself. She was forced to the exasperating realisation that he was playing with her, as if he were making a game of the encounter for his own secret satisfaction. At the least sign of resentment she gave, he registered the scoring of a point to himself as unmistakably as if he had chalked it up on a board.

  “By the way,” Simon said, “you really must stop annoying Essenden. He came in to see us the other day, and he was most upset. Remember his nerves aren’t as strong as mine. If you murdered him, for instance, I couldn’t promise you that he wouldn’t be really seriously annoyed.”

  “Whether I’m responsible for any shocks that Essenden’s had, or not,” said the girl calmly, “is still waiting to be proved.”

  “I don’t expect it will wait very long,” said the Saint comfortably. “You amateur crooks are never very clever.”

  Jill Trelawney took from her bag a tiny mirror and a gold-cased lipstick. She attended to the shaping of her mouth unconcernedly.

  “Templar, you gave me your word of honour you would come alone today.”

  “Fancy that! And did you believe it?”

  “I was prepared to.”

  “Child,” said the Saint, “you amaze me.”

  He stood up and walked to the window in long jerky strides.

  From there he beckoned her, looking down to the street from behind the curtains.

  “Come here.”

  She came, after a pause, with a bored languidness, but it was impossible to make him show the least impatience.

  “See there!”

  He pointed down with a challenging forefinger.

  “See and hear that man singing ‘Rose in the Bud’ at the harmonium? He’s just waiting for me to come out and tell him he can go home. And you see the man farther up with the ice-cream cart? He’s standing by. And the man selling newspapers on this side? More of the posse. You credited me with the darn thing, so I thought I’d live up to it. There’s ten of ’em spread around this block now!”

  “I’m sorry. I thought even your word of honour might be worth something. But now—”

  “You’ll know better next time, won’t you?” Little flinty jags of amusement twinkled in his eyes, “What was the joke I was supposed to buy? Pinky Budd waiting downstairs in the hall with a handful of Angels? Or just a button you press up here that starts off the trap-door and the electric banister rail and the mechanical gadget in the thirteenth stair?”

  She faced him, flaming now without the slightest attempt at concealment, suddenly transformed into a beautiful tigress.

  “You think you’re clever—Saint!”

  “I’m darn sure of it,” murmured the Saint, modestly.

  “You think—”

  “Often and brilliantly. I kicked up the rug before I stepped on it, and saw the edge of the trap. I’m always suspicious of iron banister rails on indoor staircases. And the thirteenth stair gave an inch under my weight, so I ducked. But nothing happened. Rather lucky for you the things weren’t working—in the c
ircumstances—isn’t it?”

  It was bewildering to think that the girl, according to official records, was only twenty-two. Simon Templar treated her like a petulant child because it pleased him to do so. But in that moment he recognised her anger as a grown reality with nothing childish in it. That he chose to keep the recognition to himself was nobody’s business.

  “No one will stop you going back to your posse, Templar.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “They’ll be expecting me in another five minutes. I only came because I didn’t want to disappoint you—and because I thought you might have something interesting to say.”

  “I’ve nothing more to—say.”

  “But lots of things to do?”

  “Possibly.”

  That extraordinarily mocking smile bared his teeth.

  “If only,” he murmured softly—“if only your father could hear those sweet words fall from your gentle lips!”

  “You’ll leave my father out of it—”

  “You’d like me to, wouldn’t you? But that won’t make me do it.” There was a renewed hardness in her eyes that had no right to be there.

  “My father was framed,” she said in a low voice.

  “There was a proper inquiry. An Assistant Commissioner of Police isn’t dismissed in disgrace for nothing. And is that an excuse for anything you do, anyway?”

  “It satisfies me.”

  Her voice held a depth of passion that for a moment turned even Simon Templar into a sober listener. She had never flinched from his sardonically bantering stare, and now she met it more defiantly than ever. She went on, in that low, passionate voice: “The shock killed him. You know it could have been nothing else but that. And he died denying the charge—”

  “So you think you’ve a right to take vengeance on the Department for him?”

  “They condemned him for a thing he’d never done. And the mud sticks to me as well, still, a year after his death. So I’ll give them something to condemn me for.”

  The Saint looked at her.

  “And what about that boy over in the States?” he asked quietly, and saw her start.

  “What do you know about him?” she asked.

  The Saint shrugged.

  “It’s surprising what a lot of odd things I know,” he answered. “I think we may talk some more on that subject one day—Jill. Someday when you’ve forgotten this nonsense, and the Angels of Doom have grown their tails.”

  For a span of silence he held her eyes steadily—the big golden eyes, which, he knew by his own instinct, were made for such gentle things as the softness into which he had betrayed them for a moment. And then that instant’s light died out of them again, and the tawny hardness returned. She laughed a little.

  “I’ll go back when the slate’s clean,” she said, and so the Saint slipped lightly back into the role he had chosen to play.

  “You missed your vocation,” he said sweetly. “You ought to have been writing detective stories. Vengeance—and the Angels of Doom! Joke!”

  He swung round in his smooth sweeping way and picked his hat out of the chair. Weald seemed about to say something, and, meeting the Saint’s suddenly direct and interrogative gaze, refrained. Simon looked at the girl again.

  “I’m leaving,” he said. “We shall meet again. Quite soon. I promised to get you in three weeks, and two and a half days of it have gone. But I’ll do it, don’t you worry!”

  “I’m not worrying, Templar. And next time you give me your word of honour—”

  “Be suspicious of everything I say,” Simon advised. “I have moments of extreme cunning, as you’ll get to know. Good afternoon, sweetheart.”

  He went out, leaving the door open, and walked down the stairs. He saw Pinky Budd standing in the hall with six men drawn up impassively behind him, but it would have taken more than that, at any time, to make Simon Templar’s steps falter.

  The girl spoke from the top of the stairs.

  “Mr Templar is leaving, Pinky. His men are waiting for him outside.”

  “Now that,” said the Saint, “is tough luck on you—isn’t it, Pinky?”

  He walked straight for the door, and the guard stood aside without a word to give him gangway. Only Budd stood his ground, and Simon halted in front of him.

  “Getting in my way, Pinky?”

  Budd looked at him with narrowed, glittering eyes. They were of a height as they stood, but Budd would have been a couple of inches taller if he had straightened his huge hunched shoulders. His long arms hung loosely at his sides, and the ham-like fists at the end of them were clenched.

  “Nope, I’m not getting in your way. But I’ll come ’n’ find you again soon, Templar. See?”

  “Do.”

  The Saint’s hand came flat in the middle of Budd’s chest and overbalanced him out of the road. And Simon Templar went through to the door.

  A few strides up the street he stopped and laid half a crown on a harmonium.

  “Do you know a song called ‘A Farewell’?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said the serenader.

  “Play it for me,” said the Saint. “And miss out the middle verse.”

  He went on towards Buckingham Palace Road as soon as he had heard the introductory bars moaned out on the machine, and his departure was watched by vengeful eyes from the drawing-room window.

  “You let him get clean away,” snivelled Weald. “We had him—”

  “Don’t be an imbecile!” snapped the girl. “He only came to see if he could tempt us into doing anything foolish. And if we had, he’d have been tickled to death. And I just asked him to come so I could get to know a little more about him, for future reference. He’s—”

  “What’s that bull with the organ singing?”

  They listened. The words of the unmelodious performance came clearly to their ears. The troubadour, startled by the magnitude of the Saint’s largesse, was putting his heart into the job.

  “Maaaye fairest chiiild-da, I have no gift to giiive theeee;

  No lark-ka could pipe-pa to skies sow dull and gra-a-ay;

  Yet-to, ere I gow, one lesson I can leeeave theee

  For every da-a-ay…”

  “I saw Templar speak to him—”

  “Shut up, you fool!”

  “Be gooood-da, sweet maaid, and-da let who can-na be cle-evah;

  Do nowble things, not-ta dream them, awl daaay lawng…”

  The telephone bell screamed.

  “See who it is, Weald. No, give it to me.”

  She took the instrument out of his hands. There was no need to ask who was the owner of the silkily endearing voice that came over the wire.

  “Hullo!”

  “Yes, Mr Templar?”

  “Please don’t let the Angels pester the innocent gentleman with the criminal voice. He doesn’t know me from Adam, and probably never will. I warned you I had moments of extreme cunning, didn’t I?”

  She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, ignoring Weald’s splutter of questions.

  The musician below, a man inspired, was repeating the last verse with increased fervour—perhaps as a consolation to himself for having been deprived of the middle one.

  “Be gooood-da, sweet maaid-da, and-da let whoo can-na be cle-e-ev-ah…”

  The girl stood by the window, and something like a smile touched her lips.

  “A humorist!” she said.

  Then the smile was gone altogether.

  “Second round to Simon Templar,” she said softly. “And now, I think, we start!”

  CHAPTER TWO:

  HOW SIMON TEMPLAR WAS DISTURBED AND THERE WAS FURTHER BADINAGE IN BELGRAVE STREET

  1

  If it had been possible to prepare a place-time chart of the activities of the Angels of Doom, it would have shown, during the eighteen hours following Simon Templar’s departure from the house on Belgrave Street, a distinct concentration of interest in the regio
n of Upper Berkeley Mews, where the Saint had converted a couple of garages, with the room above, into the most ingeniously comfortable fortress in London. Also, like other concentrations of the Angels of Doom, it appeared to be conducted with considerable labour and expense for no prospect of immediate profit.

  It may be suggested that the district of Mayfair was an eccentric situation for the home of a policeman, but Simon Templar thanked God he wasn’t a real policeman. In fact, he must have been the weirdest kind of policeman that ever claimed to be attached to Scotland Yard. But attached he indisputably was, and could claim his official salutes from some of the men who would once have given their ears to arrest him. “Thus are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of walloping perished,” he said to Teal at another lunch, with a kind of wicked wistfulness, and the detective sighed, and kept his misgivings to himself. For the Saint, in his new disguise of a respectable citizen, seemed much too good to be true—much too good…Teal had an uneasy feeling that no bad man who had suddenly reformed would have been quite so overpoweringly sanctimonious about it. All that he had ever seen of the Saint, all that he had ever known of him, made Chief Inspector Teal feel like a performing elephant dancing a hornpipe over a thin glass dome in the presence of this inexplicable virtue. And in his mountainously bovine way Chief Inspector Teal watched the Saint enforcing the Law by strictly legal methods, and wondered…

  Not that anyone’s mystification would have worried Simon Templar in the least. If he had thought about it at all, he would have been impishly amused, in his serenely contented fashion. As it was, he went on with his life, and the job he had taken on, with a sublime disregard for the feelings and opinions of the world at large, seeming to be distressed only by the lack of an adequate supply of victims for his exaggerated sense of humour.

  One thing, however, could disturb his tranquillity, and that was to have business troubles intruded upon the hours which he had allotted to himself for rest or recreation. At midnight of the day after his visit to Belgrave Street, for instance, when he was sitting up in bed, happily engaged in polishing the opening lines of a new song dealing with the shortcomings of the latest Honours List, and a bullet smacked through the window behind him and chipped a lump out of a perfectly good ceiling, he was distinctly bored.