The Avenging Saint (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  4

  It had been a slick job, that departure, and it was all over before Marius had started to move. Even then, the Prince had to stop him.

  “My dear Marius, it would be useless to cause a disturbance now.”

  “He could be arrested—”

  “But you must see that he could say things about us, if he chose, which might prove even more annoying than his own interference. At large, he can be dealt with by ourselves.”

  “He has fooled us once, Highness—”

  “He will not do so again…Sit down, sit down, Marius! You have something to tell me.” Impatiently, the giant suffered himself to be soothed into a chair. But the Prince was perfectly unruffled—the cigarette glowed evenly in his long holder, and his sensitive features showed no sign of emotion.

  “I took the girl,” said Marius curtly. “She has been sent to Saltham. The ship will call there again tonight, and Vassiloff will be on board. They can be married as soon as they are at sea—the captain is my slave.”

  “You think the provocation will be sufficient?”

  “I am more sure of it than ever. I know Lessing. I will see him myself—discreetly—and I guarantee that he will accept my proposition. Within a week you should be able to enter Ukraine…”

  In the bathroom, the Saint heard every word. He had certainly banged the outer door of the suite, but the bedroom door had been equally convenient for the purposes of his exit. It has been explained that he came to the Ritz Hotel to gather information.

  The communicating door between the sitting-room and the bedroom was ajar; so also was that between bedroom and bathroom. And, while he listened, the Saint was amusing himself.

  He had found a new tube of Prince Rudolf’s beautiful pink toothpaste, and the glazed green tiles of the bathroom offered a tempting surface for artistic experiment. Using his material after the style of a chef applying fancy icing to a cake, the Saint had drawn a perfect six-inch circle upon the bathroom wall; from the lowest point of the circle he drew down a vertical line, which presently bi-furcated into two downward lines of equal length, and on either side of his first vertical line he caused two further lines to project diagonally upwards…

  “And the other arrangements, Marius—they are complete?”

  “Absolutely. You have read all the newspapers yourself, Highness—you must see that the strains could not have been more favourably ordered. The mine is ripe for the spark. Today I received a cable from my most trusted agent, in Vienna—I have decoded it—”

  The Prince took the form and read it, and then he began to pace the room steadily, in silence.

  It was not a restless, fretful pacing—it was a matter of deliberate, leisured strides, as smooth and graceful and eloquent as any of the Prince’s gestures. His hands were lightly clasped behind his back; the thin cigarette-holder projected from between his white teeth; his forehead was serene and unwrinkled.

  Marius waited his pleasure, sitting hunched up in the chair to which the Prince had led him, like some huge grotesque carving in barbarous stone. He watched the Prince with inscrutable glittering eyes.

  And Simon Templar was putting the finishing touches to his little drawing.

  He understood everything that was said. Once upon a time, he had felt himself at a disadvantage because he could not speak a word of the Prince’s language, but since then he had devoted all his spare time, night and day, to the task of adding that tongue to his already extensive linguistic accomplishments. This fact he had had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to reveal during their brief reunion.

  Presently the Prince said, “Our friend Mr Templar—I find it hard to forget that he once saved my life. But when he cheated me, at Maidenhead, I think he cancelled the debt.”

  “It is more than cancelled, Highness,” said Marius malignantly. “But for that treachery, we should have achieved our purpose long ago.”

  “It seems a pity—I have admitted as much to him. He is such an active and ingenious young man.”

  “A meddlesome young swine!”

  The Prince shook his head.

  “One should never allow a personal animosity to colour one’s abstract appreciations, my dear Marius,” he said dispassionately. “On the other hand, one should not allow an abstract admiration to overrule one’s discretion. I have a most sincere regard for our friend—but that is all the more reason why I should encourage you to expedite his removal. He will endeavour to trace Miss Delmar, of course, when he finds that you were telling the truth—”

  “I shall take steps to assist him—up to a point.”

  “And then you will dispose of him in your own way.”

  “There will be no mistake,” said the giant venomously, and the Prince laughed softly.

  In the bathroom, Simon Templar, with a very Saintly smile on his lips, was crowning his shapely self-portrait with a symbolical halo—at a rakish angle, and in scrupulously correct perspective.

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  HOW SIMON TEMPLAR TRAVELLED TO SALTHAM AND ROGER CONWAY PUT UP HIS GUN

  1

  “A Bulge—a distinct Bulge,” opined the Saint, as he shuffled out of the Ritz Hotel, leaving a young cohort of oleaginous serfs in his wake. There was, he thought, a lot to be said for the principle of riding on the spur of the moment. If he had called upon the Crown Prince to absorb information, he had indubitably inhaled the mixture as prescribed—a canful. Most of it, of course, he either knew already or could have guessed without risk of bringing on an attack of cerebral staggers, but it was pleasant to have one’s deductions confirmed. Besides, one or two precise and irrefutable details of the enemy’s plan of attack had emerged in all their naked glory, and that very much to the good. “Verily—a Bulge,” ruminated the Saint…

  He found his laborious footsteps automatically leading him down St James’s Street, and then eastwards along Pall Mall. With an éclat equalled only by that of his recent assault upon the Ritz, he carried the portals of the Royal Automobile Club—of which he was not a member—and required an atlas to be brought to him. With this aid to geographical research, he settled himself in a quiet corner of the smoke-room and proceeded to acquire the dope about Saltham. This he discovered to be a village on the Suffolk coast between Southwold and Aldeburgh; a gazetteer which lay on a table conveniently near him added the enlightening news that it boasted a fine sandy beach, cliffs, pleasure grounds, a 16th cent, ch., a coasting trade, and a population of 3,128—it was, said the gazetteer, a wat.-pl.

  “And that must be frightfully jolly for it,” murmured the Saint, gently depositing the Royal Automobile Club’s property in a convenient waste-basket.

  He smoked a thoughtful cigarette in his corner, and then, after a glance at his watch, he left the club again, turned down Waterloo Place, and descended the steps that lead down to the Mall. There he stood, blinking at the sunlight, until a grubby infant accosted him.

  “Are you Mr Smith, sir?”

  “I am,” said the Saint benignly.

  “Gen’l’man gimme this letter for you.”

  The Saint took the envelope, slit it open, and read the pencilled lines:

  “No message. Heading N.E. Wire you Waldorf on arrival.—R.”

  “Thank you, Marmaduke,” said the Saint.

  He pressed a piece of silver into the urchin’s palm, and walked slowly back up the steps, tearing the note into small shreds as he went. At the corner of Waterloo Place and Pall Mall he stopped and glanced around for a taxi.

  It seemed a pity that Roger Conway would waste a shilling, but that couldn’t be helped. The first bulletin had already meant an unprofitable increase in the overhead. But that, on the other hand, was a good sign. In the Saint’s car and a chauffeur’s livery Roger Conway had been parked a little distance away from the converted garage, in a position to observe all that happened. If Sonia Delmar had been in a position to drop a note after her abduction she would have done so, and the bones of it would have been passed on to the Sai
nt via the infant they had employed for the occasion; otherwise, Roger was simply detailed to give inconspicuous chase, and he must have shot his human carrier-pigeon overboard as they neared the northeastern outskirts of London. But the note carried by the human telegraph would only have been interesting if anything unforeseen had happened.

  So that all things concerned might be assumed to be paddling comfortably along in warm water—unless Roger had subsequently wrapped the automobile round a lamp-post, or taken a tack into the bosom of a tyre. And even that could not now prove wholly disastrous, for the Saint himself knew the destination of the convoy without waiting for further news, and he reckoned that a village with a mere 3,128 souls to call it their home town wasn’t anything like an impossible covert to draw, even in the lack of more minute data.

  Much, of course, depended on how long a time elapsed before the Prince took it into his head to have a bath…Thinking over that touch of melodramatic bravado, Simon was momentarily moved to regret it. For the sight of the work of art which the Saint had left behind him as a souvenir of his visit would be quite enough to send the entire congregation of the ungodly yodelling frantically over the road to Saltham like so many starving rats on the trail of a decrepit Camembert…And then that very prospect wiped every sober regret out of the Saint’s mind, and flicked a smile on his lips as he beckoned a passing cab.

  After all, if an adventurer couldn’t have a sense of humour about the palpitations of the ungodly at his time of life—then he might as well hock his artillery forthwith and blue the proceeds on a permanent wave. In any case, the ungodly would have to see the night through. The ship of which Marius had spoken would be stealing in under cover of dark, and the ungodly, unless they were prepared to heave in their hand, would blinkin’ well have to wait for it—dealing with any interference as best they could.

  “That little old watering-place is surely going to hum tonight,” figured the Saint.

  The taxi pulled in to the kerb beside him, and, as he opened the door, he glimpsed a mountain of sleepy-looking flesh sauntering along the opposite pavement. The jaws of the perambulating mountain oscillated rhythmically, to the obvious torment of a portion of the sweetmeat which has made the sapodilla tree God’s especial favour to Mr Wrigley. Chief Inspector Teal seemed to be enjoying his walk…

  “Liverpool Street Station,” directed the Saint, and climbed into his cab, vividly appreciating another factor in the equation which was liable to make the algebra of the near future a thing of beauty and a joy for Einstein.

  2

  He had plenty of time to slaughter a sandwich and smoke a quartet of meditative cigarettes at the station before he caught Sunday’s second and last train to Saxmundham, which was the nearest effective railhead for Saltham. He would have had time to call in at the Waldorf for Roger’s wire on his way if he had chosen, but he did not choose. Simon Templar had a very finely calibrated judgement in the matter of unnecessary risks. At Liverpool Street he felt pretty safe: in the past he had always worked by car, and he fully expected that all the roads out of London were well picketed, but he was anticipating no special vigilance at the railway stations—except, perhaps, on the Continental departure platform at Victoria. He may have been right or wrong; it is only a matter of history that he made the grade and boarded the 4:35 unchallenged.

  It was half-past seven when the train decanted him at Saxmundham, and in the three hours of his journey, having a compartment to himself, he had effected a rejuvenation that would have made Dr Voronoff’s best experiment look like a piffled porcupine trying to play the Fifth Symphony on a cracked oboe in a pail of molasses. He even contrived to brush and batter a genuine jauntiness into his ancient hat, and he swung off the train with his beard and glasses in his pocket, and an absurdly boyish glitter in his eyes.

  He had lost nothing by not bothering to collect Roger Conway’s telegram, for he knew his man. In the first bar he entered he discovered his lieutenant attached by the mouth to the open end of a large tankard of ale. A moment later, lowering the tankard in order to draw breath, Roger perceived the Saint smiling down at him, and goggled.

  “Hold me up, someone,” he muttered, “And get ready to shoo the pink elephants away when I start to gibber…And to think I’ve been complaining that I couldn’t see the point of paying seven-pence a pint for brown water with a taste!”

  Simon laughed.

  “Bear up, old dear,” he said cheerfully. “It hasn’t come to that yet”

  “But how did you get here?”

  “Didn’t you send for me?” asked the Saint innocently.

  “I did not,” said Roger. “I looked out the last train, and I knew my message wouldn’t reach you in time for you to catch it. I wired you to phone me here, and for the last three hours I’ve been on the verge of heart failure every time the door opened. I thought Teal must have got after you somehow, and every minute I was expecting the local cop to walk in and invite me outside.”

  Simon grinned, and sank into a chair. A waiter was hovering in the background, and the Saint hailed him and ordered a fresh consignment of beer.

  “I suppose you pinched the first car you saw,” Roger was saying, “That’ll mean another six months on our sentences. But you might have warned me.”

  The Saint shook his head.

  “As a matter of fact, I never went to the Waldorf. Marius himself put me on to Saltham, and I came right along.”

  “Good Lord—how?”

  “He talked, and I listened. It was dead easy.”

  “At the Ritz?”

  Simon nodded. Briefly he ran over the story of the reunion, with its sequel in the bathroom, and the conversation he had overheard, and Conway stared.

  “You picked up all that?”

  “I did so…The man Marius is the three-star brain of this cockeyed age—I’ll say. And by the same token, Roger, you and I are going to have to tune up our grey matter to an extra couple of thousand revs, per if we want to keep Angel Face’s tail skid in sight over this course…But what’s your end of the story?”

  “Three of ’em turned up—one in a police-inspector’s uniform. When the bell wasn’t answered in about thirty seconds they whipped out a jemmy and bust it in. As they marched in, an ambulance pulled into the mews and stopped outside the door. It was a wonderful bit of team work. There were ambulance men in correct uniforms and all. They carried her out on a stretcher, with a sheet over her. All in broad daylight. And slick! It was under five minutes by my watch from the moment they forced the door to the moment when they were all piling into the wagon, and they pulled out before anything like a crowd had collected. They’d doped Sonia, of course…the swine…”

  “Gosh!” said the Saint softly. “She’s just great—that girl!”

  Roger gazed thoughtfully at the pewter can which the waiter had placed before him.

  “She is—just great…”

  “Sweet on her, son?”

  Conway raised his eyes.

  “Are you?”

  The Saint fished out his cigarette-case and selected a smoke. He tapped it on his thumbnail abstractedly, and there was a silence.

  Then he said quietly, “That ambulance gag is big stuff, Note it down, Roger, for our own use one day…And what’s the battlefield like at Saltham?”

  “A sizeable house, standing in its own grounds on the cliffs, away from the village. They’re not much, as cliffs go—not more than about fifty feet around there. There are big iron gates at the end of the drive. The ambulance turned in, and I went right on past without looking round—I guessed they were there for keeps. Then I had to come back here to send you that wire. By the way, there was a bird we’ve met before in the ambulance outfit—your little friend Hermann.”

  Simon stroked his chin.

  “I bust his jaw one time, didn’t I?”

  “Something like that. And he did his best to bust my ribs and stave my head in.”

  “It will be pleasant,” said the Saint gently, “to meet Hermann ag
ain,”

  He took a pull at his beer, and frowned at the table.

  Roger said, “It seems to me that all we’ve got to do now is to get on the phone to Claud Eustace and fetch him along. There’s Sonia in that house—we couldn’t have the gang more red-handed.”

  “And we troop along to the pen with them, and take our sentences like little heroes?”

  “Not necessarily. We could watch the show from a safe distance.”

  “And Marius?”

  “He’s stung again.”

  The Saint sighed.

  “Roger, old dear, if you’d got no roof to your mouth, you’d raise your hat every time you hiccoughed,” he remarked disparagingly. “Are we going to be content with simply jarring Marius off his trolley and leaving it at that—leaving him to get busy again as soon as he likes? There’s no evidence in the wide world to connect him up with Saltham. All that bright scheme of yours would mean would be that his game would be temporarily on the blink. And there’s money in it. Big money. We don’t know how much, but we’d be safe enough in putting it in the seven-figure bracket. D’you think he’d give the gate to all that capital and preliminary carving and prospective gravy just because we’d trodden on his toes?”