The crisis that he had been expecting for so long had come. The cards were on the table, and the only thing left for Edgar Hayn to wonder was why the Saint had waited so many days before making his demand. Now the storm which had seemed to be hanging fire interminably had broken, and it found Edgar Hayn curiously unmoved.
Templar looked at Hayn sidelong, and the Saint also knew that the gloves were off.
“You’re an odd cove,” he said. “Your trouble is that you’re too serious. You’ll lose this fight because you’ve no sense of humour—like all second-rate crooks. You can’t laugh.”
“I may enjoy the last laugh, Templar,” said Hayn.
The Saint turned away with a smile, and picked up his hat.
“You kid yourself,” he said gently. “You won’t, dear one.” He took up his stick and swung it delicately in his fingers. The light of battle glinted in his blue eyes. “I presume I may send your kind donation to the London Hospital anonymously, son?”
“We will decide that on Monday,” said Hayn.
The Saint nodded.
“I wonder if you know what my game is?” he said soberly. “Perhaps you think I’m a kind of hijacker—a crook picking crooks’ pockets? Bad guess, dearie. I’m losing money over this. But I’m just a born-an’-bred fighting machine, and a quiet life on the moss-gathering lay is plain hell for this child. I’m not a dick, because I can’t be bothered with red tape, but I’m on the same side. I’m out to see that unpleasant insects like you are stamped on, which I grant you the dicks could do, but to justify my existence I’m going to see that the said insects contribute a large share of their ill-gotten gains to charity, which you’ve got to grant me the dicks can’t do. It’s always seemed a bit tough to me that microbes of your breed should be able to make a pile swindling, and then be free to enjoy it after they’ve done a month or two in stir—and I’m here to put that right. Out of the money I lifted off the Snake I paid Tommy Mitre back his rightful property, plus a bonus for damages, but the Snake’s a small bug, anyway. You’re big, and I’m going to see that your contribution is in proportion.”
“We shall see,” said Hayn.
The Saint looked at him steadily.
“On Monday night you will sleep at Marlborough Street Police Station,” he said dispassionately.
The next moment he was gone. Simon Templar had a knack of making his abrupt exits so smoothly that it was generally some minutes before the other party fully realized that he was no longer with them.
Hayn sat looking at the closed door without moving. Then he glanced down, and saw the envelope that lay on the blotter before him, addressed in his own hand to M. Henri Chastel. And Hayn sat fascinated, staring, for although the imitation of his hand might have deceived a dozen people who knew it, he had looked at it for just long enough to see that it was not the envelope he had addressed.
It was some time before he came out of his trance, and forced himself to slit open the envelope with fingers that trembled. He spread out the sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, and his brain went numb. As a man might have grasped a concrete fact through a murky haze of dope, Hayn realized that his back was to the last wall. Underneath the superficial veneer of flippancy, the Saint had shown for a few seconds the seriousness of his real quality and the intentness of his purpose, and Hayn had been allowed to appreciate the true mettle of the man who was fighting him.
He could remember the Saint’s last words. “On Monday night you will sleep at Marlborough Street Police Station.” He could hear the Saint saying it. The voice had been the voice of a judge pronouncing sentence, and the memory of it made Edgar Hayn’s face go grey with fear.
10
The Saint read Edgar Hayn’s letter in the cocktail bar of the Piccadilly, over a timely Martini, but his glass stood for a long time untasted before him, for he had not to read far before he learned that Edgar Hayn was bigger game than he had ever dreamed.
Then he smoked two cigarettes, very thoughtfully, and made certain plans with a meticulous attention to detail. In half an hour he had formulated his strategy, but he spent another quarter of an hour and another cigarette going over it again and again in search of anything that he might have overlooked.
He did not touch his drink until he had decided that his plans were as foolproof as he could make them at such short notice.
The first move took him to Piccadilly Post Office, where he wrote out and despatched a lengthy telegram in code to one Norman Kent, who was at that time in Athens on the Saint’s business, and the Saint thanked his little gods of chance for the happy coincidence that had given him an agent on the spot. It augured well for the future.
Next he shifted across from the counter to a telephone-box, and called a number. For ten minutes he spoke earnestly to a certain Roger Conway, and gave minute directions. He had these orders repeated over to him to make sure that they were perfectly memorized and understood, and presently he was satisfied.
“Hayn will have found out by now that I know about his connection with Chastel,” he concluded. “That is, unless he’s posted that letter without looking at it. We’ve got to act on the assumption that he has found out, and therefore the rule about having nothing to do with me except through the safest of safe channels is doubly in force. I estimate that within the next forty-four hours a number of very strenuous efforts will be made to bump me off, and it won’t be any good shutting your eyes to it. It won’t be dear Edgar’s fault if I haven’t qualified for Kensal Green by Monday morning.”
Conway protested, and the Saint dealt shortly with that.
“You’re a heap more useful to me working unknown,” he said. “I can’t help it if your natural vanity makes you kick at having to hide your light under a bushel. There’s only need for one of us to prance about in the line of fire, and since they know me all round and upside down as it is, I’ve bagged the job. You don’t have to worry. I’ve never played the corpse yet, and I don’t feel like starting now!”
He was in the highest of spirits. The imminent prospect of violent and decisive action always got him that way. It made his blood tingle thrillingly through his veins, and set his eyes dancing recklessly, and made him bless the perfect training in which he had always kept his nerves and sinews. The fact that his life would be charged a five hundred per cent premium by any cautious insurance company failed to disturb his cheerfulness one iota. The Saint was made that way.
The “Needle” was a sensation that had never troubled his young life. For the next few hours there was nothing that he could do for the cause that he had made his own, and he therefore proposed to enjoy those hours on his own to the best of his ability. He was completely unperturbed by the thought of the hectic and perilous hours which were to follow the interlude of enjoyment—rather, the interlude gathered an added zest from the approach of zero hour.
He could not, of course, be sure that Hayn had discovered the abstraction of the letter, but that remained a distinct probability in spite of the Saint’s excellent experiment in forgery. And even without the discovery, the cheque he had obtained, and Hayn’s confidence in giving it, argued that there were going to be some very tense moments before the Monday morning. Simon Templar’s guiding principle, which had brought him miraculously unscathed through innumerable desperate adventures in the past, was to assume the worst and take no chances, and in this instance subsequent events were to prove that pessimistic principle the greatest and most triumphant motto that had ever been invented.
The Saint lunched at his leisure, and then relaxed amusingly in a convenient cinema until half-past-six. Then he returned home to dress, and was somewhat disappointed to find no reply to his cable waiting for him at his flat.
He dined and spent the night dancing at the Kit-Cat with the lovely and utterly delightful Patricia Holm, for the Saint was as human as the next man, if not more so, and Patricia Holm was his weakness then.
It was a warm evening, and they walked up Regent Street together, enjoying the fres
h air. They were in Hanover Square, just by the corner of Brook Street, when the Saint saw the first thunder cloud, and unceremoniously caught Patricia Holm by the shoulders and jerked her back round the corner and out of sight. An opportune taxi came prowling by at that moment, and the Saint had hailed it and bundled the girl in before she could say a word.
“I’m telling him to take you to the Savoy,” he said. “You’ll book a room there, and you’ll stay there without putting even the tip of your pretty nose outside the door until I come and fetch you. You can assume that any message or messenger you receive is a fake. I don’t think they saw you, but I’m not risking anything. Refuse to pay any attention to anything or anybody but myself in person. I’ll be round Monday lunchtime, and if I’m not you can get hold of Inspector Teal and the lads and start raising Cain—but not before.”
The girl frowned suspiciously.
“Saint,” she said, in the dangerous tone that he knew and loved, “you’re trying to elbow me out again.”
“Old darling,” said the Saint quietly, “I’ve stopped trying to elbow you out and make you live a safe and respectable life. I know it can’t be done. You can come in on any game I take up, and I don’t care if we have to fight the massed gangs of bad hats in New York, Chicago, Berlin, and London. But there’s just one kind of dirty work I’m not going to have you mixed up in, and this is it. Get me, old Pat?…Then s’long!”
He closed the door of the taxi, directed the driver, and watched it drive away. The Saint felt particularly anxious to keep on living at that moment…And then the taxi’s tail-light vanished round the corner, and Patricia Holm went with it, and the Saint turned with a sigh and an involuntary squaring of the shoulders, and swung into Brook Street.
He had observed the speedy-looking closed car that stood by the kerb directly outside the entrance to his flat, and he had seen the four men who stood in a little group on the pavement beside it conversing with all apparent innocence, and he had guessed the worst. The sum total of those deceptively innocuous fixtures and fittings seemed to him to bear the unmistakable hall-mark of the Hayn confederacy, for the Saint had what he called a nasty suspicious mind.
He strolled on at a leisurely pace. His left hand in his trouser pocket was sorting out the key of his front door; in his right hand he twirled the stick that in those days he never travelled without. His black felt hat was tilted over to the back of his head. In everything outward and visible he wore the mildest and most Saintly air of fashionable and elegant harmlessness, for the Saint was never so cool as when everything about him was flaming with red danger-signals. And as he drew near the little group he noticed that they fell suddenly silent, all turning in his direction.
The Saint was humming a little tune. It all looked too easy—nothing but a welcome and entertaining limbering-up for the big stuff that was to follow. He had slipped the front door key off the ring and transferred it to a side pocket of his jacket, where it would be more easily found in a hurry.
“Excuse me,” said the tallest of the four, taking a step forward to meet him.
“I’m afraid I can’t excuse you, Snake,” said the Saint regretfully, and swayed back from his toes as Ganning struck at him with a loaded cane.
The Saint felt the wind of the blow caress his face, and then a lightning left uppercut came rocketing up from his knees to impact on the point of Snake’s jaw, and Ganning was catapulted back into the arms of his attendant Boys.
Before any of them could recover from their surprise, Templar had leapt lightly up the steps to the portico, and had slipped the key into the lock. But as he turned and withdrew it, the other three came after him, leaving their chief to roll away into the gutter, and the Saint wheeled round to face them with the door swinging open behind him.
He held his stick in both hands, gave it a half-turn, and pulled. Part of the stick stripped away, and in the Saint’s right hand a long slim blade of steel glinted in the dim light. His first thrust took the leading Boy through the shoulder, and the other two checked.
The Saint’s white teeth flashed in an unpleasant smile.
“You’re three very naughty children,” said the Saint, “and I’m afraid I shall have to report you to your Sunday School teacher. Go a long way away, and don’t come near me again for years and years!”
The rapier in his hand gleamed and whistled, and the two Boys recoiled with gasps of agony as the supple blade lashed across their faces. And then, as they sprang blindly to attack, the Saint streaked through the door and slammed it on them.
He turned the sword back into a stick, and went unhurriedly up the stairs to his flat, which was the first floor.
Looking down from the window, he saw the four men gathered together engaged in furious deliberation. One of them was mopping about inside his coat with an insanitary handkerchief, and the Snake was sagging weakly back against the side of the car holding his jaw. There were frequent gesticulations in the direction of the Saint’s windows. After a time, the four men climbed into the car and drove away.
The brief affray had left the Saint completely unruffled. If you had taken his pulse then, you would have found it ticking over at not one beat above or below its normal seventy-five. He sauntered across the room, switched on the lights, and put away his hat and stick, still humming gently to himself.
Propped up on the table, in a prominent position, was a cable envelope. Without any hurry, the Saint poured himself out a modest whisky, lighted a cigarette, and then fetched a small black notebook from its hiding-place behind a picture. Provided with these essentials, the Saint settled down on the edge of the table, ripped up the envelope, and extracted the flimsy.
“Elephant revoke,” the message began. A little further on was the name Chandler. And near the end of the closely-written sheet were the words “Caterpillar diamonds ten spades four chicane hearts knave overcall.”
“Elephant” was the code word for Hayn; Chastel was “Caterpillar.” “Revoke” meant “Has changed his mind.” And the Saint could almost decode the sentence which included the words “chicane” and “overcall” at sight.
In his little black book, against the names of every card in the pack, and every bridge and poker term, were short sentences broadly applicable to almost any purpose about which his fellowship of freebooters might wish to communicate, and with the aid of this book, and a pencil, the Saint translated the message and wrote the interpretation between the lines. The information thus gleaned was in confirmation of what he had already deduced since purloining and reading Hayn’s letter to Chastel, and the Saint was satisfied.
He opened his portable typewriter, and wrote a letter. It was the Saint’s first official communiqué.
To Chief Inspector Teal
Criminal Investigation Department
New Scotland Yard
SW1
Sir,
I recommend to your notice Edgar Hayn, formerly Heine, of 27, Portugal Mansions, Hampstead. He is the man behind Danny’s Club in Soho, and a well-timed raid on that establishment, with particular attention to a secret door in the panelling of the ground-floor lounge (which is opened by an electric control in Hayn’s office in the basement) will give you an interesting insight into the methods of card-sharping deluxe.
More important than this, Hayn is also the man behind Laserre, the Regent Street perfumiers, the difference being that George Edward Braddon, the manager, is not a figurehead, but an active partner. A careful watch kept on future consignments received from the Continent by Laserre will provide adequate proof that the main reason for the existence of Laserre is cocaine. The drug is smuggled into England in cases of beauty preparations shipped by Hayn’s foreign agents and quite openly declared—as dutiable products, that is. In every case, there will be found a number of boxes purporting to contain face powder, but actually containing cocaine.
Hayn’s European agent is a French national of Levantine extraction named Henri Chastel. The enclosed letter, in Hayn’s own handwriting, will be sufficien
t to prove that Hayn and Chastel were up to their necks in the whole European dope traffic.
Chastel, who is at present in Athens, will be dealt with by my agent there. I regret that I cannot hand him over to the regular processes of justice, but the complications of nationality and extradition treaties would, I fear, defeat this purpose.
By the time you receive this, I shall have obtained from Hayn the donation to charity which it is my intention to exact before passing him on to you for punishment, and you may at once take steps to secure his arrest. He has a private Moth aeroplane at Stag Lane Aerodrome, Edgware, which has for some time been kept in readiness against the necessity for either himself or one of his valued agents to make a hasty getaway. A watch kept on the aerodrome, therefore, should ensure the frustration of this scheme.
In the future, you may expect to hear from me at frequent intervals. Assuring you of my best services at all times, I remain, etc.,
The Saint.
With this epistle, besides Hayn’s letter, Templar enclosed his artistic trade-mark. So that there should be no possibility of tracing him, he had had the paper on which it was drawn specially obtained by Stannard from the gaming rooms at Danny’s for the purpose.
He addressed the letter, and after a preliminary survey of the street to make sure that the Snake had not returned or sent deputies, he walked to a nearby pillarbox and posted it. It would not be delivered until Monday morning, and the Saint reckoned that that would give him all the time he needed.
Back in his flat, the Saint called up the third of his lieutenants, who was one Dicky Tremayne, and gave him instructions concerning the protection of Gwen Chandler. Finally he telephoned another number and called Jerry Stannard out of bed to receive orders.
Enter the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 7