“A speech, perhaps, showing that crime does not pay?” Elliott seemed in earnest, but the Saint could not be sure.
Mrs Wingate clasped her hands in front of her bust.
“At eight-thirty? We would so appreciate it!”
“I’m afraid eight-thirty is my curtain time,” Monica said, with an excellent air of regret. “Otherwise I’d have loved it.”
Mrs Wingate blinked.
“Oh, of course. I’d forgotten. I’m so sorry. Thank you, my dear.” She forgot Monica completely as she turned back to the Saint. “But you’ll be able to make it, won’t you, Mr Templar?”
Simon only hesitated a moment.
“I’d be delighted,” he said. “I don’t think I can get much heart into the speech till I work myself into the right mood, but I’ll do my best. You see,” he added, beaming at Elliott, “it’s been my experience that crime pays very well indeed. But, as I said before—”
“Chacun à son goût?” Elliott suggested unsmilingly.
“How true,” Mrs Wingate said vaguely. “Another cocktail, perhaps?”
10
Simon left Monica at the theatre and went back to his hotel to receive a purely negative report from a discouraged Hoppy Uniatz. Hoppy had spent the afternoon circulating among various pool halls and saloons where he had old acquaintances, and where Sammy the Leg was also known. That his peregrinations had done little to satisfy his chronic thirst for bourbon was understandable; the distilling industry had been trying in vain to cope with that prodigious appetite for years. But that his thirst for information had been unslaked by as much as one drop of news was a more baffling phenomenon.
Sammy the Leg had been seen in none of his usual haunts, and none of his dearest cronies had heard either of or from him. Nor had rumour any theories to advance. He had not been reported dead, sick, drunk, in love, in hiding, or departed from town. He had simply dropped out of the local scene, without a word or a hint to anyone.
“I don’t get it, boss,” Mr Uniatz summed up, confirming his earlier conclusion.
Simon rescued the bottle from which Hoppy was endeavouring to fill some of the vacua which had defied the best efforts of Chicago’s bar-tenders, and poured himself a modest portion.
“We now have,” he said, “a certain problem.”
“Dat’s right, boss,” Hoppy agreed.
He waited hopefully for the solution, experience having taught him that it was no use trying to compete with the Saint in such flights of speculation. A man without intellectual vanity, he was content to leave such scintillations to nimbler minds. Also this saved overloading his own brain, a sensitive organ under its osseous overcoat.
“The question is, who knows how much about what?” said the Saint. ‘‘If anyone at that cocktail party is connected with the King of the Beggars, I might as well walk barefooted into a den of rattlesnakes as show up to claim my reservation at the Elliott Hotel. But by the same token, if I don’t show up, I’m announcing that I have reasons not to—which may be premature.”
“Yeah,” Hoppy concurred, with the first symptoms of headache grooving his brow.
“On the other hand,” Simon answered himself, “if the ungodly are expecting me tomorrow, they won’t be expecting me tonight, and this might be a chance to keep them off balance while I case the joint.”
“I give up,” said Mr Uniatz sympathetically.
The Saint paced the room with long, restless strides. He was at a crossroads before which far more subtle strategists than Mr Uniatz might well have been bewildered, with the signpost spinning over them like a windmill. Simon even felt his own cool judgment growing dizzy with its own contortions. He was in a labyrinth of ifs and buts to which there seemed to be no key…
Mr Uniatz pinged BBs monotonously through his teeth at the electric light, drawing from it the clear, sharp notes of repeated bull’s-eyes.
“I get better at dis all de time, boss,” he remarked, as if in consolation. “Dis afternoon I stop in a boilicue an’ get in de toid row. Dey is a stripper on who is but lousy—she should stood home wit’ her grandchildren. Well, I start practisin’ on her wit’ my BBs. I keep hittin’ her just where I’m aimin’, and she can’t figure where dey come from. It breaks up de act—”
The Saint halted in the middle of a step and swung around.
“Hoppy,” he said, “I never expected to see you cut Gordian knots, but I think you’ve done it.”
“Chees, boss, dat’s great,” said Mr Uniatz. “What did I do?”
“You’ve given me an idea,” said the Saint. “In your own words—if the ungodly can’t figure where it’s coming from, it might break up the act.”
“Sure,” Hoppy agreed sagely. “But who is dis guy Gordian?”
Simon Templar had always lived by inspiration, even by hunches, but his recklessness had no relation to any unconsciousness of danger. On the contrary, he was never more watchful and calculating than in his rashest moves. He diced with fate like a seasoned gambler, taking mathematical risks with every shade of odds coldly tabulated in his head. It was simply that once his bet was down he gave himself up to the unalloyed delight of seeing how it would turn out. After that there was only the excitement of riding with them, and the taut invigoration of waiting poised like a fencer to respond to the next flick of steel.
“Which is a nice trick if you can do it,” he mused, blinking through his dark glasses as he tapped his way along the sidewalk towards the Elliott Hotel a couple of hours later.
He looked interestedly at the huge ramshackle structure, which, despite its new coat of brown paint, could scarcely have brought much inspiration to the souls of the poor unfortunates who inhabited it. The building had been constructed after the Chicago fire, but not much later; and it had an air of rather desperately sterile cheer, like an asthmatic alderman wheezing out Christmas carols.
The front door yawned, more rudely than invitingly, Simon decided. He made pleading gestures at a passing pedestrian.
“Excuse me, sir. I’m looking for the Elliott Hotel. Can you tell me—”
“Right here,” said the florid man Simon had accosted. “Want to go in?” He took the Saint’s arm and guided him up the steps to the door. “Okay now?”
“Thank you, sir. God bless you,” Simon said, and the florid man, who does not hereafter appear in this record, vanished into the Chicago evening.
The Saint stood in a broad, high-ceilinged hall. There were doors and a drab carpet and merciless light bulbs overhead. Fresh paint could not disguise the essential squalor of the place. A few framed mottoes told any interested unfortunates it might concern that there was no place like home, that it was more blessed to give than to receive, that every cloud had a silver lining, and that a fixed and rigid smile was, for some unexplained reason, an antidote to all ills. The effect of these bromides was to create a settled feeling of moroseness in the beholder, and Simon had no difficulty in maintaining his patiently resigned expression beneath the dark glasses.
Through an open door at the Saint’s left a radio was playing. At the back of the hall were closed doors, and facing Simon was the desk clerk’s cubby-hole, occupied now by an inordinately fat woman who belonged in a freak show, though not for her obesity. The Saint greatly admired the woman’s beard. It was not so black as a skunk’s nor so long as Monty Woolley’s, but ’twas enough, ’twould serve.
The woman said, “Well?”
Simon said tremulously, “I’m looking for Miss Green. Miss Hazel Green.”
“Big Hazel Green?”
“Yes—yes, that’s right.”
“You’re talking to her,” the woman said, placing enormous forearms on the counter and leaning forward to stare at the Saint. “What is it?”
“I was advised to come here. A Mr Weiss…” Simon let his voice die away.
Big Hazel Green rubbed her furry chin. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Mr Weiss, huh? I guess you want to move in here. Is that it?”
Simon nodded.
&
nbsp; Big Hazel said, “Shouldn’t you have been here before?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said feebly. “Mr Weiss did say something about…But I had my rent paid in advance at…at the place where I was staying. I couldn’t afford to waste it. I…I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”
He could feel her eyes boring into him like gimlets.
“That isn’t for me to say. I just take reservations and see who checks in.”
The woman rang a bell. A thin meek little man came from somewhere and blinked inquiringly.
Big Hazel said, “Take over. Be back pretty soon.” She forced her bulk out of the cubby-hole and took Simon’s arm in strong fingers. “I’ll show you your room. Right up here.”
The Saint let her guide him towards the back of the hall, through a door, and up winding stairs. Behind the glasses, his blue eyes were busy—charting, noting, remembering. Like many old Chicago structures, this one was a warren. There was more than one staircase, he saw, which might prove useful later.
“How much higher is it?” he asked plaintively.
“Up top,” Big Hazel told him, wheezingly. “We’re crowded. But you’ve got a room all to yourself.”
It was not a large room, as the Saint found when Big Hazel conducted him into it. The single window overlooked a sheer drop into darkness. The furniture was clean but depressingly plain.
Big Hazel said, “Find your way around. I’ll register you later.”
She went out, closing the door softly. Simon stood motionless, listening, and heard the lock snap.
The shadow of a smile touched his lips. In his pocket was a small instrument that would cope with any ordinary lock. The lock didn’t bother him—only the reason why it had been used. The vital point was whether it was merely a house custom, or a special courtesy…
He felt his way methodically around the room. Literally felt it. There were such things as peepholes: there were creaking boards, and floors not soundproofed against footsteps. He was infinitely careful to make no movement that a blind man might not have made. He tapped and groped and fumbled from one landmark to another, performing all the laborious orientations of a blind man. And in fact those explorations told him almost as much as his eyes.
There was an iron bedstead, a chair, a lavatory basin, a battered bureau—all confined within a space of about seventy square feet. The walls were dun-painted plaster, relieved only by a framed printing of Kipling’s “If.” There was the one little window, of the sash variety, which he was able to open about six inches. He stood in front of it, as if sniffing the grimy air, and noted that the glass panes had wire mesh fused into them.
After a while he took off some of his clothes and lay down on the bed. He did not switch off the one dim light that Big Hazel had left him. He might have been unaware of its existence.
He dozed. That was literally true. The Saint had an animal capacity for rest and self-refreshment. But not for an instant was he any more stupefied than a prize watchdog, and he heard Big Hazel’s cautious steps outside long before she unlatched the door.
He didn’t know how much time had gone by, but it must have been about three hours.
He was wide awake, instantly, and alert as a strung bow, but without the least movement.
“Who is it?” he mumbled grumpily, and even then he could see her clearly in the doorway.
“It’s Hazel Green. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Some people came in late and held me up.”
“That’s all right,” he said, and sat up.
She came in and shut the door behind her, and stood looking down at him.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes, thank you, ma’am.”
“What’s your name?”
He remembered that she had never asked him before.
“Smith,” he said. “Tom Smith.”
“Like all the rest of ’em,” she observed, without rancour. “You been in town long?”
“No, not long.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not bad.”
“You’re not a bad-looking guy to end up in a dump like this.”
“That’s how it goes.” He took a chance, keeping his eyes averted. “You’ve got a nice voice, to be running a dump like this.”
“It’s a job.”
“I suppose so.” He ventured another lead, making himself querulous again. “Why did you lock me in? I wanted to go to the bathroom—”
“There’s a thing under the bed. We lock everybody in. It isn’t only men who come here. You have to keep a place like this respectable. Women sleep here too.”
For no good reason, an electric tingle squirmed up the Saint’s spine. There was nothing he could directly trace it to, and yet it was unmistakable, a fleeting draught from the flutter of psychic wings. Without time to analyse it, without knowing why, he deadened every response except that of his mind, exactly as he had controlled his awakening when she walked in, and turned the instinctive quiver into a bitter chuckle.
“You wouldn’t expect them to give people like me any trouble, would you?”
“You never can tell.” Big Hazel moved closer, her hands dropping into the pockets of her voluminous skirt. Her voice was still brisk and businesslike as she went on: “I’ll make out your registration tomorrow, and you can put a cross on it or whatever you do.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Would you like a drink?”
The Saint stirred a little on the bedside, as if in mild embarrassment, as the same reflex prickle retraced its voyage over his ganglions. But he still kept his face expressionless behind the blank windows of his smoked glasses.
“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t drink anything. Not being able to see, it sort of makes me a bit dizzy.”
“You won’t mind if I do?”
Without encouraging an answer, she pulled a pint bottle of a cheap blend out of the folds of her skirt and attacked the screw cap. She held the bottle and the cap in pleats of her clothing for a better purchase, but even her massive paws seemed to make no impression on their union.
The Saint paid only incidental attention to her heavy breathing until she said, “The damn thing’s stuck. Can you open it?”
He found the bottle in his hands, and unscrewed the cap with a brief effort of steel fingers.
“Thanks, Mr Smith.”
She took a quick gulp from the bottle, and guided his groping hand to replace the cap.
“Well, have a good night,” she said.
She went out, and the door closed behind her. And once again he heard the lock click.
Simon lay back on the hard bed, remembering vividly that she had never touched the bottle except through the cloth of her skirt pocket. He rested all night in the same vigilant twilight between sleep and waking, revolving a hundred speculations and surmises, but nothing else disturbed him except his own goading thoughts.
11
It was surprisingly easy to get out—almost too easy. In the early morning feet crept past the door again, and the lock clicked stealthily. “When he tried the door, after a while, it opened without obstruction. He tapped his way downstairs, and the thin meek man at the desk scarcely looked up as he went by. Big Hazel was nowhere to be seen.
In the role of a blind man it would have been difficult to shake off any possible shadowers, but that seemed an unnecessary precaution. If he was suspected at all, everything would be known about him anyway, if not, he would not be shadowed. But he thought he knew which it was.
He showered and shaved at his own hotel, and he was finishing a man-sized breakfast of bacon and eggs when the telephone rang.
“Listen, Mr Templar,” Lieutenant Kearney said. “You’re not figuring on leaving town, are you?”
“My plans are nearly completed,” Simon informed him. “At the stroke of midnight a small blimp, camouflaged as a certain well-known Congressman, will drop a flexible steel ladder to the roof of this hotel. I shall mount it like a squirrel and flee southward, while the
sun sinks behind beautiful Lake Michigan. It all depends on the sun,” he added reflectively. “If I can only induce it to put off sinking until midnight, and do it in the east for a change, the plan will go without a hitch.”
“Listen—” Kearney said, and sighed. “Oh, well. So you know the Commissioner. So I’ve got to give you a break. Just the same—” His tone changed. “I’ve been getting some information around Chicago.”
“Fine,” Simon approved. “If you run across a good floating crap game, by all means tell me. I need a stake before I make my getaway.”
Kearney went on doggedly, “This stiff we got in the morgue—we found out who he was. His name’s Cleve Friend. He’s a grifter from Frisco.”
“You ought to make a song out of that,” Simon told him.
“Yeah. Well, anyhow, what was the idea saying you didn’t know him?”
“Did I say that?” Simon asked blandly.
“You implied it,” Kearney snapped. “And that don’t check with what I’ve been hearing.”
Simon paused.
“Just what have you been hearing?” he asked.
“Things from people. People around town. Not in your social circle, of course.” Kearney’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Bums, poolroom touts, beggars.”
“Beggars?”
“We ran Friend’s picture in the paper today,” Kearney said. “The photographer retouched it a little—that hole in his head, you know. And some people came in to look at him. They recognised him. He’s a grifter, or I mean he was, and quite a few people have seen him around Chicago the last month or so. Some of them saw you, too. Some of them even saw you both together.”
“Those chatter-boxes knew me by name, of course?”
“Listen,” Kearney said, “don’t kid yourself. The Saint’s picture has been in the papers too, a lot of times. What was it you were seeing Friend about lately.”
“I can’t tell you,” Simon said.
“You won’t?”
“I can’t. I’m too shy.”
“God damn it,” Kearney roared. “Maybe you can tell me why the autopsy on Friend showed he’d been shot full of scopolamine, then!”
Call for the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 6