Verdean showed no improvement in the afternoon. Towards five o'clock the Saint had a flash of inspiration, and put in a long-distance call to a friend in Wolverhampton.
"Dr Turner won't be back till tomorrow morning, and I'm afraid I don't know how to reach him," said the voice at the other end of the wire; and the flash flickered and died out at the sound. "But I can give you Dr Young's number——"
"I am not having a baby," said the Saint coldly, and hung up.
He leaned back in his chair and said, quietly and intensely: "God damn."
"You should complain," said Patricia. "You Mormon."
She had entered the study from the hall, and closed the door again behind her. The Saint looked up from under mildly interrogative brows.
"I knew you adored me," he said, "but you have an original line of endearing epithets. What's the origin of this one?"
"Blonde," she said, "and voluptuous in a careful way. Mushy lips and the-old-baloney eyes. I'll bet she wears black lace undies and cuddles like a kitten. She hasn't brought the baby with her, but she's probably got a picture of it."
The Saint straightened.
"Not Angela?" he ventured breathlessly.
"I'm not so intimate with her," said Patricia primly. "But she gave the name of Miss Lindsay. You ought to recognize your own past when it catches up with you."
Simon stood up slowly. He glanced at the closed section of the bookcase, beyond which was the secret room where Hoppy Uniatz was still keeping watch over Mr Verdean and a case of Vat 69; and his eyes were suddenly filled with an unholy peace.
"I do not recognize her, darling, now I think about it," he said. "This is the one who had the twins." He gripped her arm, and his smile wavered over her in a flicker of ghostly excitement. "I ought to have known that she'd catch up with me. And I think this is the break I've been waiting for all day...."
He went into the living-room with a new quickness in his step and a new exhilaration sliding along his nerves. Now that this new angle had developed, he was amazed that he had not been expecting it from the beginning. He had considered every other likely eventuality, but not this one; and yet this was the most obvious one of all. Kaskin and Dolf knew who he was, and some of his addresses were to be found in various directories that were at the disposal of anyone who could read: it was not seriously plausible that after the night before they would decide to give up their loot and go away and forget about it, and once they had made up their minds to attempt a comeback it could only have been a matter of time before they looked for him in Weybridge. The only thing he might not have anticipated was that they would send Angela Lindsay in to open the interview. That was a twist which showed a degree of circumspection that made Simon Templar greet her with more than ordinary watchfulness.
"Angela, darling!" he murmured with an air of pleased surprise. "I never thought I should see you in these rural parts. When did you decide to study bird life in the suburbs ?"
"It came over me suddenly, last night," she said. "I began to realize that I'd missed something."
His eyes were quizzically sympathetic.
"You shouldn't be too discouraged. I don't think you missed it by more than a couple of inches."
"Perhaps not. But a miss is——"
"I know. As good as in the bush."
"Exactly."
He smiled at her, and offered the cigarette box. She took one, and he gave her a light. His movements and his tone of voice were almost glisteningly smooth with exaggerated elegance. He was enjoying his act immensely.
"A drink?" he suggested; but she shook her head.
"It mightn't be very good for me, so I won't risk it. Besides, I want to try and make a good impression."
He was studying her more critically than he had been able to the night before, and it seemed to him that Patricia's description of her was a little less than absolutely fair. She had one of those modern streamlined figures that look boyish until they are examined closely, when they prove to have the same fundamental curves that grandma used to have. Her mouth and eyes were effective enough, even if the effect was deplorable from a moral standpoint. And although it was true that even a comparatively unworldly observer would scarcely have hesitated for a moment over placing her in her correct category, it was also very definitely true that if all the other members of that category had looked like her, Mr Ebenezer Hogsbotham would have found himself burning a very solitary candle in a jubilantly naughty world.
The Saint went on looking at her with amiable amusement at the imaginative vistas opened up by the train of thought. He said: "You must have made quite an impression on Comrade Verdean. And you drank champagne with him at Brighton."
She put her cigarette to her lips and drew lightly at it while she gazed at him for a second or two in silence. Her face was perfectly composed, but her eyes were fractionally narrowed.
"I'll give you that one," she said at length. "We've been wondering just how much you really knew. Would you care to tell me the rest, or would that be asking too much?"
"Why, of course," said the Saint obligingly. "If you're interested. It isn't as if I'd be telling you anything you don't know already."
He sat down and stretched out his long legs. He looked at the ceiling. He was bluffing, but he felt sure enough of his ground.
"Kaskin and Dolf picked up Verdean on his holiday at Eastbourne," he said. "Kaskin can make himself easy to like when he wants to—it's his stock in trade. They threw you in for an added attraction. Verdean fell for it all. He was having a swell time with a bunch of good fellows. And you were fairly swooning into his manly arms. It made him feel grand, and a little bit dizzy. He had to live up to it. Kaskin was a sporty gent, and Verdean was ready to show that he was a sporty gent too. They got him to backing horses, and he always backed winners. Money poured into his lap. He felt even grander. It went to his head—where it was meant to go. He left his boardinghouse, and pranced off to Brighton with you on a wild and gorgeous jag."
Simon reached for a cigarette.
"Then, the setback," he went on. "You had expensive tastes, and you expected him to go on being a good fellow and a sporty gent. But that looked easy. There was always money in the geegees, with Kaskin's expert assistance. So he thought. Only something went haywire. The certainties didn't win. But the next one would always get it back. Verdean began to plunge. He got wilder and wilder as he lost more and more. And he couldn't stop. He was infatuated with you, scared stiff of losing you. He lost more money than he had of his own. He started embezzling a little, maybe. Anyway, he was in the cart. He owed more money than he could hope to pay. Then Kaskin and Dolf started to get tough. They told him how he could pay off his debt, and make a profit as well. There was plenty of money in the bank every week, and it would be very easy to stage a holdup and get away with it if he was co-operating. Kaskin and Dolf would do the job and take all the risk, and all he had to do was to give them the layout and make everything easy for them. He'd never be suspected himself, and he'd get his cut afterwards. But if he didn't string along—well, someone might have to tell the head office about him. Verdean knew well enough what happens to bank managers who get into debt, particularly over gambling. He could either play ball or go down the drain. So he said he'd play ball. Am I right ?"
"So far. But I hope you aren't going to stop before the important part."
"All right. Verdean thought some more—by himself. He was sunk, anyhow. He had to rob the bank if he was going to save his own skin. So why shouldn't he keep all the boodle for himself? . . . That's just what he decided to do. The branch is a small one, and nobody would have thought of questioning anything he did. It was easy for him to pack a load of dough into a small valise and take it out with him when he went home to lunch—just before the holdup was timed to take place. Nobody would have thought of asking him what he had in his bag; and as for the money, well, of course the holdup men would be blamed for getting away with it. But he didn't want Judd and Morrie on his tail, so he tip
ped off the police anonymously, meaning for them to be caught, and feeling pretty sure that nobody would believe any accusations they made about him—or at least not until he had plenty of time to hide it. ... There were still a few holes in the idea, but he was too desperate to worry about them. His real tragedy was when Kaskin and Dolf didn't get caught after all, and came after him to ask questions. And naturally that's when we all started to get together."
"And then?"
The Saint raised his head and looked at her again.
"Maybe I'm very dense," he said apologetically, "but isn't that enough ?"
"It's almost uncanny. But there's still the most important thing."
"What would that be?"
"Did you find out what happened to the money ?"
The Saint was silent for a moment. He elongated his legs still farther, so that they stretched out over the carpet like a pier; his recumbent body looked as if it were composing itself for sleep. But the eyes that he bent on her were bright and amused and very cheerfully awake.
She said: "What are you grinning about?"
"I'd just been wondering when it was coming, darling," he murmured. "I know that my dazzling beauty brings admiring sightseers from all quarters like moths to a candle, but they usually want something else as well. And it's been very nice to see you and have this little chat, but I was always afraid you were hoping to get something out of it. So this is what it is. Morrie and Judd sent you along to get an answer to that question, so they'd know whether it was safe to bump me off or not. If Verdean is still keeping his mouth shut, they can go ahead and fix me a funeral; but if I've found out where it is I may have even moved it somewhere else by now, and it would be awkward to have me buried before I could tell them where I'd moved it to. Is that all that's worrying you?"
"Not altogether," she said, without hesitation. "They didn't have to send me for that. I talked them into letting me come because I told them you'd probably talk to me for longer than you'd talk to them and anyhow you wouldn't be so likely to punch me on the nose. But I really did it because I wanted to see you myself."
The flicker that passed over Simon's face was almost imperceptible.
"I hope it's been worth it," he said flippantly; but he was watching her with a coolly reserved alertness.
"That's what you've got to tell me," she said. She looked away from him for a moment, stubbed out her cigarette nervously, looked back at him again with difficult frankness. Her hands moved uncertainly. She went on in a rush: "You see, I know Judd doesn't mean to give me my share. I could trust you. Whatever happens, they're going to give you trouble. I know you can take care of yourself, but I don't suppose you'd mind having it made easier for you. I could be on your side, without them knowing, and I wouldn't want much."
The Saint blew two smoke rings with leisured care, placing them side by side like the lenses of a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. They drifted towards the ceiling, enlarging languidly.
His face was inscrutable, but behind that pleasantly noncommittal mask he was thinking as quickly as he could.
He might have come to any decision. But before he could say anything there was an interruption.
The door was flung open, and Hoppy Uniatz crashed in.
Mr Uniatz's face was not at all inscrutable. It was as elementarily easy to read as an infant's primer. The ecstatic protrusion of his eyes, the lavish enthusiasm of his breathing, the broad beam that divided his physiognomy into two approximately equal halves, and the roseate glow which suffused his homely countenance, were all reminiscent of the symptoms of bliss that must have illuminated the features of Archimedes at the epochal moment of his life. He looked like a man who had just made the inspirational discovery of the century in his bath.
"It woiked, boss," he yawped exultantly, "it woiked I De dough is in Hogsbotham's bedroom!"
VIII
SIMON TEMPLAR kept still. It cost him a heroic effort but he did it. He felt as if he were balanced on top of a thin glass flagpole in the middle of an earthquake, but he managed to keep the surface of his nonchalance intact. He kept Angela Lindsay's hands always within the radius of his field of vision, and said rather faintly: "What woiked?"
Mr Uniatz seemed slightly taken aback.
"Why, de idea you give me dis afternoon, boss," he explained, as though he saw little need for such childish elucidations. "You remember, you are saying why can't we sock dis guy de udder way an' knock his memory back. Well, I am t'inkin' about dat, an' it seems okay to me, an' I ain't got nut'n else to do on account of de door is locked an' I finished all de Scotch; so I haul off an' whop him on de toinip wit' de end of my Betsy. Well, he is out for a long time, an' when he comes round he still don't seem to know what it's all about, but he is talkin' about how dis guy Hogsbotham gives him a key to look after de house when he goes away, so he goes in an' parks de lettuce in Hogsbotham's bedroom. It is a swell idea, boss, an' it woiks," said Mr Uniatz, still marvelling at the genius which had conceived it.
The Saint felt a clutching contraction under his ribs which was not quite like the gastric hollowness of dismay and defensive tension which might reasonably have been there. It was a second or two before he could get a perspective on it; and when he did so, the realization of what it was made him feel slightly insane.
It was simply a wild desire to collapse into helpless laughter. The whole supernal essence of the situation was so immortally ludicrous that he was temporarily incapable of worrying about the fact that Angela Lindsay was a member of the audience. If she had taken a gun out of her bag and announced that she was going to lock them up while she went back to tell Kaskin and Dolf the glad news, which would have been the most obviously logical thing for her to do, he would probably have been too weak to lift a finger to prevent it.
Perhaps the very fact that she made no move to do so did more than anything else to restore him to sobriety. The ache in his chest died away, and his brain forced itself to start work again. He knew that she had a gun in her beg—he had looked for it and distinguished the outline of it when he first came into the room to meet her, and that was why he had never let himself completely lose sight of her hands. But her hands only moved to take another cigarette. She smiled at him as if she was sharing the joke, and struck a match.
"Well," he said dryly, "it looks like you've got your answer."
"To one question," she said. "You haven't answered the other. What shall I tell Judd?"
Simon studied her for the space of a couple of pulse-beats. In that time, he thought with a swiftness and clarity that was almost clairvoyant. He saw every angle and every prospect and every possible surprise.
He also saw Patricia standing aghast in the doorway behind the gorilla shoulders of Mr Uniatz, and grinned impudently at her.
He stood up, and put out his hand to Angela Lindsay.
"Go back and tell Morrie and Judd that we found out where the dough was last night," he said. "Verdean had buried it in a flowerbed. A couple of pals of mine dug it out in the small hours of this morning and took it to London. They're sitting over it with a pair of machine-guns in my apartment at Cornwall House now, and I dare anybody to take it away. That ought to hold 'em. . . . Then you shake them off as soon as you can, and meet me at the Stag and Hounds opposite Weybridge Common in two hours from now. We'll take you along with us and show you Hogsbotham's nightshirts!"
She faced him steadily, but with a suppressed eagerness that played disturbing tricks with her moist lips.
"You mean that ? You'll take me in with you ?"
"Just as far as you want to be taken in, kid," said the Saint.
He escorted her to the front door. There was no car outside, but doubtless Messrs Kaskin and Dolf were waiting for her a little way up the road. He watched her start down the drive, and then he closed the door and turned back.
"You'd look better without the lipstick," said Patricia judicially.
He thumbed his nose at her and employed his handkerchief.
"Excuse me
if I seem slightly scatterbrained," he remarked. "But all this is rather sudden. Too many things have happened in the last few minutes. What would you like to do with the change from fifteen thousand quid ? There ought to be a few bob left after I've paid for my last lot of shirts and bought a new distillery for Hoppy."
"Have you fallen right off the edge," she asked interestedly, "or what is it?"
"At a rough guess, I should say it was probably 'What' ". The Saint's happy lunacy was too extravagant to cope with. "But who cares ? Why should a little thing like this cause so much commotion ? Have you no faith in human nature ? The girl's better nature was revived. My pure and holy personality has done its work on her. It never fails. My shining example has made her soul pant for higher things. From now on, she is going to be on the side of the Saints. And she is going to take care of Judd and Morrie. She is going to lead them for us, by the nose, into the soup. Meanwhile, Professor Uniatz has shaken the scientific world to its foundations with bis new and startling treatment for cases of concussion. He has whopped Comrade Verdean on the turnip with the end of his Betsy and banged his memory back, and we are going to lay our hands on fifteen thousand smackers before we go to bed tonight, And we are going to find all this boodle in the bedroom of Ebenezer Hogsbotham, of all the superlative places in the world, I ask you, can life hold any more?"
He exploded out of the hall into the study, and went on into the secret room, leaving her staring after him a trifle dazedly.
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