But the man did not answer immediately, for the sudden ringing of a bell sounded clearly through the apartment.
For a second the Saint was immobile.
Then he stepped round behind the prisoner’s chair, and the little knife slid out of its sheath again. The prisoner saw the flash of it, and his eyes dilated with terror. A cry rose to his lips, and the Saint stifled it with a hand over his mouth. Then the point stung the man over the heart.
“Just one word,” said the Saint, “just one word, and you’ll say the rest of the sentence to the Recording Angel. Who d’you think it is, Roger?”
“Teal?”
“Having traced that motor agent to his Sunday lair, and got on our trail?”
“If we don’t answer…”
“They’ll break in. There’s the car outside to tell them we’re here. No, they’ll have to come in…”
“Just when we’re finding out things?”
Simon Templar’s eyes glittered.
“Give me that gun!”
Conway picked up the automatic that the fat man had dropped, which had lain neglected on the floor ever since, and handed it over obediently.
“I’ll tell you,” said the Saint, “that no man born of woman is going to interfere with me. I’m going to finish getting everything I want out of this lump of refuse, and then I’m going on to act on it—to find Pat—and I’ll shoot my way through the whole of Scotland Yard to do it, if I have to. Now go and open that door.”
Conway nodded.
“I’m with you,” he said, and went out.
The Saint waited calmly.
His left hand still held the slim blade of Anna over the fat man’s heart, ready to drive it home, and his ears were alert for the faintest sound of a deeply drawn breath that might be the prelude to a shout. His right hand held the automatic, concealed behind the back of the chair.
But when Roger came back, and the Saint saw the man who came with him, he remained exactly as he was, and no one could have remarked the slightest change in the desolate impassivity of his face. Only his heart leapt sickeningly, and slithered back anyhow into its place, leaving a strange feeling of throbbing emptiness spreading across the track of that thudding somersault.
“Pleased to meet you again, Marius,” said the Saint.
8
HOW SIMON TEMPLAR ENTERTAINED HIS GUEST, AND BROKE UP THE PARTY
Then, slowly, the Saint straightened up.
No one would ever know what an effort his calm and smiling imperturbability cost him, and yet, as a matter of fact, it was easier than the calm he had previously maintained before Roger Conway when there was really nothing to be calm about.
For this was something that the Saint understood. He had not the temperament to remain patient in periods of enforced inaction; he could never bring his best to bear against an enemy whom he could not see; subtleties were either above or beneath him, whichever way you like to look at it.
In Simon Templar there was much of his celebrated namesake, the Simple One. He himself was always ready to confess it, saying that, in spite of his instinctive understanding of the criminal mind, he would never have made a successful detective. His brain was capable of it, but his character wasn’t. He preferred the more gaudy colours, the broader and more clean-cut line, the simple and straightforward and startling things. He was a fighting man. His genius and inspiration led him into battles and showed him how to win them, but he rarely thought about them. He had ideals, and he rarely thought about those: they were laid down for him by an authority greater than himself, and remained apart and unquestionable. He disliked any sort of thought that was not as concrete as a weapon. To him, any other sort of thought was a heresy and a curse, an insidious sickness, sapping honesty and action. He asked for different things—the high heart of the happy warrior, the swagger and the flourish, the sound of the trumpet. He had said it himself, and it should go down as one of the few statements the Saint ever made about himself with no suggestion of pose. “Battle, murder, and sudden death,” he had said.
And now, at last, he was on ground that he knew, desperate and dangerous as it might be.
“Take over the pop-gun, Roger.”
Cool, smooth, mocking, with a hint of laughter—the voice of the old Saint. He turned again to Marius, smiling and debonair.
“It’s nice of you,” he said genially, “to give us a call. Have a drink, Tiny Tim?”
Marius advanced a little farther into the room.
He was robed in conventional morning coat and striped trousers. The stiff perfection of the garb contrasted grotesquely with his neolithic stature and the hideously ugly expressionlessness of a face that might have been fashioned after the model of some savage devil-god.
He glanced round without emotion at Roger Conway, who leaned against the door with his commandeered automatic comfortably concentrating on an easy target, and then he turned again to the Saint, who was swinging his little knife like a pendulum between his finger and thumb.
Thoughtful was the Saint, calm with a vivid and violent calm, like a leopard gathering for a spring, but Marius was as calm as a gigantic Buddha.
“I see you have some servants of mine here,” said Marius.
His voice, for such a man, was extraordinarily soft and high-pitched; his English would have been perfect but for its exaggerated precision.
“I have,” said the Saint blandly. “You may think it odd of me, but I’ve given up standing on my dignity, and I’m now a practising Socialist. I go out into the highways and byways every Sunday evening and collect bits and pieces. These are tonight’s bag. How did you know?”
“I did not know. One of them should have reported to me a long time ago, and my servants know better than to be late. I came to see what had happened to him. You will please let him go—and his friend.”
The Saint raised one eyebrow.
“I’m not sure that they want to,” he remarked. “One of them, at least, is temporarily incapable of expressing his views on the subject. As for the other—well, we were just starting to get on so nicely together. I’m sure he’d hate to have to leave me.”
The man thus indirectly appealed to spat out some words in a language which the Saint did not understand. Simon smothered him with a cushion.
“Don’t interrupt,” he drawled. “It’s rude. First I have my say, then you have yours. That’s fair. And I’m sure Dr Marius would like to share our little joke, particularly as it’s about himself.”
The giant’s mouth fanned into something like a ghastly smile.
“Hadn’t you better hear my joke first?” he suggested.
“Second,” said the Saint. “Quite definitely second. Because your joke is sure to be so much funnier than mine, and I’d hate mine to fall flat after it. This joke is in the form of a little song, and it’s about a man whom we call Tiny Tim, whom I once had to kick with some vim. He recovered, I fear, but fox-hunting this year will have little attraction for him. You haven’t given us time to rehearse it, or I’d ask the boys to sing it for you. Never mind. Sit right down and tell me the story of your life.”
The giant was not impressed.
“You appear to know my name,” he said.
“Very well,” beamed the Saint. “Any relation to the celebrated Dr Marius?”
“I am not unknown.”
“I mean,” said the Saint, “the celebrated Dr Marius whose living was somewhat precarious, for his bedside technique was decidedly weak, though his ideas were many and various. Does that ring the bell and return the penny?”
Marius moved his huge right hand in an impatient gesture.
“I am not here to listen to your humour, Mr…”
“Templar,” supplied the Saint. “So pleased to be met.”
“I do not wish to waste any time…”
Simon lowered his eyes, which had been fixed on the ceiling during the labour of poetical composition, and allowed them to rest upon Marius. There was something very steely and sa
vage about those eyes. The laughter had gone out of them utterly. Roger had seen it go.
“Naturally, we don’t want to waste any time,” said the Saint quietly. “Thank you for reminding me. It’s a thing I should hate very much to forget while you’re here. I may tell you that I’m going to murder you, Marius. But before we talk any more about that, let me save you the trouble of saying what you were going to say.”
Marius shrugged.
“You appear to be an intelligent man, Mr Templar.”
“Thanks very much. But let’s keep the bouquets on ice till we want them, will you? Then they might come in handy for the wreath…The business of the moment interests me more. One: you’re going to tell me that a certain lady named Patricia Holm is now your prisoner.”
The giant bowed.
“I’m sorry to have had to make such a conventional move,” he said. “On the other hand, it is often said that the most conventional principles have the deepest foundations. I have always found that saying to be true when applied to the time-honoured expedient of taking a woman whom a man loves as a hostage for his good behaviour—particularly with a man of what I judge to be your type, Mr Templar.”
“Very interesting,” said the Saint shortly. “And I suppose Miss Holm’s safety is to be the price of the safety of your—er—servants? I believe that’s also in the convention.”
Marius spread out his enormous hands.
“Oh, no,” he said, in that thin, soft voice. “Oh, dear me, no! The convention is not by any means as trivial as that. Is not the fair lady’s safety always the price of something more than mere pawns in the game?”
“Meaning?” inquired the Saint innocently.
“Meaning a certain gentleman in whom I am interested whom you were successful in removing from the protection of my servants last night.”
“Was I?”
“I have reason to believe that you were. Much as I respect your integrity, Mr Templar, I fear that in this case your contradiction will not be sufficient to convince me against the evidence of my own eyes.”
The Saint swayed gently on his heels.
“Let me suggest,” he said, “that you’re very sure I got him.”
“Let me suggest,” said Marius suavely, “that you’re very sure I’ve got Miss Holm.”
“I haven’t got him.”
“Then I have not got Miss Holm.”
Simon nodded.
“Very ingenious,” he murmured. “Very ingenious. Not quite the way I expected it—but very ingenious, all the same. And quite unanswerable. Therefore…”
“Therefore, Mr Templar, why not put the cards on the table? We have agreed not to waste time. I frankly admit that Miss Holm is my prisoner. Why don’t you admit that Professor Vargan is yours?”
“Not so fast,” said the Saint. “You’ve just admitted, before witnesses, that you are a party to an abduction. Now, suppose that became known to the police? Wouldn’t that be awkward?”
Marius shook his head.
“Not particularly,” he said. “I have a very good witness to deny any such admission…”
“A crook?”
“Oh, no. A most respectable countryman of mine. I assure you, it would be quite impossible to discredit him.”
Simon lounged back against the table.
“I see,” he drawled. “And that’s your complete song-and-dance act, is it?”
“I believe I have stated all the important points.”
“Then,” said the Saint, “I will now state mine.”
Carefully he replaced the little knife in its sheath and adjusted his sleeve. A glance at the man on the floor told him that unlucky servant of the Cause was recovering, but Simon was not interested. He addressed himself to the man in the chair.
“Tell your master about the game we were playing,” he invited. “Confess everything, loveliness. He has a nice kind face, and perhaps he won’t be too hard on you.”
The man spoke again in his own language. Marius listened woodenly. The Saint could not understand a word of what was being said, but he knew, when the giant interrupted the discourse with a movement of his hand and a sharp, harsh syllable of impatience, that the recital had passed through the stage of being a useful statement of facts, and had degenerated into a string of excuses.
Then Marius was looking curiously at Simon Templar. There seemed to be a kind of grim humour in that gaze.
“And yet you do not look a ferocious man, Mr Templar.”
“I shouldn’t rely too much on that.”
Again that jerky gesture of impatience.
“I am not relying on it. With a perspicacity which I should have expected, and which I can only commend, you have saved me many words, many tedious explanations. You have summed up the situation with admirable briefness. May I ask you to be as brief with your decision? I may say that the fortunate accident of finding you at home, which I did not expect, has saved me the considerable trouble of getting in touch with you through the agony columns of the daily papers, and has enabled me to put my proposition before you with the minimum of delay. Would it not be a pity, now, to mar such an excellent start with unnecessary paltering?”
“It would,” said the Saint.
And he knew at once what he was going to do. It had come to him in a flash—an inspiration, a summarising and deduction and realisation that were instantaneous, and more clear and sure than anything of their kind which could have been produced by any mental effort.
That he was on toast, and that there was no ordinary way off the toast. That the situation was locked and double-locked into exactly the tangle of dithering subtleties and cross-causes and cross-menaces that he hated more than anything else in the world, as has been explained—the kind of chess-problem tangle that was probably the one thing in the world capable of reeling him off his active mental balance and sending him raving mad…That to think about it and try to scheme about it would be the one certain way of losing the game. That, obviously, he could never hope to stand up in the same class as Rayt Marius in a complicated intrigue—to try to enter into an even contest with such a past professional master of the art would be the act of a suicidal fool. That, therefore, his only chance to win out was to break the very rules of the game that Marius would least expect an opponent to break. That it was the moment when all the prejudices and convictions that made the Saint what he was must be put to the test. That all his fundamental faith in the superiority of reckless action over laborious ratiocination must now justify itself, or topple down to destruction and take him with it into hell…That, in fact, when all the pieces on the chessboard were so in-weaved and dovetailed and counter-blockaded, his only chance was to smash up the whole stagnant structure and sweep the board clean—with the slash of a sword…
“Certainly,” said the Saint, “I’ll give you my decision at once. Roger, give me back that gun, and go and fetch some rope. You’ll find some in the kitchen.”
As Conway went out, the Saint turned again to Marius.
“You have already observed, dear one,” he remarked gently, “that I have a genius for summarising situations. But this one can be stated quite simply. The fact is, Angel Face, I propose to apply to you exactly the same methods of persuasion that I was about to employ on your servant. You observe that I have a gun. I can’t shoot pips out of a playing-card at thirty paces, or do any other Wild West stuff like that, but still, I don’t think I’m such a bad shot that I could miss anything your size at this range. Therefore, you can either submit quietly to being tied up by my friend, or you can be killed at once. Have it whichever way you like.”
A flicker of something showed in the giant’s eyes, and was gone as soon as it had come.
“You seem to have lost your grip on the situation, Mr Templar,” he said urbanely. “To anyone as expert in these matters as you appear to be, it should be unnecessary to explain that I did not come here unprepared for such an obvious riposte. Must I bore you with the details of what will happen to Miss Holm if I fail t
o return to the place where she is being kept? Must I be compelled to make my conventional move still more conventional with a melodramatic exposition of her peril?”
“It’s an odd thing,” said the Saint, in mild reminiscence, “that more than half the crooks I’ve dealt with have been frantically anxious to avoid melodrama. Now, personally, I just love it. And we’re going to have lots of it now—lots and lots, Marius, my little ray of sunshine…”
Marius shrugged.
“I thought better of your intelligence, Mr Templar.”
The Saint smiled, a very Saintly smile.
His hands on his hips, teetering gently on his toes, he answered with the most reckless defiance of his life.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “You didn’t think well enough of my intelligence. You thought it’d be feeble enough to let me be bluffed into meeting you on your own ground. And that’s just what it isn’t quite feeble enough to do.”
“I do not follow you,” said Marius.
“Then I’m not the one with softening of the brain,” said Simon sweetly, “but you are. I invite you to apply your own admirable system of logic to the situation. I could tell the police things about you, but you could tell the police things about me. Deadlock. You could harm Miss Holm, but I could deprive you of Vargan. Deadlock again—with a shade of odds in your favour on each count.”
“We can rule out the police for the present. If we did so, an exchange of prisoners…”
“But you don’t get the point,” said Simon, with a terrible simplicity. “That would be a surrender on my part. And I never surrender.”
Marius moved his hands.
“I also surrender Miss Holm.”
“And there’s still a difference, loveliness,” said the Saint. “You see, you don’t really want Miss Holm, except as a hostage. And I do want Vargan very much indeed. I want to wash him and comb him and buy him a little velvet suit and adopt him. I want him to yadder childishly to me about the binomial theorem after breakfast. I want to be able to bring him into the drawing-room after dinner to amuse my guests with recitations from the differential calculus. But most of all I want one of his little toys…And so, you see, if I let you go, Miss Holm would be in exactly the same danger as if I kept you here, since I couldn’t agree to your terms of ransom. But the difference is that if I let you go I lose my one chance of finding her, and I should have to trust to luck to come on the scent again. While I keep you here, though, I hold a very good card—and I’m not letting it go.”
The Saint Closes the Case (The Saint Series) Page 10