The Saint Meets the Tiger s-1 Page 9

  "Anjew better come along quietly," advised the policeman, tightening his grip on the Saint's shoulder and holding his truncheon at the ready.

  "Fine," said the Saint softly. "I should like to be searched now, so that your statement about the revolver can be verified."

  Bloem smiled.

  "You left it behind," he said. "Here it is."

  Carn took the weapon from Bloem's hand and examined it.

  "Belgian make," he said. "Is this yours, Mr. Templar?"

  "It is not," answered Simon promptly. "I object to firearms on principle. They make such a noise."

  "Come along," urged the constable, jerking the Saint forward.

  Simon was not easily peeved, but one thing that made him see red was anybody trying to haze him. For a second he forgot his Saintly pose. He caught the policeman's wrist with both hands and twisted like an eel. There was a flurry of arms and legs, a yell, and George Hopkins landed with a crash on the other side of the room, with most of the breath knocked out of him.

  The Saint straightened his tie, and looked bang into the muzzle of an automatic in Bloem's hand, but that he ignored.

  "Anyone who wants a quiet life is advised to keep his filthy hands off me," murmured the Saint. "Don't do it again, son."

  The constable was getting shakily to his feet.

  "That's assaulting the police," he stormed.

  "Oh, don't be childish," drawled the Saint, cool again. "When we want your little chatter we'll ask for it. Just now, Bloem, we'll argue this out by ourselves. We can soon smash this cock-and-bull yarn of yours. One: were you alone in the house?"

  "I was."

  "Where was Algy?"

  "He'd gone over to see Miss Holm,"

  That knocked the bottom out of a neat little alibi that the Saint had thought of trying to put over, but he did not show his disappointment.

  "Two: didn't anyone follow me here with you?"

  "I refuse to be cross-examined. I've told you I was alone — ''

  "You're talking," said the Saint coldly. "Don't. Be a good boy and just answer when you're spoken to. And the point is, if you've been quite alone all this time, as you say you have, what's your word against mine? Suppose I say I called in for a chat, and you stuck me up with that gun and tried to pinch my watch? Why shouldn't you be run in yourself?"

  "Let 'im tell that to the judge," growled the constable.

  "I think," said Bloem acidly, "that my reputation will survive your wild accusations."

  The Saint was not impressed.

  "We had a stand-up fight, did we?" he went on. "I grant you I look as if I'd been in some rough stuff. Now suppose you take off that mac and let's see how you came out of it."

  Bloem smiled, a little wearily, and unbuttoned his coat. The Saint's lips tightened. Bloem certainly had a convincing air of having been violently handled, and that put the Tiger another point to the good. Simon saw the Tiger's score soaring skyward at an alarming rate, but the only effect of that was to key up his own nerves, while his easy and confident manner never faltered. There were still a few more minutes to play.

  "It's rather hopeless, isn't it?" said Bloem.

  He was appealing to the audience, and the constable grunted his agreement.

  "What was this remark you didn't understand?" asked Carn. "When he — as you say — threatened you with the revolver."

  "It was most mysterious," said Bloem. "He said:

  'I'm looking for the tiger's den, and I think I'm getting warm.' I still can't make out what he meant."

  Simon fished out his cigarette case and began to tap a cigarette thoughtfully on his thumbnail. Apparently bored with the whole proceeding, he nevertheless saw Carn's face become a mask. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Bloem, and the Boer's bland demeanour almost took his breath away. The colossal audacity of that last statement was the crowning stroke to a truly masterly bluff. The Saint wondered if Carn himself was suspect, but Bloem's gaze rested only on the Saint. No — the gang knew nothing about Carn's real profession. Bloem was simply taking a vindictive pleasure in kicking the man whom he thought he had got where he wanted him.

  And it looked dangerously as if he had got the Saint tied hand and foot and gagged. Patricia could not help him, and Carn could not — even if he cared to. It was Bloem's word against Simon's, and there was no doubt which the Bench would prefer to accept. And Bloem knew that the Saint knew that any reference to the evening's entertainment at Bittle's would be futile. Bittle would lie like a Trojan, and the Tiger was sure to have provided him with a plausible explanation of the noise that had occurred earlier that night.

  The Saint grasped the consummate efficiency of the Tiger's tactics. Simon was to be shopped, and the shopping had been slickly done. He would be lucky to get away with six months' hard — and taken in conjunction with the assault upon the police in the execution of its duty the whole charge sheet might well put the Saint behind bars for upward of a year. And in that time T. T. Deeps could be salted, and the Tiger Cubs could fade gracefully away. The Saint lounged even more languidly against the mantelpiece. This last deal had certainly given the Tiger one Hades of a hand.

  Yet indisputably the Saint dominated the situation. They were all waiting for him. Bloem, watching him through narrowed lids, and still training the automatic upon him, was utterly confident of the strength of his combination. He was just waiting for the Saint to confess defeat. The constable, more wary after his taste of the Saint's anger, was hanging about in the background waiting for somebody else to start the next dance. Patricia was looking anxiously at the Saint, powerless to help him, and wondering if any daring sideslip was being planned behind that lazy exterior. The one certain thing was that she did not believe Bloem's story for an instant. At any other time she might have credited it, but seen in the light of previous events that evening it savoured of nothing but the complicated web of mystery which had caught her up in its meshes and which threatened her Saint with the most sinister things. And Carn had nothing to say. As far as Bloem's story was concerned it might or might not be true — his knowledge of the Saint inclined him to believe it. But in any case the Saint was working against him, even if he was also working against the Tiger. And to have disclosed himself as Central Detective Inspector Carn of Scotland Yard would have written Finis to every chance he had of succeeding on his mission.

  "We're waiting," said Bloem at last.

  "So I see," drawled Simon. "If you can wait a bit longer, there are just one or two more points to clear up. The first is that I'm sure you won't mind the Doctor just examining the bump I must have raised on your cranium when I knocked you out."

  He was watching Bloem closely as he spoke, and his heart sank when he saw that the man was not at all put out. Carn walked up to Bloem with a query, and Bloem nodded.

  "Just behind my left ear," he said.

  "Sweetest lamb," said the Saint through his teeth, "I'll bet you just hated getting that bit of realism!"

  Carn looked at the Saint and shrugged.

  "Someone certainly hit him very hard," he said. "Saint, you've put your foot in it this time."

  "So I don't think we'll prolong this unpleasant duty," said Bloem briskly. "Constable — you have the handcuffs? I'm covering him, and I shall shoot if he attacks you again."

  And then the congregation was increased by one, for a man strutted out of the darkness and stood framed in the open window.

  " 'Ere, wassal this?" demanded Grace truculently.

  Chapter VIII

  THE SAINT IS DENSE

  Bloem wheeled with a smothered exclamation, for the interruption came from behind him. Then the Boer slowly lowered his automatic — because Grace was carrying the enormous revolver which was his pride and joy, and that fearsome weapon was waving in a gentle semicircle so that it covered everyone in the room in turn. Orace leaned on the windowsill, well pleased with the timeliness of his entrance and the sensation it had caused.

  "Snoldup," declared Orace brightly. "Ni
jus' come in the nicker time. Looks like a dangerous carrickter, too. Orfcer," said Orace, with a lordly sweep of his free hand, "you 'ave the bracelets. Do yer dooty!"

  "My good fellow — "

  Orace waggled the blunderbuss threateningly in Bloem's direction.

  "Lay orf 'me good fellerin'' me!" commanded Orace ferociously. "Caught in the yack, that's wot you are, an' jer carn't wriggle out av it! Constible! Wot the thunderin' 'ell are yer wytin' for? Look slippy an' clap the joolry on 'im! An' jew jusurryup an' leggo that popgun, or I'll plugya!"

  Bloem let the automatic fall, and the Saint picked it up, in case of accidents.

  "I can explain," persisted Bloem.

  "Corse yer can," agreed Orace, scornful. “Never knew a crook 'oo couldn't."

  "Oh, but he can," said the Saint. "You can stop flourishing that cannon, Orace, and come right in. I was just wondering how to get hold of you."

  Orace looked doubtful, but eventually he obeyed, clambering lamely over the sill and treating Bloem to a menacing glare as he did so.

  "Yessir?"

  "A simple case of mistaken identity," remarked the Saint to the assembled company, in the manner of counsel opening the defence. "But Mr. Bloem was so very obstinate.... Well, this is Orace, late of His Majesty's Royal Marines, and my servant for years. Orace will now testify that I reached home just after eleven, and didn't leave again until about twenty to twelve."

  The Saint did not even look at Orace as he spoke, for he knew his man. Carn, however, did, and saw Orace register surprise.

  "Tha's so," said Orace. " 'Oo said yer didn't?"

  "You see," Simon explained, "Mr. Bloem there was held up by an armed man to-night, and he had the idea that it was me, so he's been trying to arrest me."

  Orace nodded, tilting his head away from Bloem as if the man offended his nostrils.

  "Ar," said Orace derisively. "The idea!"

  The Saint turned to Bloem.

  "Perhaps you will now apologize?" he suggested. "Come, Mr. Bloem, admit that you didn't get a good view of your assailant, and for reasons of your own you jumped to the conclusion that it was me. He might even have been masked.. .."

  The two men's eyes met. There was no misconstruing the Saint's meaning. He was offering Bloem a graceful retreat. Bloem knew that he had weakened his case by confessing that no one but himself had seen the bandit, and his story would never hold water in the face of Simon's alibi. Orace was the one factor which the Tiger, by some incomprehensible oversight, had utterly overlooked. It might even be said that only Grace's arrival at that precise moment made him a factor to be considered: if any time had elapsed between the arrest and its coming to Grace's ears, Orace might by then have been trapped into admitting that he had not seen the Saint since dinner, and possibly the Tiger had banked on some such manoeuvre. But Orace had turned up just when he was wanted, which he had an uncanny gift for doing, and thereby he had upset the Tiger's applecart irretrievably.

  And Bloem knew it. He did not show it with a muscle of his face, but his eyes glowed venomously. And the Saint, smiling a little, gazed back with a little blue devil of unholy glee dancing about just behind his lazily lowered lids. For the Saint was thinking of the whack behind the ear which Bloem had suffered for the good of the cause, and that thought made his ribs ache with noiseless laughter ….

  "I am deeply humiliated," said Bloem in a strangled voice. "As a matter of fact, the man was masked. I let him leave the room, and then followed. When I came out of the garden, I saw Mr. Templar walking away, and immediately concluded that it was he. The real man must have gone off in another direction. I apologize."

  "I accept your apology, Mr. Bloem," said the Saint stiffly. "Don't let it occur again."

  His dignity was terrific, and for that shrewd cut he was rewarded with a look from Bloem which ought by rights to have made him vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving a small greasy stain on the carpet, but the Saint's armour was impregnable.

  "I'm very sorry. Doctor," said Bloem unevenly. "Try to forgive me, Miss Holm. I'd better go."

  The Saint stepped up with the automatic.

  "You might need this, with a hold-up man in the neighbourhood," he murmured mockingly. "If you meet him again, I trust you will not spare the lead."

  Bloem gazed back malignantly.

  "You need have no fear of that, Mr. Templar," he replied.

  He was just going out when Mr. Hopkins awoke to the realization that he had been cheated of the glory of arresting an armed desperado, and that this coolly smiling man who was getting off scot-free had flung him across the room, bruised and shaken him severely, and nearly broken his arm.

  " 'Ere," said the constable, whose idiom was much the same as that of Orace, "wassal this? Whatever you say, that don't dispose of the charge of assaultin' the police."

  "When an innocent man is treated like a criminal," said Simon virtuously, "he may be pardoned for losing his temper. I'm sure Mr. Bloem will agree with me? ... In fact," added the Saint, taking Mr. Hopkins coaxingly by the arm, "I'm sure that if you mentioned the matter to Mr. Bloem, he'd stand you a glass of milk and put a penny in your money box. Wouldn't you, Mr. Bloem?"

  "Naturally," said Bloem, without enthusiasm, “naturally I must accept the responsibility for that.”

  "Spoken like a gent," approved the Saint. "Now toddle along and talk big business under the stars, like good children."

  And he urged Bloem and the constable toward the door. They went obediently, for different reasons. It was a victory that the Saint could not help rubbing in.

  He slammed the front door on the pair, and returned hilariously,

  "Honour is vindicated, mes enfants,"he said happily. "What about splitting another lemonade onit, Carn?"

  The detective looked at the Saint and nodded slowly.

  "I think we might," he assented. "Such luck ought to be celebrated. I suppose it would be indiscreet to ask how Grace came to arrive so fortunately?"

  "But why indiscreet?" cried the Saint. "All's fair and above board. Orace, tell the gentleman how you happened to blow in on your cue."

  Orace cleared his throat.

  "Being accustomed to take a constitooshnal," he began, in the stilted language which he would have employed before his orderly officer, "I'm in the 'abit of walking this wy of a nevenin'; and the winder bein' open an' me 'avin' good eyesight — "

  "Of course I believe you," said Carn. "You deserve to be believed. There's some whisky in the kitchen, Orace."

  Orace saluted and marched out, and the Saint doubled up with silent mirth.

  "Orace is unique," he said.

  "Orace is all that, and then some," Carn returned ruefully.

  Soon afterward Simon and Patricia left. They walked the short distance to the Manor without speaking, for the Saint was enjoying the novel experience of finding his flow of small talk entirely dried up. He had thought of nothing to say until the girl was opening the door, and then he could only make a postponement.

  "May I see you to-morrow morning?" he asked.

  "Of course."

  "I'll come right after breakfast."

  Suddenly she remembered Agatha Girton.

  "I think — would you mind if I came over to you instead?"

  "I'd love you to. And if I haven't bored you to tears by then, you can stay for lunch. Tell me what time you'll be leaving, and I'll send Orace over to fetch you."

  She was surprised.

  "Is that necessary?"

  "Very necessary," replied the Saint gravely. "Tigers have nasty suspicious minds, just like me, and by this time one Tiger is wondering just how dangerous you are, Pat. Yes, I know it's screamingly funny, but let me send Orace — for my own peace of mind."

  "Well — About half-past ten, if you like." '

  "I do. And Orace will adore it. One other thing. Will you do me a great favour?"

  She had found the switch in the hall, and she turned on the light to see his face better, but he was not joking.

  "Lock yo
ur door, and put the key under the pillow. Don't open to anybody — not even your aunt. I don't really think anything'll happen so soon, but Tigers can hustle. Will you?"

  She nodded.

  "You're very alarming," she said.

  "I'm full of ideas to-night," he said. "I've had a taste of the Tiger's speed, and nobody ever stung the Saint in the same way twice. Don't believe any messages except they're brought by Orace. Don't trust anybody but me, Orace, or old Carn at a pinch. I know it's a tall order, but there are one or two rough days — not to mention rough nights — in store for the old brigade. You've been perfectly marvellous so far. Can you keep it up?"

  "I'll try," she said.

  He took her hand.

  "God bless you, Pat, old pal."

  "Saint — "

  He was going when she stopped him. It was odd to hear that nickname fall from her lips — the name wherewith the Saint had been christened in strange and ugly places, by hard and godless men. He had grown so used to it that he had come to accept it without question, but now the sound of it brought a flood of memories. Once again he stood in the Bosun's smoky bar at the back of Mexico City, looking from the huddled corpse of Senhor Miguel Grasiento to the girl called Cherry, and heard the ruralespounding on the door. He had got her away, on an English tramp bound for Liverpool. " 'Saint,' " she had said — "that was a true word spoken in jest." And he had never heard that name uttered in the same tone since until that moment….

  "Saint, did you really go to Bloem's?"

  "I did not," he answered. "That was a frame-up, But Mynheer Bloem is certainly one of the Tiger Cubs. Watch him! I'll tell you the whole yarn to-morrow. Bye-bye, kid,"

  The Saint found Orace in the lane, curled up under the hedge, philosophically smoking his pipe.

  "We'll work inland round the village," said Simon. "I'm hoping the Tiger's had enough for one night, but you never know. Nobody's got any proof that Bloem was lying about that hold-up merchant, except me, and a fairy tale like that cuts both ways. If our bodies were found in a field in the morning, the whole thing'd fit in beautifully."