The Saint Closes the Case s-2

by Leslie Charteris

"Let's hear your little song, honeybunch," he said briefly.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "First thing of all, I want to know what's been done with the girl who was taken to-night."

  "That I do not know."

  The Saint's cigarette tilted up to a dangerous angle between his lips, and his hands went deep into his trousers pockets.

  "You don't seem to have got the idea, beautiful," he re­marked sweetly. "This isn't a game—as you'll find out if you don't wake yourself up in rather less time than it takes me to get my hands on you again. I'm quite ready to resume the surgical operation as soon as you like. So go on talking, be­cause I just love your voice, and it helps me to forget all the unpleasant things I ought to be doing to your perfectly ap­palling face."

  The man shuddered and cowered back into the depths of the chair. His hands flew to his eyes; it may have been to shut out a ghastly vision, or it may have been to try to escape from Saint's merciless blue stare.

  "I do not know!" he almost screamed. "I swear it——"

  "Then tell me what you do know, you rat," said Simon, "and then I'll make you remember some more."

  Words came to the fat man in an incoherent, pelting stream, lashed on by fear.

  He was acting on the instructions of Dr. Marius. That was true. The house in Brook Street had been closely watched for the last twenty-four hours, he himself being one of the watchers. He had seen the departure the previous night, but they had not had the means to follow a car. Two other men had been sent to inspect the premises that afternoon, had seen the loaded car outside, and had rushed away together to report.

  "Both of them?" interrupted the Saint.

  "Both of them. It was a criminal mistake. But they will be punished."

  "How will you be rewarded, I wonder?" murmured Simon.

  The fat man shivered, and went on.

  "One was sent back immediately, but the car had gone. The Doctor then said that he had made other plans, and one man would be enough to keep the watch, in case you return. I was that man. Hermann"—he pointed to the inert figure on the floor—"had just come to relieve me when you came back. We were going to report it."

  "Both of you?"

  "Both of us."

  "A criminal mistake," drawled the Saint sardonically. "But I expect you will be punished. Yes?"

  The man winced.

  Another of his comrades, he said, had been told off to follow the girl. It had been impressed upon the sleuths that no move­ment should be missed, and no habit overlooked, however trifling. Marius had not divulged the reason for this vigilance, but he had left them in no doubt of its importance. In that spirit Patricia had been followed to Devonshire.

  "Your boss seems very unwilling to meet me again person­ally," observed the Saint grimly. "How wise of him!"

  "We could afford to take no risks——"

  " 'We'?"

  Simon swooped on the pronoun like a hawk.

  "I mean——"

  "I know what you mean, sweetness," said the Saint silkily. "You mean that you didn't mean to let on that you knew more about this than you said. You're not just a hired crook, like the last specimen of your kind I had to tread on. You're a secret agent. We understand that. We understand also that, however much respect you may have for the continued wholeness of your own verminous hide, a most commendable patriotism for your misbegotten country will make you keep on fighting and lying as long as you can. Very good. I applaud. But I'm afraid my appreciation of your one solitary virtue will have to stop there—at just that one theoretical pat on the back. After which, we go back to our own private, practical quarrel. And what you've got to get jammed well into the misshapen lump of bone that keeps your unwashed ears apart, is that I'm a bit of a fighter myself, and I think—somehow, somehow, I think, dear one—I think I'm a better fighter than you are."

  "I did not mean——"

  "Don't lie," said the Saint, in a tone of mock reproach that held behind its superficial flippance a kind of glacial menace. "Don't lie to me. I don't like it."

  Roger moved off the wall which he had been propping up.

  "Put him back on the table, old boy," he suggested.

  "I'm going to," said the Saint, "unless he spills the beans in less than two flaps of a duck's rudder."

  He came a little closer to the fat man.

  "Now, you loathsome monstrosity—listen to me. The game's up. You've put both feet in it with that little word 'we.' And I'm curious. Very, very curious and inquisitive. I want to know everything about you—the story of your life, and your favour­ite movie star, and your golf handicap, and whether you sleep with your pyjama trousers inside or outside the jacket. I want you to tell me all about yourself. For instance, when Marius told you that you could let up on the watch here, as he'd made other plans—didn't he say that there was a girl concerned in those plans?"

  "No."

  "That's two lies," said the Saint. "Next time you lie, you will be badly hurt. Second question: I know that Marius arranged for the girl to be drugged on the train, and taken off it before it reached London—but where was she to be taken to?"

  "I do not——A-a-a-a-ah!"

  "I warned you," said the Saint.

  "Are you a devil?" sobbed the man, and the Saint showed his teeth.

  "Not really. Just an ordinary man who objects to being molested. I thought I'd made that quite plain. Of course, I'm in a hurry this evening, so that may make me seem a little hasty. Now, are you going to remember things—truthful things—or shall we have some more unpleasantness?"

  The man shrank back from him, quivering.

  "I do not know any more," he blubbered. "I swear——"

  "Where is Marius now?"

  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<
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  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 straight-forward 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 further 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 extraordinary 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 to-night'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 formed 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 fox­hunting 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 to 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 savage 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——"

&nb
sp; "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 know 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 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?"