The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

by Leslie Charteris

  He had a long wait at Mark Lane; but with that we are not yet concerned.

  It was half-past four when Simon Templar arrived at Tex Goldman's apartment by way of the fire escape and let himself in through the bathroom window. A call from the nearest telephone booth had ascertained that Goldman was not at home; and the Saint was not look­ing quite like his normal self. He had a suit of workman's overalls over his clothes and a leather bag of tools in his hand, in which outfit he was not likely to arouse so much curiosity on fire escapes as he would have done in one of the light grey fresco suits of Anderson & Sheppard. But the gun which he had taken from Clem Enright was in his pocket, and it was fully loaded. Simon Templar was cleaning up. And he was making no mis­takes.

  Tex Goldman came in at five.

  He had a girl with him--the girl who had partnered him at the night club. She was a rather beautiful child, with fair hair that was a little too brilliant to be natural, and big serious eyes. She hung on Tex Goldman's arm. It was the visit to his apartment that he had worked for for so long, and the way it had happened was one that he had not expected a week ago.

  "It's marvellous, Tex," she said.

  "It ain't bad," said Tex Goldman. "It just wanted one thing, and she's here now."

  She sat in the settee. He sat on the arm, looking down at her.

  "Gee, baby," he said, "if you told me a week ago I could do this, I'd 've burst myself laughin'. Must be old age, I reckon."

  "I don't care what it is."

  Goldman took out a bulky leather case. With the unconsciousness of habit, he nipped the end off a cigar and stuck it between his teeth.

  "I guess you know all about me," he said.

  "I don't mind."

  "It ain't much to think about. All my life I been a hood. That's the way I was raised. I came out of the gutter-but I came out. Back in St. Louis they call me tough. I killed plenty men, but that don't seem to mean a thing. It's the way you work in the racket-bump a guy before he bumps you. But I never double-crossed a pal, and I never carried a gun for vice. I ain't pullin' any reformation act. I guess I'll go on the same way- till I get mine."

  She took a scented cigarette from a lacquer case and stared straight ahead.

  "I'm not such a schoolgirl myself," she said quietly. "I've been around. I don't like killing-any of those things you do. I don't like knowing I'll have to sit around and wait till someone does the same thing to you. I didn't think I could ever face it. Now it seems different, somehow. I've got no choice. I just want you to be good to me."

  "I'm on the level, kid. I never been mushy in my life, so I can't say any of those pretty things you'd like to hear. But I'll play square with you."

  "Always?"

  "Say, if I ever give you the runaround, you can put me on the spot with my own gun."

  It was at that moment that Tex Goldman's head was hit.

  The blow didn't stun him. It wasn't intended to. But he felt the sickening sharp crash of a gun butt at the base of his hair, and it seemed to rock the brain inside his skull so that for a second or two his sight was blotted out in a dizzy sea of blackness filled with whirling red sparks. He pitched forward, throwing out his hands, and saved himself on the table. He heard the girl beside him cry out, and then a hand snatched at his hip pocket before his wits could struggle back to coherent functioning. When his own hand reached the pocket his gun was gone.

  He turned slowly and saw the weapon being juggled gently round the forefinger of a tall man in grey.

  "Hullo, Tex."

  Goldman drew himself up rockily under the rake of the tall man's smile.

  "What the hell --"

  "No bad language, Tex," said the Saint. "I'm sorry I had to dot you a small one, but I thought it'd be safer. You're the kind of guy who wouldn't be stuck up very easily, and if you tried to shoot it out with me the birds in the other apartments might have heart failure."

  Goldman's eyes creased up till only the pupils showed, gleaming like frozen chips of jet.

  "Mr. Simon Templar?"

  "Yeah. And breaking up your racket. This country can get along without your kind of crime. Maybe Amer­ica can show us lots of things, but you've come over with one kind of thing we don't want to be shown. It upsets all the dear old ladies who make our laws." The Saint was not smiling. "Too many men have been killed since you set up shop. I came here to kill you, Tex."

  The girl clutched at Tex Goldman's hand, staring at the Saint with wide pitiful eyes.

  "You can't!" she sobbed. "You can't! We were only married to-day --"

  Not a muscle of the Saint's face moved.

  "I'm taking the girl, too," he said. "For another reason. You get it together."

  She shrank against Tex Goldman's shoulder, with horror added to the tragedy of her eyes.

  "Why d'you want to kill me?" she whispered. "I've done nothing. I've never killed anyone. . . . But I don't care. I don't care! I love him! Go on, you coward"

  "Never mind that." Tex Goldman's voice cut very quietly and tremorlessly through hers. "Never mind what you think she's done, Templar. I guess you're wrong about her. She's on the level. You can't burn down a woman. You got me all right. Give me what's coming to me. But let the kid get the hell out of here first. I can take it for both of us."

  He looked at the Saint without flinching. That was the racket. You took it when your turn came, without whining. You didn't show yellow.

  And then he saw that the Saint was smiling.

  "Thanks, Tex," said the Saint. "You've got the guts. I guess that lets you out."

  CHAPTER VIII GOLDMAN didn't understand.

  "I told you I came here to kill you," said the Saint. "That's about true-anyway, it's one reason. Then I heard your conversation. I just wondered. The girl told me you were married today. I put up the rest of it just to prove to myself whether you were really on the level, and it seems as if you are. It breaks my heart, but I suppose we'll have to go home now without killing you. Even I can't spoil a honeymoon. . . . It's rather a charming thought, Tex-that after all you may be a white-haired old daddy one day, sitting by the fire with a dozen kiddies perched on your knee, telling them fairy stories about the Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldmanlocks and the Three Bears, and Wicked Uncle Al."

  Goldman drew a deep breath, but he did not speak. The cold winds of death had blown too close to him, and when that clammy breath is still in a man's throat he has very little to say.

  "But the part about breaking up your racket has got to stand," said the Saint, and his blue eyes were steady steel again as he spoke. "We don't like it-it makes life just a little too strenuous. I've emptied your safe already this afternoon, and I expect you'll find that rather discouraging."

  He indicated the open door of the bedroom through which he had come. Smiling momentarily, he dipped into a side pocket and dug out half a dozen large notes which he dropped onto the settee.

  "I'll give you these back as a wedding present. You wouldn't want to arrive back in St. Louis broke."

  Goldman moistened his lips.

  "Still hijacking, huh?"

  "Still hijacking. All this is to be divided up among the poor devils who got shot in the course of your campaign, except what I keep myself. I take a rather larger share, because I was getting shot at all the time. You won't see it back, Tex." The Saint's voice was grim and purposeful. "You won't even get me bumped before you go, because you don't know where I'm stay­ing and you won't have time to find me. You're taking a train to France at eight-twenty, and you can make your sailing arrangements from Cherbourg. You needn't tell Ted Orping and all the boys, but that's what you're going to do. Because at ten o'clock tonight, whether I'm alive or dead, a message will go to Chief Inspector Teal at Scotland Yard and tell him all about the de­portation order that still holds good against William Gold, alias Tex Goldman, cheap stick-up man of six years back. You won't find it so easy to slip into the country again."

  Tex Goldman stared at him.

  "How did you find out about
that?"

  "Comrade Nilder told me," said the Saint easily "He falls apart with a very little shaking."

  Goldman showed his teeth.

  "I might have known it. That lousy, double-crossing little heel --"

  "I should speak to him quite severely about it if I were you," said the Saint, very softly. "Unless I'm mistaken, he'll be calling in here before you go to tell you his troubles. . . . And now I must leave you. Have a jolly honeymoon-and when you give my love to the boys in St. Louis, say it with ukuleles. Fare thee well, fair lady."

  He retreated smartly to the door and let himself out. In another moment he was flying down the stairs.

  On the street corner he came up behind Mr. Teal.

  "Well, what is it?" demanded the detective. "I got your message and came straight along, but why all the mystery ?"

  "I don't want to speak too soon," said the Saint, "but I think we may see some fun. A certain gentleman is very annoyed."

  "Who do you mean?"

  The Saint was smilingly uncommunicative. He took Teal's arm and guided him into a convenient teashop, choosing a table near the window from which he could keep the entrance of Tex Goldman's apartment block under observation.

  They sat there for two hours, and Mr. Teal grew restive.

  "If you can't show me any more than a plate of toasted scones," he said, "I'll have to be going. I've got work to do. What's on your mind?"

  "Don't go yet, Claud," said the Saint. "I've done more work today than you've done in the last week.

  I've been cleaning up. Things are happening now."

  This was just five minutes after he had seen Ted Orping pass in through the door he was watching.

  Tex Goldman answered the bell.

  "What is it, Ted?" he asked briefly.

  He was impatient, but he did not want Orping to see it. In the bedroom three suitcases were packed and ready for his departure.

  "That bus depot hold-up tonight, boss --"

  "It's postponed-indefinitely."

  Ted Orping's eyebrows went up.

  "What for, boss?"

  "It's poppycock-that's why. It's a waste of time. It's a risk for nothing." Goldman tapped him on the shoulder. "I'll tell you why I'm passing it up, Ted, I've got onto something that'll make you wonder why you ever wasted your time holding up a bank. It's something so big, it'll make your mouth water till you have to tie a bucket round your neck. And it's fool­proof. One grand raid-and finish. There'll be ten thousand pounds in it for every man who doesn't go soft. Have a cigar."

  Orping's eyes opened.

  "What is it, boss?"

  "I can't tell you now." Goldman glanced round him. He lowered his voice. "There's a squealer somewhere- and I got a hunch I could lay my finger on him. Noth­ing's safe while there's squealers around." Orping's mouth hardened. He bit off the end of a cigar and spat it into the fireplace.

  "Let me see him!"

  The front door bell rang again. Goldman's cold eyes bored into Ted's like the eyes of a statue. He spoke out of the side of his mouth, viciously.

  "Let him in."

  Orping went to the door.

  It was Ronald Nilder-hatless, ashen grey of face, loose mouth quivering. A soiled scrap of paper was clutched in one trembling hand. He rushed halfway across the room towards Goldman, and pulled up, his fists clenched and his pasty features jerking.

  "What's this mean?" he almost screamed. "Tell me what it means, damn you!"

  "What does what mean?" asked Goldman coldly.

  Nilder thrust out the scrap of paper. Unhurriedly Goldman flattened it out and read what was written on it: See me before you take all your money abroad.

  T. G.

  "I took all my money out of the bank," Nilder was babbling. "I put it in my wallet. When you telephoned for me to meet you at Mark Lane I hid it behind some books in my flat. I waited an hour for you. When I got back, the door had been broken in and my wallet was empty. That's all there was in it. What d'you mean by taking my money, you --"

  With three more unhurried movements Goldman tore the paper across, across, and across again, and trickled the pieces into his wastepaper basket. Then he looked at Nilder again, and there was such an inexorable malignity in his gaze that the other's babbling died away into a strangled silence.

  "I didn't send for you to meet me at Mark Lane," he said; "I didn't write that note; and I don't know any­thing about your money. Now tell me why you squealed to the Saint."

  Nilder's mouth seemed to go whiter. He took breath in two quick frantic gasps. His mouth was sagging open in a horrible limpness of fear.

  "You needn't answer," Goldman said, with that same slow frozen venom. "I can read it in your face. You squealed because you're yellow. He slapped your wrist once, and you fell to pieces. That's what a rat like you does. And then you come here with some lily-livered gold-bricking alibi, and hope I'll eat it. What d'you think this is-a kindergarten? What do I do-fall on your neck and kiss you? You louse!"

  "I didn't!" Nilder gibbered throatily. "Don't look, at me like that, Goldman. I wouldn't squeal on you. I wouldn't give you away. I can explain everything, I tell you! Listen to me-"

  "Get out!" rasped Goldman, in a sudden hiss of icy savagery. "Get out of my sight-before I smash that snivelling face of yours into jelly!"

  Nilder backed away with a choking gulp. Never in his life had he seen such a bitter malevolence blazing at him out of a pair of human eyes.

  "Don't hit me!" he gabbled. "Don't hit me. I didn't tell anything. I wouldn't double-cross you. Listen, Goldman --"

  Ted Orping grasped him by the collar and hurled him back to the door.

  "You heard what the boss said," he snarled. "Scram!"

  Mr. Ronald Nilder had never done anything so un­dignified. He did not even know what the word meant, but the tone in which it was uttered was sufficient explanation. Shaking with a sick terror of what he had seen in Tex Goldman's eyes, he scrammed.

  Ted Orping listened to the front door closing. He looked at the man from St. Louis.

  "Do I give him the works, boss?"

  Tex Goldman lighted his cigar before replying. It was a long time since he had felt any satisfaction in pronouncing sentence of death. In the racket, death was meted out simply as an operation of expediency- without hate, often even with regret. But for this time at least he felt a vindictive sense of justice.

  "Yeah," he said. "Put him out."

  Simon Templar saw Nilder walking blindly away from the block, and stood up, plunking a half-crown down on his bill. Teal followed him. As they reached the pavement, Ted Orping came out and slipped into the footsteps of the Cosmolite Vaudeville Agent.

  "What's happening?" asked Teal.

  "Something good and fast," answered the Saint, "or I'm no psychologist."

  He led Teal on to join the procession of two. Sud­denly Nilder stopped and hailed a taxi that came crawling past. Orping spun round and gazed into a shop window just quickly enough to escape notice. As soon as Nilder had climbed in, Orping dashed across the road and entered another cab. Simon pulled his hat down over his eyes and sprinted for the nearest rank, dragging the detective after him. They sank onto the cushions breathlessly.

  "This is a game of follow-my-leader," said the Saint, almost merrily.

  The three taxis speeded in procession along the Marylebone Road, worked down to Portland Place, crossed Oxford Street, and went down Regent Street. One tour of the Piccadilly Circus merry-go-round, and they cut down into Jermyn Street.

  Simon leaned forward and spoke through the tele­phone to the driver.

  "Take it easy here."

  The cab in front stopped, and they were stuck behind it. Sitting well back to keep out of sight, the Saint saw Ted Orping pay off the driver and walk on. The cab in front moved on, and they followed slowly after it. Simon saw Nilder's back in the doorway of the house of service flats where he lived: Orping caught up with him in the entrance and gripped his arm. The Saint could only guess what was said, but the two
men passed out of sight together.

  Simon stopped the taxi, and they got out. He led Teal to the other side of the street.

  "This is another wait," he said, "but it won't be a long one."

  He lighted a cigarette, though he was not expecting to get more than a few puffs.

  Presently he raised his head sharply.

  "Did you hear that?"

  It had been a sound like two very distant backfires in quick succession; but he knew they were not backfires.

  Then he saw Ted Orping coming out, and crossed the road suddenly. Orping did not see him till they were face to face.

  "A word with you, Ted," said the Saint affably. "Did you make quite sure Ronald wouldn't talk?"

  The other gaped at him with a wild, almost super­stitious dread. And then, with a kind of slavering gulp, he turned and ran.

  Simon ran faster. Looking back, Orping saw him only a yard behind, running easily, and groped for his gun. But he had thought of that too late. Simon clipped his heels together and dropped on him heavily. He twisted Orping's right wrist up between his shoulder blades and kept one bony knee in the small of the man's back.

  "Lemme up," Orping whimpered. "You can't hold me for nothing."

  "Only for wilful murder," said the Saint unctuously, and watched Chief Inspector Teal lumbering ponderously across the road towards them.

  PART III THE DEATH PENALTY

  CHAPTER I

  THEY hanged Galbraith Stride at eight o'clock on the morning of the 22nd of November.

  They came in and strapped his hands together, and led him out to the narrow whitewashed shed that was to be his last glimpse of the world-walking very fast, like a man who has made up his mind to see an un­pleasant appointment through as quickly as possible. They stood him on the chalked T in the centre of the trap, and drew the white cap down over his bald head and his pale frightened eyes, till the only feature of his face that could be seen was the thin twitching mouth under his little grey moustache. They settled the rope round his neck, with the knot just under his left ear; and the executioner stepped back to the lever that would send him into eternity.