Featuring the Saint s-5 Page 5

  The driver obeyed.

  The fact that, having been given no destination to drive to, he was quietly steering his passengers in the direction of the nearest police station, is of no great historical interest. For when he reached the station he was without passengers; and the officials who heard his story were inclined to cast grave doubts upon that worthy citizen's sobriety, until confirmation of some of his statements arrived through another channel.

  Stella Domford and the Saint had quietly left him in a convenient traffic block; for Simon had much more to do in the next twenty-four hours, and he was in no mood to be delayed by embarrassing inquiries.

  7

  "And if that doesn't learn you, my girl," said the Saint, a trifle grimly, "nothing ever will."

  They were in a room in the hotel where the girl had parked her luggage before proceeding to the interview with Einsmann. The Saint, with a cigarette between his lips and a glass tankard of dark syrupy Kulmbach on the table beside him, was sitting on the bed, bandaging his arm with two white linen handkerchiefs torn into strips. Stella Domford stood by shame facedly.

  "I'm sorry I was such a fool," she said.

  Simon looked up at her. She was very pale, but this was not the pallor of anger with which she had begun the day.

  "Can I help you with that?" she asked.

  "It's nothing," he said cheerfully. "I'm never hurt. It's a gift. . . ."

  He secured his effort with a safety pin, and rolled down his sleeve. Then he gave her one of his quick, impulsive smiles.

  "Anyway," he said, "you've seen some Life. And that was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

  "You can't make me feel worse than I do already."

  He laughed and stood up; and she looked round as his hands fell on her shoulders.

  "Why worry, old dear?" he said. "It's turned out all right- so what the hell? You don't even have to rack your brains to think of an unfutile way of saying 'Thank you.' I've loved it. The pleasure of shooting Jacob in the tum-tum was worth a dozen of these scratches. So let's leave it at that." He ruffled her hair absently. "And now we'll beat it back to England, shall we?"

  He turned away, and picked up his coat.

  "Are you leaving now?" she asked in surprise.

  Simon nodded.

  "I'm afraid we must. In the first place, this evening's mirth and horseplay is liable to start a certain hue and cry after me in this bouncing burg. I don't know that that alone would make me jump for the departure platform; but there's also a man I want to see in England-about a sort of dog. I'm sorry about the rush, but things always seem to happen to me in a hurry. Are you ready?"

  They landed for a late meal at Amsterdam; and they had not long left Schiphol behind when the darkness and the monotonous roar of the engine soothed Stella Dornford into a deep sleep of sheer nervous weariness. She awoke when the engine was suddenly silenced, and found that they were gliding down into the pale half-light before dawn.

  "I think there's enough light to make a landing here," Simon answered her question through the telephones. "I don't want to have to go on to Croydon."

  There was, at least, enough light for the Saint to make a perfect landing; and he taxied up to the deserted hangars and left the machine there for the mechanics to find in the morning. Then he went in search of his car.

  In the car, again, she slept; and it is therefore not surprising that she never thought of Francis Lemuel until after the Saint had unloaded her into one of the friendliest sitting rooms she had ever seen, and after he had prepared eggs and bacon and coffee for them both, and after they had smoked two cigarettes together. And then it was Simon who reminded her.

  "I want you to help me with a telephone conversation," he said, and proceeded to coach her carefully. A few minutes later she had dialled a number and was waiting for the reply.

  Then: "Are you Piccadilly thrrree-eight thrrree-four?" she asked sweetly.

  The answer came in a decorated affirmative. "You're wanted from Berlin."

  She clicked the receiver hook; and then the Saint took over the instrument.

  "Dot vos you Lemuel, no? . . . You vould like to hear about it der business, aind't it? ... Ja! I hof seddled it altogether der business. Der man yill not more trrouble gif, andt der samples I hof also received it, yes. . . ."

  A couple of lines of brisk dialogue, this time in German, between the Saint and an excellent impersonator of the Berlin exchange, cut short the conversation with the Saint hurriedly concluding: "Ja! I to you der particulars to-morrow vill wrrrite. ..."

  "It's detail that does it," murmured Simon complacently, as he replaced the receiver.

  Stella Domford was regarding him with a certain awe. "I'm beginning to understand some of the things I've read about you," she said; and the Saint grinned. Shortly afterwards he excused himself; and when he returned to the sitting room, which was in a surprisingly short space of time, he had changed out of the characteristically conspicuous suit in which he had travelled, and was wearing a plain and unnoticeable blue serge. The Saint's phenomenal speed of dressing would have made the fortune of a professional quick-change artist; and he was as pleased with the girl's unspoken astonishment at his feat as he had been with her first compliment.

  "Where are you going?" she demanded, when she had found her voice.

  "To see you home, first," he answered briskly. "And then I have a little job of work to do."

  "But why have you changed?"

  The Saint adjusted a cheap black tie.

  "The job might turn into a funeral," he said. "I don't seriously think it will, but I like to be prepared."

  She was still mystified when he left her at the door of her apartment.

  From there he drove down to Piccadilly, and left his car in St. James's Street, proceeding afterwards on foot. Here the reason for his change of costume began to appear. Anyone might have remarked the rare spectacle of a truly Saintly figure parading the West End of London at six o'clock in the morning arrayed in one of the most dazzling creations of Savile Row; but no one came forward to describe the soberly dressed and commonplace-looking young man who committed the simplest audacity of the season.

  Nor could he ever afterwards have been identified by the sleepy-eyed porter who answered his ring at a certain bell in Jermyn Street; for, when the door was opened, Simon's face was masked from eyes to chin by a handkerchief folded three-cornerwise, and his hat brim shaded his eyes. So much the porter saw before the Saint struck once, swiftly, mercifully, and regretfully, with a supple rubber truncheon. . . .

  The Saint closed the door behind him and unbuttoned his double-breasted coat. There were a dozen turns of light rope wound round his waist belt-fashion, and with these he secured the janitor hand and foot, completing the work with a humane but efficient gag. Then he lifted the unconscious man and carried him to the little cubicle at the back of the hall, where he left him-after taking his keys.

  He raced up the stairs to the door of Lemuel's apartment, which was on the second floor. It was the work of a moment only to find the right key. Then, if the door were bolted . . . But apparently Lemuel relied on the security of his Yale lock and the watchfulness of the porter. . . .

  The Saint passed like a cat down the passage that opened before him, listening at door after door. Presently he heard the sound of rhythmic breathing, and he entered Lemuel's bedroom without a sound, and stood over the bed like a ghost.

  He was certain that Lemuel must have spent a restless night until the recent telephone call came through to calm his fears.

  There were a bottle, a siphon, a glass, and an ash tray heaped with cigarette ends on a table by the bedside to support this assumption; but now Lemuel must be sleeping the sleep of the dead.

  Gently Simon drew the edge of the sheet over the sleeping man's face; and onto the sheet he dripped a colourless liquid from a flask which he took from his pocket. The atmosphere thickened with a sickly reek. . . .

  Five minutes later, in another room, the Saint was opening a burglar-p
roof safe with Lemuel's own key.

  He found what he was expecting to find-what, in fact, he had arranged to find. It had required no great genius to deduce that Lemuel would have withdrawn all his mobile fortune from his bank the day before; if there had been no satisfactory report from Einsmann before morning, Lemuel would have been on his way out of England long before the expiration of the time limit which the Saint had given him.

  Simon burned twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of negotiable securities in the open grate. There was already a heap of ashes in the fireplace when he began his own bonfire, and he guessed that Lemuel had spent part of the previous evening disinfecting his private papers; it would be a waste of time to search the desk. With about forty thousand pounds in Bank of England notes cunningly distributed about his person, the Saint closed the safe, after some artistic work on the interior, and returned to Lemuel's bedroom, where he replaced the key as he had found it. Before he left, he turned the sheet back from Lemuel's face; the bedroom windows were already open, and in a couple of hours the smell of ether should have dispersed.

  "A couple of hours. . . ." The Saint glanced at his watch as he went down the stairs, and realized that he had only just given himself enough time. But he stopped at the janitor's cubicle on his way out, and the helpless man glared at him defiantly.

  "I'm sorry I had to hit you," said the Saint. "But perhaps this will help to console you for your troubles."

  He took ten one-pound notes from his wallet and laid them on the porter's desk; then he hurried down the hall, and slipped off his masking handkerchief as he opened the door.

  Half an hour later he was in bed.

  Francis Lemuel had arranged to be called early, in case of accidents, and the reassuring telephone message had come too late for him to countermand the order. He roused at half-past eight, to find his valet shaking him by the shoulder, and sat up muzzily. His head was splitting. He took a gulp at the hot tea which his man had brought, and felt sick.

  "Must have drunk more whisky than I thought," he reflected hazily; and then he became aware that his valet was speaking.

  "There's been a burglary here, sir. About six o'clock this morning the porter was knocked out--"

  "Here-in this apartment?" Lemuel's voice was harsh and strained.

  "No, sir. At least, I've looked round, sir, and nothing seems to have been touched."

  Lemuel drew a long breath. For an instant an icy dread had clutched at his heart. Then he remembered-the Saint was dead, there was nothing more to fear. . . .

  He sipped his tea again and chuckled throatily.

  "Then someone's been unlucky," he remarked callously, and was surprised when the valet shook his head.

  "That's the extraordinary thing, sir. They've been making inquiries all round, and none of the other apartments seem to have been entered either."

  Lemuel recalled this conversation later in the morning. He had declined breakfast blasphemously, and had only just man aged to get up and dress in time to restore his treasures to the keeping of his bank.

  He saw the emptiness of his safe, and the little drawing which the Saint had chalked inside it by way of receipt, and went a dirty gray-white.

  The strength seemed to go from his knees; and he groped his way blindly to a chair, shaking with a superstitious terror. It was some time before he brought himself to realize that ghosts do not stun porters and clean out burglar-proof safes.

  The valet, coming at a run to answer the frantic pealing of the bell, was horrified at the haggard limpness of his master.

  "Fetch the police," croaked Lemuel and the man went quickly.

  Chief Inspector Teal himself had just arrived to give some instructions to the detective-sergeant who had taken over the investigations, and he it was who answered the summons.

  "Sixty-five thousand pounds? That's a lot of money to keep in a little safe like this."

  Teal cast sleepy eyes over the object, and then went down on his knees to examine it more closely. His heavy eyelids merely flickered when he saw the chalkmarks inside.

  "Opened it with your own key too."

  Lemuel nodded dumbly.

  "I suppose he warned you?" said Teal drowsily-he was a chronically drowsy man.

  "I had two ridiculous letters--"

  "Can I see them?"

  "I-I destroyed them. I don't take any notice of threats like that."

  Teal raised his eyebrows one millimetre.

  "The Saint's a pretty well-known character," he said. "I should hate to have to calculate how many square miles of newspaper he's had all to himself since he started in business. And the most celebrated thing about him is that he's never yet failed to carry out a threat. This is the first time I've heard of anyone taking no notice of his letters."

  Lemuel swallowed. Suddenly, in a flash of pure agony, he understood his position. The Saint had ruined him-taken from him practically every penny he possessed-and yet he had left him one fragile thing that was perhaps more precious than ten times the treasure he had lost-his liberty. And Lemuel's numbed brain could see no way of bringing the Saint to justice without imperilling that last lonely asset.

  "What was the Saint's grouse against you?" asked Teal, like a sleep-walking Nemesis, and knew that he was wasting his time.

  All the world knew that the Saint never threatened without good reason. To attempt to get evidence from his victims was a thankless task; there was so little that they could say without incriminating themselves.

  And Lemuel saw the point also, and clapped quivering hands to his forehead.

  "I-I apologize," he said huskily. "I see you've guessed the truth. I heard about the burglary, and thought I might get some cheap publicity out of it. There was nothing in the safe. I drew the picture inside-copied it from an old newspaper cutting. . . ."

  Teal heard, and nodded wearily.

  But to Francis Lemuel had come one last desperate resolve.

  8

  There were many men in London who hated the Saint, and none of them hated him without cause. Some he had robbed; some he had sent to prison; some he had hurt in their bodies, and some he had hurt in their pride; and some, who had not yet met him, hated him because they feared what he might do if he learned about them all the things that there were to learn -which was, perhaps, the most subtle and deadly hatred of all.

  Simon Templar had no illusions about his general popularity. He knew perfectly well that there were a large number of people domiciled between East India Dock and Hammersmith Broadway who would have been delighted to see him meet an end so sticky that he would descend to the place where they thought he would go like a well-ballasted black-beetle sinking through a pot of hot glue, and who, but for the distressing discouragements which the laws of England provide for such natural impulses, would have devoted all their sadistic ingenuity to the task of thus settling a long outstanding account. In the old days Simon had cared nothing for this; in those days he was known only as the Saint, and none knew his real name, or what he looked like, or whence he came; but those days had long gone by. Simon Templar's name and address and telephone number were now common property in certain circles; it was only in sheer blind cussedness, which he had somehow got away with, that he had scorned to use an alias in his dealings with Francis Lemuel and the Calumet Club. And there had already been a number of enterprising gentlemen who had endeavoured to turn this knowledge to account in the furthering of their life's ambition-without, it must be admitted, any signal success.

  While there were not many men at large who in cold blood could have mustered up the courage actually to bump the Saint off (for British justice is notoriously swift to strike, and English criminals have a greater fear of the rope than those of any other nationality), there were many who would have delighted to do the Saint grievous bodily harm; and Simon Templar had no great wish to wake up in his bed one night and find someone pouring vitriol over his face, or performing any similar kindly office. Therefore he had made elaborate arrangements, in the converted m
ews where he had taken up his new headquarters, to ensure the peace and safety of his slumbers.

  He woke up, a few nights after his raid upon Jermyn Street, to the whirring of the buzzer under his pillow. He was instantly alert, for the Saint slept and woke like a cat; but he lay still in bed for a few moments before he moved, watching the nickering of tiny coloured lights in the panel on the opposite wall.

  Johnny Anworth knew all that there was to know about the ordinary kind of burglar alarm, and had adroitly circumvented the dummy ones which the Saint had taken care to fix to his doors and windows. But what Johnny did not understand was the kind that worked without wires. There were wireless alarms all over the Saint's home-alarms that relied upon an invisible ray projected across a doorway, a stairway, or a corridor, upon a photo-electric cell on the opposite side. All was well so long as the ray continued to fall thus; but when anything momentarily obscured it, the buzzer sounded under the Saint's pillow, and a tiny bulb blinked a coloured eye in the indicator panel on the Saint's bedroom wall to show the exact locality of the intruder.

  Johnny Anworth had made absolutely no sound, and had heard none; and, when the Saint took him suddenly by the throat from behind, he would have screamed aloud if his larynx had not been paralyzed by the steely grip of the fingers that compressed it. He felt himself being lifted into the air and heaved bodily through a doorway, and then the lights went on and he saw the Saint.

  "Don't make a noise," drawled Simon. "I don't want you to wake the house."

  He had slipped on a startling dressing gown, and not a hair of his head was out of place. In defense of Simon, it must be mentioned that he did not sleep in a hair net. He had actually stopped to brush his hair before he went in search of the visitor.

  The capture was a miserable and unsavoury-looking specimen of humanity, his sallow face made even sallower by the shock he had received. The Saint, after a short inspection, was able to identify it.