Alias the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 5

  Making up her mind, she picked up the telephone book and found Templar’s number. She called it, and his voice answered her almost immediately.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Pamela speaking, Mr Templar. Did you ring up just now?”

  “Certainly not,” said the Saint.

  She told him about the message she had received, and he whistled.

  “You can take it from me, it was a fake,” he said. “I don’t know who sent it, but I’ll try to find out. You say a car is supposed to be waiting for you at the corner? “

  “Yes.”

  “Is it still there?”

  “I’ll go and see.”

  Her room was in the front, on the first floor, and she ran quickly up the stairs. Crossing to the window, she looked down, disturbing the curtains as little as possible. There was a car drawn up by the kerb two doors away—a racy-looking saloon.

  “It’s still there,” she said, returning to the telephone.

  “Good,” said Simon briskly. “Now, you run along off to bed, Pamela, old dear, and forget it. And if you get any more messages like that, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and don’t make a move until you’ve confirmed them. Incidentally, I don’t know how you go to the office in the mornings, but I should stick to the tube or bus if I were you. Funny things have happened to taxis before now. Goodnight, child.”

  She went upstairs, but she did not undress at once. Instead, she put on a heavy coat, opened the window a little at the bottom, and sat down beside it with a book. She read inattentively, with one eye on the car in the street below.

  Ten minutes later, a sports coupé droned round into the street, passed the waiting car, and pulled in to the pavement directly under her window. A man stepped out, and stood for a moment lighting a cigarette, and she recognised the Saint.

  He sauntered up to the other car and opened the door.

  “Marmaduke,” said the Saint clearly, “you’re a bad boy. Go right home, and don’t do it again.”

  The driver’s reply was inaudible, but she heard Simon speak again, and there was a hard, metallic note in his voice.

  “You lie,” said the Saint. “You are afraid of me, because you know that if I get annoyed there isn’t a graft in the world that’ll stop me showing it—unpleasantly. Do what you’re told.”

  There was a muttered colloquy which she couldn’t hear, and then Simon closed the door and stepped back.

  He watched the saloon out of sight, and then walked back to his own car.

  He stood beside it, scanning the windows above him, and Pamela leaned out.

  “It’s all right, old darling,” called the Saint cheerfully. “You won’t be disturbed again. Goodnight, for the second time.”

  He climbed into his car and drove off, and she closed the window.

  The next morning he seemed to have forgotten the incident, and when she thanked him for disposing of the mysterious driver, he appeared to have to concentrate intensely before he could place the reference.

  “Oh, that!” he said at length. “Do you know you’ve broken a record?”

  She showed her bewilderment, and he smiled.

  “If I put you in a book,” he said, “you’d be the first heroine in the history of thick-ear fiction who has not cantered blithely into the first trap that was set for her. Tell me how you did it.”

  She told him, ending up with the information that she had seen him leaving the Piccadilly with George, but he did not seem at all upset by this discovery.

  “George and I are great friends,” he said airily. “But perhaps you didn’t know that I was a practical Socialist?”

  “But he was in evening dress?”

  Simon raised his eyebrows.

  “Why not?” he demanded. “The only difference was that mine was paid for, whereas so far George has only been able to cough up the first instalment on his. The hire-purchase system is really a fine gift to democracy. George will own that suit in three years, and the dicky and cuffs will be his very own in a couple of months. Who are we to discourage George’s efforts to better himself?”

  Presently he asked, “Have you seen Teal lately?”

  “He spoke to me in the street the other day, when I was going home.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing in particular,” she said. “He told me one or two things about you.”

  “I call myself something in particular,” said the Saint, brightening, “even if you don’t. What did he say?”

  “Oh, things.”

  Simon looked at her.

  “And do you wish to give notice?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good,” said the Saint. “For those kind words I’ll be more gentle with Teal when I see him again.”

  That afternoon there was a caller, and Simon frowned thoughtfully over the cheaply printed card which the clerk brought in. “Mr Harold Garrot,” it said.

  He went through to the waiting-room, and a sallow lantern-jawed man, with shaggy eyebrows and a blue chin, slowly uncoiled his six-feet-six-inches of lanky length from a chair.

  “Sit down, Harry,” said the Saint, affably, “and shoot us the dope in your own time. Also, you might whisper the important passages, because the walls in this office are very thin.”

  Long Harry sat down, and put his hands on his knees.

  “Mr Templar,” he said, “you know who I’m looking for.”

  “I don’t,” said the Saint.

  “Connell,” explained Harry tersely.

  Simon frowned.

  “Is there a catch in this?” he demanded. “Am I supposed to say, ‘Who is Connell?’—whereupon you say, ‘Connellady eat asparagus without dripping the melted butter down her neck?’—or something soft like that? Because, if so, I’ll buy it—but let’s get it over quick.”

  Long Harry leaned forward.

  “Templar,” he said, “you know me, and I know you, and we both know Connell. But did you know that I’d just come out of stir?”

  “I read in the papers a couple of years ago that you’d just gone in,” said the Saint. “How’s the old place looking?”

  But Harry was not feeling conversational.

  “Connell put me there,” he said. “I never did that Bayswater job. Connell shopped me, and I’m looking for Connell.”

  Simon rose.

  “Well,” he said briefly, “I’m afraid I can’t help you. Nobody’s seen Connell for two years. Good afternoon.”

  He held out his hand, but Long Harry ignored it.

  “Next time you see Connell,” said Mr Garrot, rising, “you can tell him I’m laying for him.”

  “Good afternoon,” said the Saint again, and opened the door. “Call in any time you’re passing, but don’t stay long.”

  He returned to his desk with a greater feeling of enthusiasm for his job than he had felt for several days, for the return of Long Harry seemed to him to presage the beginning of troublous times for the firm of Vanney’s Ltd., and, in Simon Templar’s opinion, that was all to the good.

  7

  “Talking of disappearances, Mr Teal,” said Sergeant Barrow, “I’ve been thinking.”

  Chief Inspector Teal fixed his subordinate with a basilisk eye.

  “Not again?” he drawled with heavy sarcasm.

  “What’s more,” said Barrow, “I’ve been talking to Jones and the Records Office, and I’ve got on to something that might interest you.”

  Teal waited.

  “About the time that Connell disappeared,” said Barrow earnestly. “Red Mulligan also vanished. The last thing we hear of Red, he was supposed to be dying of pleurisy. Red was the man who worked the Finchley bank job. He and Long Harry used to run together, and they shared a room in Deptford. Connell made a trio when it suited him. Well, Connell disappears, and a few days after that we stop hearing anything about Red, I went down to Deptford and made a few inquiries, but all they could tell me was that Harry gave out a story that Red had got bet
ter and gone out to Australia. Since when, nobody’s seen or heard of him. Now, does a man who’s been given up for dead get better as quickly as that, and would he jump right off his bed into a steamer, and shoot off without saying a word to anyone? It’s not as if there was anything against him at that time—he had a clean sheet.”

  Teal nodded.

  “That’s worth thinking about,” he conceded.

  But it was not Inspector Teal’s practice to make his thought processes public, and he switched off almost immediately on to a new line.

  “Go out into the wide world, Barrow,” he said, “and find me an Australian.”

  After some search an Australian was found, and Teal took him out, bought his beer, and invited a geography lesson. Then he bought the Australian more beer, and left him.

  He went to Vanney’s, and the Saint saw him at once.

  “Mr Vanney is engaged,” said Simon, “but all my time is yours. What can I do for you today?”

  “I’m looking for a man named Connell,” said Teal.

  “Everybody seems to be doing it,” sighed the Saint. “Only yesterday we had a man in looking for him.”

  “Long Harry?” asked Teal, and Simon nodded.

  “It’s surprising how popular a man can become, all of a sudden.”

  “Connell’s wanted for the Battersea murder,” said Teal.

  Clearly the Saint was surprised at this item of news, but his surprise did not make him any more helpful.

  “Connell is the mystery man of the twentieth century,” he said. “Sorry, Teal, but you’ve come to the wrong shop. We broke off our partnership with Maskelyne’s years ago.”

  “There’s another thing,” said Teal. “We’ve got a man in for a bit of work in Curzon Street, and he’s made a confession that might put us on to a man we’ve been looking for for years. I won’t go into details, but I will tell you that I’m temporarily stuck, and you might be able to help me.”

  “Anything within reason, Claud Eustace,” said the Saint.

  Teal winced.

  “The point is,” he said, “that this case links up with one in Australia. The trouble is, we haven’t got the name of the man who was robbed, and I’m wondering if Mr Vanney could save me the trouble of cabling out to Australia for it. I believe he spent some years in Melbourne.”

  “That is so.”

  “Then he might know the name. He’s one of the richest men in Melbourne, and I’m told he’s got the swellest house in the place. The man I’ve got couldn’t remember the name, but he thinks it began with an ‘S.’ He remembers that it’s a big, white stone building at the top of Collins Street, about five minutes from Brighton Beach. The family used to dash down to the sea for a dip every morning before breakfast, and it was while they were out on one of these early swimming parties that the jewels were taken.”

  The Saint looked up doubtfully.

  “It’s some time since Mr Vanney was in Melbourne,” he said.

  “He couldn’t help knowing the place,” said Teal persuasively. “Collins Street is one of the big thoroughfares, and everybody knows Brighton Beach, and this man’s home was a show feature of the city.”

  The Saint shrugged.

  “I’ll ask him,” he said, “but I doubt if he can help you. Shall I write and let you know what he says?”

  “I can get a reply telegraphed from Melbourne quicker than that,” said Teal. “Couldn’t you ask him now?”

  “I’ll see,” said the Saint, and went.

  He was back in two minutes.

  “Mr Vanney is very sorry, but he can’t remember the name of the man. He knows the house, of course, but he thinks that the man’s name began with an ‘M.’”

  “Thanks,” said Teal, and heaved his vast bulk out of the chair. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

  “Sorry to have been troubled,” said Simon Templar genially.

  Teal stopped by the door.

  “By the way,” he said, “why have you gone off your feed lately? Are you in love?”

  The Saint smiled appreciatively.

  “That was clever of you, Teal,” he admitted. “I didn’t find out till a couple of days ago that you were watching the place. No, I don’t have luncheon these days.”

  “Why?” said Teal.

  “Because,” said the Saint fluently, “it is Lent. In Lent, I give up luncheon, lumbago, lion-hunting, and liquorice.”

  “I,” said Teal, “give up lorgnettes, leeks, leprosy, lynching, lamentation, lavender, and life preservers.”

  It was the first time for many months that Mr Teal had held his own with the Saint in a verbal encounter, and that, in the auspicious circumstances, put him in a very good humour.

  He returned to Scotland Yard, and sent again for Sergeant Barrow.

  “Did you look out all the papers connected with the Stenning case, as I told you?” he asked.

  Barrow pointed to a bundle recently placed on Teal’s desk, but Teal preferred to cut his work down to a minimum. If he had told the Saint that he gave up labour throughout the year, irrespective of Lent, whenever possible, he would have been very near the truth.

  He leaned back, clasped his hands in an attitude of prayer, closed his eyes, and said, “Have you studied the case?”

  Sergeant Barrow intimated that he had done so.

  “Tell me about it,” said Teal.

  Stenning’s death had caused a considerable sensation at the time. His name was well known in the City, and the derogatory rumours which circulated persistently among the cognoscenti were not printed in the newspapers, which were restrained by the law of libel, and therefore did not reach the majority of the public. It was not until after Stenning’s death that all the facts of his nefarious career were made public, and then there was a panic among the small investors.

  Stenning was clever. For years he had sailed perilously near the wind, and had found it a profitable procedure. But with the passing of time, the encouraging recollection of past successes, and the temptation to increase his income still further by risking sailing manoeuvres closer and closer to the wind, had led him to form companies of increasing instability. He had ended up by organising and directing a project which, for the first time in his career, was flagrantly fraudulent. The result had been to raise his conjectured profits to the seven-figure mark, although at his death his estate was valued at no more than £10,000.

  “No man,” said Sergeant Barrow, “ever died at a more convenient time.”

  Stenning had passed over with all his sins when his last and most ambitious scheme was tottering on the dizzy pinnacle of success. Ultimate discovery was inevitable—though whether Stenning realised that, and was banking on being able to leave the country before a warrant was issued for his arrest, would never be known. Certainly, drunk with confidence, he had ended up by over-reaching himself, but then he had died. As Sergeant Barrow remarked, he couldn’t have timed his death for a more suitable moment.

  One night he had set out from London in an open car, accompanied only by his chauffeur, to keep a business appointment at Bristol. According to the evidence at the inquest, the chauffeur, Arthur Wylie, had attempted to take a corner too fast on a lonely stretch of road between Basingstoke and Andover. The car had skidded and overturned. The chauffeur was flung clear, but Stenning had been pinned underneath the wreckage, and before the chauffeur could go to his assistance, the car had burst into flames, so that it was impossible to approach it. The car was reduced to a heap of twisted scrap-iron, and of Stenning there remained nothing but a corpse charred beyond recognition, and identified only by a ring, a watch, and a bunch of keys. The chauffeur pleaded inexperience, and it was found that he had only held a driving licence for six months.

  A verdict of accidental death was returned, and Stenning was buried in dishonour, for upon his death the full story of all his shady transactions was made public. But of the millions he was reputed to have amassed in the course of his career as a swindler, no trace could be discovered.

 
“That’s the story,” said Sergeant Barrow. “But what’s it got to do with Connell?”

  “Nothing, and at the same time everything,” answered Mr Teal enigmatically. “And now, if you will listen carefully, I’ll tell you a little joke.”

  Sergeant Barrow produced a smile.

  “The joke,” said Mr Teal, “is about a man who says that he lived several years in Australia, and who gives Melbourne as his last address. I asked him if he could identify a house at the top of Collins Street, five minutes from Brighton Beach, and I told him how the people who owned the house used to run down to the sea for a bathe before breakfast.”

  Sergeant Barrow’s forehead puckered.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr Teal,” he said, “but I don’t see it.”

  “Suppose,” said Teal dreamily, “that I told you that I’d got a beautiful house in Kensington Gardens overlooking the Embankment. What would you say then?”

  “I should say you were a liar, Mr Teal,” said Sergeant Barrow diffidently.

  Chief Inspector Teal seemed to smile in his sleep.

  “I said nothing so insulting,” he murmured. “In fact, I said nothing at all. But since the Australian you found me gave me his word that Brighton Beach was at least ten miles away from the top of Collins Street, Melbourne, I think I was justified in thinking a lot.”

  8

  “Take a letter,” said the Saint. “To the Editor of The Times. Sir,—The impudent presumption of the modern employer is a menace to the morals of the community. Stop. The other day, I was applying for the post of secretary to an American business man who is opening a branch in London. Stop. Finding my qualifications and references satisfactory, he then asked me how much I wanted. Stop. ‘Four pounds a week,’ I said. Stop.

  ‘With pleasure,’ he replied. Stop. ‘Certainly not,’ I retorted. Stop. Can nothing be done about this? Stop. I am, etcetera, Harassed Stenographer. I wonder why they never print my letters?” he added.