In the better light of the restaurant, and at leisure which he had not had before, he was confirmed in the impression which he had formed at the Calumet. She was undeniably pretty, in a rather childish way, with a neat fair head and china-blue eyes. A certain grace of carriage saved her from mere fluffiness.
“You haven’t told me your name,” she remarked, when he had ordered refreshment.
“I thought you heard Mossiter address me. Templar-Simon Templar.”
“You seem to be rather a remarkable man.”
The Saint smiled. He had been told that before, but he had no objection to hearing it again. He really had very simple tastes, in some ways.
“It’s rather lucky for you that I am,” he answered. “And now, tell me, what were you doing at the Calumet with Baldy?”
He had some difficulty in extracting her story—in fact, it required all his ingenuity to avoid making the extraction look too much like a cross-examination, for it was evident that she had not yet made up her mind about him.
He learned, after a time, that she was twenty-one years old, that she was the only daughter of a retired bank manager, that she had run away from the dull suburban circle of her family to try to find fortune on the wrong side of the footlights. He might have guessed that much, but he liked to know. It took some much more astute questioning to elicit a fact in which he was really much more interested.
“…He’s a junior clerk in the branch that used to be Daddy’s. He came to the house once or twice, and we saw each other occasionally afterwards. It was all rather sweet and silly. We used to go to the pictures together, and once we met at a dance.”
“Of course, you couldn’t possibly have married him,” said the Saint cunningly, and waited thoughtfully on her reply.
“It would have meant that I’d never have got away from all the mildewed things that I most wanted to run away from. I wanted to see Life…But he really was a nice boy.”
She had got a job in a revue chorus, and another girl in the same show had taken her to the Calumet one night. There she had met Mossiter, and others. She was without friends in London, and sheer loneliness made her crave for any society rather than none. There had been difficulties, she admitted. One man, a guest of Mossiter’s—a German—had been particularly unpleasant. Yes, he was reputed to be very rich…
“Don’t you see,” said the Saint, “that Mossiter could only have wanted to drug you for one of two reasons?”
“One of two?”
“When does this German go back to Germany?”
“I think he said he was going back tomorrow…that’s Friday, isn’t it?”
Simon shrugged.
“Such is life,” he murmured, and she frowned.
“I’m not a child, Mr. Templar.”
“No girl ever is, in her own estimation,” said the Saint rudely. “That’s why my friends and I have been put to so much trouble and expense in the past, and are likely to go on being bothered in the same way.”
He had expected her to be troublesome—it was a premonition he had had about her from the first—and, as was his way, he had deliberately preferred to precipitate the explosion rather than fumble along through smouldering and smoke. But he was not quite prepared for the reaction that he actually provoked, which was that she simply rose and left the table.
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you,” was her parting speech.
He beckoned a waiter, and watched her go with a little smile of rueful resignation. It was not the first time that something of that sort had happened to him—cases of that type were always liable to be trying, and fulfilled their liability more often than not.
“And so she swep’ out,” murmured Simon wryly, as he pocketed his change, and then he remembered the men who had followed them from the Calumet. “Men”—it was unlikely to be a “man.” The Calumet bunch were not of that class.
There were, as a matter of fact, two of them, and their instructions had been definite. They were merely to obtain addresses. It was therefore doubly unfortunate for the one who was concerned to follow Stella Dornford that, when he grasped part of the situation, he should have elected to attempt a coup on his own.
Stella Dornford tenanted a minute apartment in a block close to the upper end of Wardour Street. The block was in the form of a hollow square, with a courtyard in the centre, communicating with the street by a short passage, and the entrances to all the main staircases opened on to this courtyard. Standing in this courtyard, facing the doorway by which the girl had entered, the sleuth glanced up curiously at the windows. A moment later he saw one of the windows light up.
It was then that he decided upon his folly. The window which had lighted up was a French window, and it gave on to a narrow balcony—and, most tempting of all, it stood ajar, for the night was warm. And the building had been designed in the style that imitates large blocks of stone, with substantial interstices between the blocks. To reach that balcony would be as easy as climbing up a ladder.
He glanced about him. The courtyard was deserted and the light was poor. Once off the ground, he was unlikely to be noticed even if some other tenant passed beneath him. In the full blaze of his unconscious foolishness the man buttoned his coat and began to climb.
Standing in the shadows of the passage communicating with the street, Simon Templar watched him go. And, as he watched, with a newborn smile of sheer poetic devilment hovering on his lips, the Saint loaded up his newest toy—a small but powerful air-pistol.
He had acquired it quite recently, out of pure mischief. It wasn’t by any means a lethal weapon, and was never intended for the purpose, but its pellets were capable of making a very painful impression upon the recipient. It had occurred to Simon that, adroitly employed from his window, it might serve as a powerful discouragement to the miscellaneous collection of professional and amateur sleuths whom from time to time he found unduly interested in his movements. But this occasion he had not anticipated, and his pleasure was therefore all the keener.
As the man on the wall reached the level of the second floor and paused for breath, Simon took careful aim.
The bullet smacked into the man’s hand with a force that momentarily numbed his fingers. With a sharp gasp of pain and fear, he became aware that his hold was broken, and he had not enough strength in his uninjured hand to support himself with that alone. He gasped again, scrabbling wildly at the stone—and then his foot slipped…
The Saint pocketed his toy, and stepped quickly back into the street—so quickly that the man who was waiting just outside the passage had no time to appreciate his danger before it was upon him. He felt his coat lapels gripped by a sinewy hand, and looked into the Saint’s face.
“Don’t follow me about,” said the Saint, in a tone of mild and reasonable remonstrance, and then his fist shot up and impacted crisply upon the man’s jaw.
Simon turned and went back down the passage, and crossed the courtyard swiftly and the first window was flung up as he slipped into the shadow of the doorway opposite.
He went quickly up the dark stone stairs, found a bell, and pressed it. The door was opened almost immediately, but the girl was equally quick to shut it when she saw who her visitor was.
The Saint, however, was even quicker—with the toe of his shoe in the opening.
“There’s something outside you ought to see,” he said, and pushed quickly through the door while she hesitated.
Then she recovered herself.
“What do you mean by bursting in like this?” she demanded furiously.
“I told you…there’s a special entertainment been put on for your benefit. Come and cheer.”
He opened the nearest door, and went through the tiny sitting-room as if he owned the place. She followed him.
“If you don’t get out at once I shall shout for help. There are people all round, and a porter in the basement, and the walls aren’t very thick, so you needn’t think no one will hear.”
“I hadn�
�t bothered to think,” said the Saint calmly. “Besides, they’re all busy with the other attraction. Step this way, madam.”
He passed through the open window and emerged on to the balcony. In a moment he found her beside him. “Mr. Templar…”
Simon simply pointed downwards. She looked, and saw the little knot of people gathering about the sprawled figure that lay moaning at the foot of the wall. “So perish all the ungodly,” murmured the Saint.
The girl turned a white face.
“How did it happen?”
“He, and a pal of his, followed us from the Calumet. I meant to tell you, but you packed up in such a hurry and such a naughty temper. I followed. He was on his way up to this verandah when I hypnotised him into the belief that he was a performing seal and I was a piece of ripe herring, whereupon he dived after me.”
He turned back into the sitting-room, and closed the window after her.
“I don’t think you need join the congregation below,” he remarked. “The specimen will be taken for a promising cat burglar who’s come down in the world, and he will probably get six months and free medical attention. But you might remember this incident…it will help you to take care of yourself.”
She looked him in the eyes for several seconds. Then, “I apologise,” she said quietly.
“So do I,” answered the Saint. “That remark was unnecessarily sarcastic, and my only defence is that you thoroughly deserved it.”
He smiled and then he reached for his cigarette-case.
“Gasper?…Splendid…By the way, I suppose you don’t happen to have such a thing as a kipper about the place, do you? I was going to suggest that we indulge at the Cri, but you didn’t give me time. And this is the hour when I usually kip…”
4
A few days later, Mr Francis Lemuel made his first long flight with his new pilot. They went first to Paris, and then to Berlin, in a week of perfect weather, and of the Saint’s share in their wanderings abroad, on that occasion, there is nothing of interest to record. He drank French and German beers with a solid yearning for good English bitter, and was almost moved to assassinate a chatty and otherwise amiable Bavarian who ventured to say that in his opinion English beer was zu stark. Mr Lemuel went about his own business, and the Saint only saw him at sporadic meal-times in their hotels.
Lemuel was a man of middle age, with a Lombard Street complexion and an affectation of bluff geniality of which he was equally proud.
Except when they were actually in transit, he made few calls upon his new employee’s time.
“Get about and enjoy yourself, Old Man,”—everyone was “Old Man” to Mr Lemuel. “You can see things here that you’ll never see in England.”
The Saint got about, and, in answer to Lemuel’s casual inquiries, magnified his minor escapades into stories of which he was heartily ashamed. He made detailed notes of the true parts of some of his stories, to be reserved for future attention, but the Saint was a strong believer in concentrating on one thing at a time, and he was not proposing to ball up the main idea by taking chances on side-issues—at the moment.
He only met one of Lemuel’s business acquaintances, and this was a man named Jacob Einsmann, who dined with them one night. Einsmann, it appeared, had a controlling interest in two prosperous night-clubs, and he was anxious for Lemuel to arrange lavish cabaret attractions. He was a short, florid-looking man, with an underhung nose and a superfluity of diamond rings.
“I must have it der English or American girls, yes,” he insisted. “Der continental—pah! I can any number for noddings get, aind’t it, no? But yours…”
He kissed excessively manicured fingers.
“You’re right, Old Man,” boomed Lemuel sympathetically. “English or American girls are the greatest troupers in the world. I won’t say they don’t get temperamental sometimes, but they’ve got a sense of discipline as well, and they don’t mind hard work. The trouble is to get them abroad. There are so many people in England who jump to the worst conclusions if you try to send an English girl abroad.”
He ranted against a certain traffic at some length and the Saint heard out the tirade, and shrugged.
“I suppose you know more about it than I do, sir,” he submitted humbly, “but I always feel the danger’s exaggerated. There must be plenty of honest agents.”
“There are, Old Man,” rumbled Lemuel. “But we get saddled with the crimes of those who aren’t.”
Shortly afterwards, the conversation reverted to purely business topics and the Saint, receiving a hint too broad to be ignored, excused himself.
Lemuel and the Saint left for England the next morning, and at the hour when he took off from Waalhaven Aerodrome on the last stage of the journey (they had descended upon Rotterdam for a meal) Simon was very little nearer to solving the problem of Francis Lemuel than he had been when he left England.
The inspiration came to him as they sighted the cliffs of Kent.
A few minutes later he literally ran into the means to his end.
It had been afternoon when they left the Tempelhof, for Mr Lemuel was no early riser, and even then the weather had been breaking. As they travelled westwards it had grown steadily worse. More than once the Saint had had to take the machine very low to avoid clouds, and although they had not actually encountered rain, the atmosphere had been anything but serene ever since they crossed the Dutch frontier. There had been one very bumpy half-hour during which Mr Lemuel had been actively unhappy…
Now, as they came over English ground, they met the first of the storm.
“I don’t like the look of it, Templar,” Mr. Lemuel opined huskily, through the telephones. “Isn’t there an aerodrome near here that we could land at, Old Man?”
“I don’t know of one,” lied the Saint. “And it’s getting dark quickly—I daren’t risk losing my bearings. We’ll have to push on to Croydon.”
“Croydon!”
Simon heard the word repeated faintly, and grinned. For in a flash he had grasped a flimsy clue, and had seen his way clear; and the repetition had confirmed him in a fantastic hope.
“Why Croydon?”
“It’s the nearest aerodrome that’s fitted up for night landings. I don’t suppose we shall have much trouble with the Customs,” added the Saint thoughtfully.
There was a silence, and the Saint flew on, as low as he dared, searching the darkening country beneath him. And, within himself, he was blessing the peculiar advantages of his favourite hobby.
Times without number, when he had nothing else to do, the Saint had taken his car and set out to explore the unfrequented byways of England, seeking out forgotten villages and unspoilt country inns, which he collected as less robust and simple-minded men collect postage-stamps. It was his boast that he knew every other inch of the British Isles blindfolded, and he may not have been very far wrong. There was one village, near the Kent-Surrey border, which had suggested itself to him immediately as the ideal place for his purpose.
“I say, Old Man,” spoke Lemuel again, miserably.
“Hullo?”
“I’m feeling like death. I can’t go on much longer. Can’t you land in a field around here while there’s still a bit of light?”
“I was wondering what excuse you’d make, dear heart,” said the Saint, but he said it to himself. Aloud, he answered cheerfully, “It certainly is a bit bumpy, sir. I’ll have a shot at it, if you like.”
As a matter of fact, he had just sighted his objective, and he throttled off the engine with a gentle smile of satisfaction.
It wasn’t the easiest landing in the world to make, especially in that weather, but the Saint put the machine on the deck without a mistake, turned, and taxied back to a sheltered corner of the field he had chosen. Then he climbed out of the cockpit and stretched himself.
“I can peg her out for the night,” he remarked, as Lemuel joined him on the ground, “and there shouldn’t be any harm done if it doesn’t blow much harder than this.”
; “A little more of that flying would have killed me,” said Lemuel, and he was really looking rather pale. “Where are we?”
Simon told him.
“It’s right off the map, and I’m afraid you won’t get a train back to town tonight, but I know a very decent little pub we can stay at,” he said.
“I’ll phone for my chauffeur to come down,” said Lemuel. “I suppose there’s a telephone in this place somewhere?”
“I doubt it,” said Simon, but he knew that there was.
Again, however, luck was with him. It was quite dark by the time the aeroplane had been pegged out with ropes obtained from a neighbouring farm, and a steady rain was falling, so that no one was about to watch the Saint climbing nimbly up a telegraph-pole just beyond the end of the village street…
Lemuel, who had departed to knock up the post office, rejoined him later in the bar of the “Blue Dragon” with a tale of woe.
“A telegraph-pole must have been blown down,” he said. “Anyway, it was impossible to get through.”
Simon, who had merely cut the wires without doing any damage to the pole, nevertheless saw no reason to correct the official theory.
Inquiries about possible conveyance to the nearest main-line town proved equally fruitless, as the Saint had known they would be. He had selected his village with care. It possessed nothing suitable for Mr Lemuel, and no traffic was likely to pass through that night, for it was right off the beaten track.
“Looks as if we’ll have to make the best of it, Old Man,” said Lemuel, and Simon concurred.
After supper, Lemuel’s spirits rose, and they spent a convivial evening in the bar.
It was a very convivial evening. Mr Lemuel, under the soothing influence of many brandies, forgot his day’s misadventures, and embarked enthusiastically upon the process of making a night of it. For, he explained, his conversation with Jacob Einsmann was going to lead to a lot of easy money. But he could not be persuaded to divulge anything of interest, though the Saint led the conversation cunningly. Simon smiled, and continued to drink him level—even taking it upon himself to force the pace towards closing time. Simon had had some opportunity to measure up Francis Lemuel’s minor weaknesses, and an adroit employment of some of this knowledge was part of the Saint’s plan. And the Saint was ordinarily a most temperate man.
Featuring the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 3