The Saint in London (The Saint Series) Page 6

  He made a rough summary of the opposition. They had been five in number originally, and it was only to be expected that out of those five a solid percentage would have been non-resisters. Sir Barclay Edingham had paid. Major-General Sir Humbolt Quipp would pay. The active dissenters consisted of Lord Iveldown, who had already declared his hand, a certain Mr Neville Yorkland, MP, with whom the Saint was going to have an interview, and perhaps the Honourable Leo Farwill, who might jump either way. But none of these three gentlemen, undesirable citizens though they might be, could lightly be accused of excessive denseness of cranium. Neither, as a matter of fact, had the Saint been prepared to credit them with talents of satanic cunning, but on that score it was dawning on him that he might do well to maintain an open mind.

  The inevitable triangle possessed a third corner—if anything so nearly spherical could be described as a corner—in the rotund shape of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal. Whatever his other errors may have been, Simon Templar was not guilty of kidding himself that he had finally and eternally disposed of that menace in the brief tête-à-tête they had enjoyed that morning.

  The Saint, it must be confessed, had sometimes been guilty of deceiving Chief Inspector Teal. He had not always unbosomed all his secrets as Mr Teal would have liked him to. At times, even, he had deliberately and grievously misled that persistent enforcer of the Law—a breach of the public school code which all English gentlemen will undoubtedly deplore.

  He had misled Mr Teal that morning when telling him that he had an appointment in ten minutes. As a matter of fact, the Saint’s appointment was not until that evening, and he had merely been promising himself an idle day in the country on the way, with which he did not propose to allow Scotland Yard to interfere. It was a casual and almost pointless untruth, but he might have thought more about it if he had foreseen its results.

  Mr Teal brooded all day over his problem. In the course of the afternoon he had a second interview with the Honourable Leo Farwill, and that estimable politician’s reaction to his report, far from consoling him, made him still more uneasy.

  Later that evening he saw the Assistant Commissioner.

  “There’s something darned funny going on, sir,” he summarised his conclusions tentatively.

  The Assistant Commissioner sniffed. He had a sniff which annoyed Mr Teal almost as much as Simon Templar’s irreverently prodding forefinger.

  “I, in my humble way, had reached the same conclusion,” said the Commissioner sarcastically. “Has Farwill said any more?”

  “He was just wooden,” said Teal. “That’s what I don’t like about it. If he’d gone off the deep end, ranted about the inefficiency of the police and the questions he was going to ask in Parliament—all the usual stuff, you know—I’d have felt happier about it. That was what I was expecting him to do, but he didn’t do it. He seemed to go back into a sort of shell.”

  “You mean you got the impression that he was rather regretting having gone to the police with that letter?”

  Teal nodded.

  “It did seem like that. I’ve seen it happen before, when the Saint’s on a job. The fellow may kick up a fuss at first, but pretty soon he shuts down like a clam. Either he pays, or he tries to deal with the Saint on his own. He doesn’t ask us to interfere again.”

  “And yet you haven’t the faintest idea why solid and respectable people—public men like Farwill, for instance—crumple up like frightened babies just because this man writes them a letter,” remarked the Assistant Commissioner acidly.

  The detective twiddled a button on his coat.

  “I have got the faintest idea, sir,” he said redly. “I’ve got more than a faint idea. I know why they do it. I know why they’re doing it now. It’s blackmail.”

  “Do you know, I really believe you’ve solved the mystery,” said the Commissioner, with a mildness that singed the air.

  “If I’ve done that, I’ve done more than anyone else in this building,” retorted Teal heatedly. “But there are plenty of people sitting in their offices criticising me who couldn’t have got half as far as I have, even if that isn’t saying much.” He glared at his chief stubbornly, while all the accumulated wrath and resentment of a score of such conferences rose up recklessly in his breast and strangled his voice for a moment. “Everybody knows that it’s some kind of blackmail, but that doesn’t help. We can’t prove it. When I produced that letter, Templar simply laughed at me. And he was right. There wasn’t a line of blackmail in it—except to anyone who knew what was in that book he mentions.”

  “Which you failed to find out,” said the Commissioner.

  “Which I failed to find out,” agreed Teal feverishly, “because I’m not a miracle worker, and I never said I was.”

  The Assistant Commissioner picked up his pen.

  “Do you want a search-warrant—is that what all these hysterics are about?” he inquired icily.

  Teal gulped.

  “Yes, I want a search-warrant!” he exploded defiantly. “I know what it means. The Saint’ll probably get around that somehow. When I get there, the book will have disappeared, or it’ll turn out to be a copy of Fairy Tales for Little Children, or something. And Edingham and Quipp will get up and swear it was never anything else.” Goaded beyond endurance though he was, the detective checked for an instant at the horrific potentialities of his prophecy, but he plunged on blindly. “I’ve seen things like that happen before, too. I’ve seen the Saint turn a cast-iron conviction into a cast-iron alibi in ten seconds. I’m ready to see it happen again, I’m ready to see him give the newspapers a story that’ll make them laugh themselves sick for two months at my expense. But I’ll take that search-warrant!”

  “I’ll see that you have it in half an hour,” said the Assistant Commissioner coldly. “We will discuss your other remarks on the basis of what you do with it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Chief Inspector Teal, and left the room with the comfortless knowledge that the last word on that subject was a long way from having been said.

  7

  “Gents,” announced Mr Uniatz, from a chest swelling with proper pride, “dis here is my pal Mr Orconi. Dey calls him Peter de Blood. He’s de guy youse guys is lookin’ for. He’ll fix t’ings…”

  From that moment, with those classic words, the immortal gorgeousness of the situation was established for all time. Simon Templar had been in many queer spots before, had cheerfully allowed his destiny to be spun giddy in almost every conceivable whirlpool of adventure, but never before had he entered such a portentous conclave to solemnly discuss the manner in which he should assassinate himself, and the sheer ecstatic pulchritude of the idea was prancing balmily through his insides in a hare-brained saraband which only a delirious sense of humour like the Saint’s could have appreciated to the full.

  He stood with his hands in his pockets surveying the two other members of the conference with very clear blue eyes, and allowing the beatific fruitiness of the scheme which Mr Uniatz had made possible to squirm rapturously through his system.

  “Pleased to meet ya,” he drawled, with a perfect gangster intonation that had been learned in more perilous and unsavoury surroundings than a fire-proof air-conditioned movie theatre.

  Mr Neville Yorkland, MP, fidgeted with his tie and looked vaguely about the room. He was a broad tubby little man, who looked something like a cross between a gentleman farmer and a dilettante artist—an incongruous soufflé of opposites, with a mane of long untidy hair crowning a vintage-port complexion.

  “Well,” he said jerkily, “let’s sit down. Get to business. Don’t want to waste any time.”

  The Honourable Leo Farwill nodded. He was as broad as Yorkland, but longer, and he was not fussy. His black brows and heavy black moustache were of almost identical shape and dimensions, so that his face had a curiously unfinished symmetry, as if its other features had been fitted quite carelessly into the decisive framework of those three arcs of hair.

  “An excellent idea
,” he boomed. “Excellent. Perhaps we might have a drink as well. Mr…ah…Orconi—”

  “Call me Pete,” suggested the Saint affably, “and let’s see your liquor.”

  They sat, rather symbolically, on opposite sides of the long table in Farwill’s library. Hoppy Uniatz gravitated naturally to the Saint’s elbow, while Yorkland pulled up a chair beside Farwill.

  The Honourable Leo poured sherry into four glasses from a crystal decanter.

  “Mr…er…Uniatz gives us to understand that you are what is known as a…ah…gunman, Mr Orconi.”

  “Pete,” said the Saint, sipping his drink.

  “Ah…Pete,” Farwill corrected himself, with visible distaste.

  Simon nodded gently.

  “I guess that’s right,” he said. “If there’s anyone horning in on your racket, you’ve come to the guy who can stop him.”

  “Sure,” echoed Hoppy Uniatz, grasping his opportunity and swallowing it in one gulp. “We’ll fix him.” Farwill beamed laboriously, and produced a box of cigars.

  “I presume that Mr Uniatz has already acquainted you with the basic motives of our proposition,” he said.

  “Hoppy told me what you wanted—if that’s what you mean,” said the Saint succinctly, stripping the band from his selected Corona. “This guy Templar has something on you, an’ you want him taken off.”

  “That…ah…might be a crude method of expressing it,” rumbled the Honourable Leo. “However, it is unnecessary to go into the diplomatic niceties of the dilemma. I will content myself with suggesting to you that the situation is one of, I might almost say, national moment.”

  “Tremendous issues involved,” muttered Mr Neville Yorkland helpfully. “World-wide catastrophe. The greatest caution is called for. Tact. Secrecy. Emergency measures.”

  “Exactly,” concluded Farwill. “Emergency measures. The ordinary avenues are closed to us by the exigencies of the crisis. You would, in fact, find yourself in the position of an unofficial secret service agent—taking your own risks, fighting your own battles, knowing that in the event of failure you will be disowned by your employers. The situation, in short, calls for a man who is able to take care of himself, who is prepared to endanger his life for a reasonable reward, who…who…”

  “I get it,” said the Saint blandly. “This guy Templar has something on you, an’ you want him taken off.” Farwill compressed his lips.

  “At this stage of developments, I feel called upon neither to confirm that statement nor repudiate it,” he said with the fluency of many years in Parliament. “The points at issue are, first, whether you are a suitable man for the mission—”

  “Nuts,” said the Saint tersely. “You want a guy like me, an’ I’m the guy you want. When do you cut the cackle an’ come to the hosses?”

  The Honourable Leo glanced despairing at Yorkland, as if appealing to the Speaker on a point of order. Yorkland twiddled his thumbs. “Should be all right,” he mumbled. “Looks the type. Vouched for by Mr Uniatz. Been to America myself. Can’t pick and choose. Got to decide.”

  “Ah, yes,” admitted Farwill despondently, as if the very idea violated all his dearest principles. “We have got to decide.” He inflated his chest again for the only outlet of oratory that was left to him. “Well, Mr Orconi…ah…Pete, you are doubtless familiar with the general outline of the engagement. This book, of which Mr Uniatz must have told you, must be recovered—whether by guile or force is immaterial. Nothing must be permitted to obstruct a successful consummation of the undertaking. If, in the course of your work, it should prove necessary to effect physical injuries upon this man Templar, or even to…er…expedite his decease, humanitarian considerations must not influence our firmness. Now, I would suggest that a fee of two hundred pounds—”

  Simon straightened up in his chair and laughed rudely.

  “Say, whaddaya think I’m lookin’ for?” he demanded. “Chicken-feed?”

  The Honourable Leo drew further breath for eloquence, and the argument was on. It would scarcely be profitable to record it in detail. It went on for a long time, conducted on the Parliamentary side in rounded periods which strayed abstractedly to every other subject on earth except the one in hand and nearly sent the Saint to sleep. But Simon Templar had a serene determination of his own which could even survive the soporific flatulence of Farwill’s long-winded verbiage; he was in no hurry, and he was still enjoying himself hugely. Hoppy Uniatz, endowed with a less vivid appreciation of the simple jests of life, did actually fall into a doze.

  At long last a fee of two thousand pounds was agreed on, and the Saint helped himself to a fifth glass of sherry.

  “Okay, boys,” he murmured. “We’ll get that guy.”

  “Sure,” echoed Mr Uniatz, rousing with a snort. “We’ll get him.”

  Yorkland shuffled about on the edge of his seat, buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, and got up.

  “Very well,” he stuttered. “That’s settled. Glad it’s all fixed up. Now I must get back to town. Late already. Important meetings.” His restless eyes glanced at the other member of his side. “Count on me for my share, Farwill.”

  The Honourable Leo nodded.

  “Certainly,” he reverberated. “Certainly. You may leave it to me to arrange the details.” He drew the sherry decanter towards him and replaced the stopper unobtrusively but firmly. “I think we owe a vote of thanks to Mr Uniatz for the…er…introduction.”

  Simon Templar surveyed him dispassionately over a second Corona.

  “You owe more than that, fella,” he said.

  Farwill coughed.

  “I thought the…er…honorarium was payable when the commission had been…ah…executed.”

  “Half of it is,” agreed the Saint pleasantly. “The first half is payable now. I done business with politicians before. You make so many promises in your job, you can’t expect to remember ’em all.”

  “Sure,” seconded Hoppy Uniatz heartily. “Cash wit’ order is de rule in dis foim.”

  Farwill drew out his wallet grudgingly, but it was stocked with a supply of currency which indicated that some such demand had not been unforeseen. He counted out a number of banknotes with reluctant deliberation, and Yorkland watched the proceeding with a hint of hollowness in his round face.

  “Well,” he said with a sigh, “that’s done. Send you a cheque tonight, Farwill. Thanks. Really must be off now. Excuse me. Goodbye.”

  He shook hands all round, with the limp perfunctory grip of the professional handshaker, and puttered out of the room, and they heard his car scrunching away down the drive.

  The Saint smiled to himself, and raked in the money. He counted it into two piles, pushed one towards Hoppy Uniatz, and folded the other into his pocket. There were five hundred pounds in his own share—it was a small enough sum as the Saint rated boodle, but there were circumstances in which he could take a fiver with just as much pleasure as he would have taken five thousand. It was not always the amount of the swag, it was the twist of the game by which it was collected, and beyond all doubt the twist by which that five hundred had been pulled in ranked high in the scale of pure imponderable delights. On such an occasion, even a purely nominal allowance of loot was its own reward, but still the Saint had not achieved everything that had been in his mind when he set out on that soul-satisfying jag.

  One other riddle had been working in his brain ever since he left his apartment that morning, and he led up to it with studied casualness.

  “The job’s as good as done, Leo,” he said.

  “Sure,” echoed the faithful Mr Uniatz. “De guy is dead an’ buried.”

  “Excellent,” responded Farwill formally. “Ah—excellent.”

  He had almost got the decanter away when Simon reached it with a long arm. Farwill winced, and averted his eyes.

  “This ain’t such bad stuff, Leo,” the Saint commented kindly, emptying his glass and refilling it rapidly. He spilt an inch of ash from his cigar onto the carpet, and cocked one foot on to
the polished table with a callous disregard for his host’s feelings which he felt would go well with the imaginary character of Pete de Blood, and which soothed his own sleepless sense of mischief at the same time. “About this guy, Templar,” he said. “Suppose I do have to rub him out?”

  “Rub him out?” repeated Farwill dubiously. “Ah…yes, yes. Suppose you have to kill him.” His eyes shifted for a moment with the hunted look of the politician who scents an attempt to commit him to a definite statement. “Well, naturally it is understood that you will look after yourself.”

  “Aw, shucks,” said the Saint scornfully. “I can look after myself. That ain’t what I mean. I mean, suppose he was rubbed out, then there wouldn’t be any way to find out where the book was, an’ the cops might get it.”

  Farwill finally collared the decanter and transported it in an absent-minded way to the cellaret, which he locked with the same preoccupied air. He turned round and clasped his hands under his coat-tails.

  “From our point of view, the problem might be simplified,” he said.

  The Saint rolled his cigar steadily between his finger and thumb. The question with which he had taxed the imagination of Mr Uniatz had been propounded again where it might find a more positive reply, but the Saint’s face showed no trace of his eagerness for a solution. He tipped the dialogue over the brink of elucidation with a single impassive monosyllable.

  “How?”

  “The Saint has a…ah…confederate,” said Farwill, looking at the ceiling. “A young lady. We understand that she shared his confidence in all his…ah…enterprises. We may therefore assume that she is cognisant of the whereabouts of the volume in question. If the Saint were…ah…removed, therefore,” Farwill suggested impersonally, “one would probably have a more…ah…tractable person with whom to deal.”