Catch the Saint (23 page)

But what if nobody would
listen? What if there
was
nobody to
listen,
except some pinheaded baboon blindly carrying out orders
for completing the liquidation of his prisoner?

It seemed prudent not to
depend entirely on diplomatic skills,
but to start
looking for a more direct way to get out of the mess.
A
man bound hand and foot does not have much bargaining
power
if the higher-ups have already consigned him to the dis
posal unit.

Simon, hoping that his
luck would prevent the guard from
coming back too
soon, began to search for some way of freeing
himself. His mind
always worked fast, leaping fences on the mount of intuition while logical
processes trotted obediently
along in the
rear. It was the packing cases that would save him. He began to roll and squirm
across the floor towards the nearest
of
them, and already he could see the points of the nails which he
had known must have been left protruding when the
crates were
pried open. Getting his
wrists up against one of the nails, he
could
painstakingly pick away at the ropes, fibre by fibre, until
he was free.

Then he saw that fortune
had been even kinder than he had
imagined: The nearest
crate had been reinforced on the outside
by binding it with
straps of thin flexible metal, whose edges,
along
the open side of the box, where they had been cut through,
stood clear of the wood. The strip of steel, or
whatever it was,
would not be as sharp
as a knife blade by any means, but it
could,
given enough time, serve the same purpose.

The Saint’s sense of
balance had not been helped by the
thump he had taken
on his head or the drug that had been ad
ministered to keep him
asleep, but he managed to get himself
into
a sitting position with his back to the packing case. Then his
fingers, numb for lack of circulation, sought the
metal strip. The
edge was
disappointingly dull. He anxiously fumbled for some
ragged spot which would speed up the work but
found none. All
he could do was move
the binding of rope patiently up and down
against the metal, rocking his body forward and back to increase
the motion.

He could hear rather than
feel his progress. After about five
minutes his wrists
were still as immobilised as ever, but his ears could detect the occasional
snapping of a taut strand of rope fibre as it gave way to the friction of the
metal. Another five minutes,
same situation. How much progress had he made?
He had no
way of telling.

Then there were footsteps
outside the door. He hurled himself
away from the
crate, rolled over so that his back and arms and
the
partially severed rope could not be seen from the entrance to the room. There
was no time to get back to the spot where his
captors
had originally left him, which meant that he could not
pretend
to be still unconscious. Momentarily he experienced a
sinking
feeling of despair. He had come so close.

But the door did not
open. The sound of shoes on wood moved
away.
Now there had to be another inchworm trip to the crate.
Once more Simon got himself into a sitting position and resumed
the scraping
of his bonds against the strip of metal. Now he
worked faster, his body pumping forward and back like an en
gine under a full head of steam. Sweat ran from
his forehead into
his eyes. Dust
tickled his nose and forced him to struggle con
tinually not to sneeze—a sound that might bring the guard hurrying to
look in on him.

At last he felt a
loosening of the pressure on his wrists. Fero
ciously
he dragged the last strands of rope up and down against
the metal until he felt them break completely.

His arms were free.
Shaking the rope away, he worked his fin
gers
to restore the warmth and feeling and strength to them. On
his wrists were the white, bloodless indentations the bonds
had made. In another minute he had untied the rope that had held his
ankles together. It was like coming from a black and airless cave
out into the light.

But he still had a long
way to go. He tossed the wrist rope be
hind
the packing case and got to his feet, testing his unsteady legs
as he went back to the place where he had been lying when
he re
gained consciousness. Should he lie down, loosely
wrap the rope
back round his ankles, and try to take
the guard or guards by
surprise when they came
for him? Or should he wait by the door
and
launch an attack the instant it opened?

It would have taken him
only a few seconds to make the decision; but in even less time than that,
without any warning, the door abruptly opened and the huge guard walked into
the room.

A direct quotation of
what the guard said when he saw Simon Templar untied in the middle of the room
is fortunately not es
sential to the substance
of this history. Simon did not bother to re
ply.
All his attention and energy were concentrated on getting to
the guard before the guard’s beefy hand could get to the gun
that hung in harness over his heart.

The Saint did manage that,
but he had not reckoned with the
stiffness of his legs
after their long confinement, and his move
ments
were comparatively slow and clumsy. The fist he threw at
the guard’s
Neanderthal jaw was parried by a tree-trunk arm,
while the man’s other hand slammed out awkwardly at the Saint’s
chest.
If the gorilla had not himself been taken aback with
startlement, it might have shaped into a counter-punch that
could have put Simon out again, but instead of
launching a counter-attack against him, Simon’s prognathous opponent was
only trying to fend him off, shouting: “Hey,
hold on! I come to
let you
loose!”

“You’re
what?”
Simon whooped.

“Yeah! I just come
to let you loose!”

The big lug was making no
effort to go for his gun. Backing off a little, with both hands out in front of
him, he could have
passed for a professional wrestling villain
going through the melodramatics of pleading for mercy.

Simon relaxed just a
little.

“You mean I can
leave?” he asked.

“Yeah. That’s right.
Yeah.”

“Under my own power?
I can go where I want?”

The guard nodded.
“You can go.”

They stood facing one
another in silence.

“Well,” the
guard said, “go on and go.”

“Would you mind
going ahead of me?”

The guard backed out the
door, and Simon followed him into
—as he had
suspected—the main area of a warehouse. It, like the
smaller
room, held nothing more interesting than empty crates.

“How did you get
untied?” the guard asked.

“Tied?” Simon
asked, wickedly. “I never was tied.”

A frown began at the
guard’s crew-cut hairline and spread down over the rest of his wide face.
“Whatta you mean you
wasn’t tied? Sure you was
tied.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

The guard pointed at him and said desperately:
“Now look,
you was tied, and don’t tell
me you wasn’t tied.”

“Okay,” Simon
said with a smile. “1 was just kidding. But I
sure
am grateful to whoever it was that untied me.”

The goon had started to
relax, but now his face crinkled
again, like the face of
an extremely large baby about to erupt into
squalls.

“You’re tellin’ me
somebody
untied you? Who do ya think—”

“I don’t know who he
was,” Simon said nonchalantly. “Little
guy.”
He indicated with one palm very near the floor. “About so
high. Two or three feet. Green pointed hat and a long white
beard. Do you know him?”

“You’re pullin’ my
leg,” the guard announced warily, after a
moment’s
consideration. “Nobody could have gotten in there anyways because I was
right out here the whole time.”

“Whatever you
say,” Simon murmured. “Now, I’d appreciate
it
if you’d tell me why you’re letting me go.”

“They just come and
tole me to let you go. They didn’t give no
reason
or nothin’ else.”

“Who come?”
Simon queried, feeling like part of the cast of a
Tarzan
movie.

“Never mind who
come,” the guard said belligerently. “Never
mind
anything. Just beat it!”

“I just wondered why
anybody would go to all the trouble to
give
me a room for the night and then kick me out of it before morning. It is before
morning, isn’t it? Somebody seems to have mislaid my wristwatch.”

“Probably that
little green guy,” the guard said, and grinned
with
glee at his own wit. He looked at his wrist. “It’s one o’clock
in the middle of the night. Now would you beat it so I can
get
home and get some sleep?”

“I don’t suppose I
could have my gun back?” Simon asked.

“I ain’t got your gun
or nothin’ else.”

Simon went to the door.

“Could you tell me
where I am?” he enquired. “It might help
me
to get somewhere else.”

“You’re on the River,
and you’re lucky you ain’t in it, so get
goin’.”

“Well, thanks for the
hospitality. Your floor’s very comforta
ble
but your roaches need polishing.”

He glanced back and saw the
guard picking up the discarded
length of rope, from
which he would try to unravel the mystery of
the
Saint’s escape.

CHAPTER 8

If the guard had something
to be briefly puzzled about, the
Saint had much more. As he walked out of the
dark neighbour-
hood of warehouses and
loading ramps—noting that the place where he had been held was marked
condemned—philadel
phia fire
department—his mind kept sifting the information
he had so far, and
getting nowhere. It didn’t make any sense at
all
that the group at The Pear Tree, who knew him as a man who
had attacked a couple of their members the night
before and
burst into their
communications centre demanding to see their
Most High and Secret Leader, knew him as a potential if not a
present
danger, and had him in their clutches, would have tossed him casually back into
the stream like a minnow not worth both
ering
about.

It was enough to wound a lesser man’s pride,
but the Saint was
already thinking of his
next move. And that would be to back
track
and take up where he had left off a few hours before. Pre
sumably he might be in an even better position now
to negotiate
as the representative of
West Coast Kelly, or at least no worse.
When he finally found a cab, he directed it straight back to The
Pear Tree.

But even from the window of
the taxi he could see that the
place was dark.

“Do they usually shut down by one
o’clock?” Simon asked the
driver.

“Naw. More like four
o’clock. Ain’t that a sign on the door?”

Simon got out, crossed the
sidewalk, and looked at the card
taped under the brass name
plate.

THE MANAGEMENT REGRETS THAT THE PEAR TREE WILL BE
CLOSED
TEMPORARILY FOR REDECORATING
.

He knocked on the door
anyway, just in case somebody
should still be round, but
there was no response. When he got
back to the New
Sylvania, he phoned The Pear Tree’s number;
there was no answer.

He walked to one of the windows of his room,
looked out over the lights of the city, and pondered the enigma: closed for re
decorating. Just like a prodded turtle drawing in
its head and
legs. And all because of one man? Had he been recognised as
the
Saint? Even if he had, it didn’t add up.
Simon felt that some
where he must have missed a pointer, a hint that
would put some
meaning into apparently
senseless events. He felt that an embry
onic answer was stirring somewhere in his subconscious, but he
could not dredge it to the surface. He was too
tired, still a little
dopey from the
drug. Tomorrow it would all be clearer.