Catch the Saint (26 page)

“How can I co-operate
when I don’t even know what you’re talking about?” Angelworth argued.
“I’d suggest you get out of here before I call the police.”

He went over to a table
and placed his hand on the telephone
there.

“I’d suggest you
don’t bother,” Simon told him. “I know I’m in
the right place—never mind how. So if you could cut the phoney
theatricals we could get down to business.”

Suddenly Angelworth’s
right hand dipped into the drawer of
the table and came
out holding a pistol.

The Saint made no effort
to stop him or counter the move. He
smiled happily.

“I’m very glad you
did that,” he said. “You just told me I’m
right.”

“I should have let
the boys finish you when they had you last night,” Angelworth said.

All the innocence had
vanished from his face and all the honey from his voice.

“You’ve really let
yourself in for it now,” he snarled. “Breaking into my apartment
with a stolen key—who could blame me
for shooting in
self-defence? And if that West Coast Mick has any ideas about butting into my
affairs, what happens to you
should be a good warning
to him!”

“I’m disappointed in
you, Hyram,” Simon murmured. “Maybe
Richard
Hamlin really is the brains behind this outfit. It looks
like you
couldn’t think your way across the street in the rush
hour.”

Angelworth’s hand
tightened on the automatic.

“What’s that supposed
to mean?”

“You’ve forgotten
about Carole. That’s why I didn’t bring her back with me.”

The older man was visibly
staggered. The colour drained from
his face.

“Carole,” he whispered. “You
wouldn’t hurt her …”

“Why not? It’d only
be taking a page from your book. There
was
a certain judge’s daughter, for example. I don’t think a splash of vitriol
would improve Carole’s complexion any.”

“Don’t you know it
was only because of her you were turned
loose
last night?”

“I guessed that. And so I wouldn’t want to
hurt her—so long
as you play ball.”

Even to an enemy the
expression on Angelworth’s face was
harrowing. He
suddenly looked years older. The hand that held
the
automatic was slowly lowered until his arm hung limply at
his side.

Then a new voice was
heard: “It’s okay, Mr. Angelworth. I’ve got him covered.”

They both turned to see
Richard Hamlin, with a pistol of his own, coming into the living-room from
another door. Hamlin
looked very pleased with
himself. He was obviously more at home
juggling
account books than guns, but he liked the role of man of action.

“I’m afraid it won’t
do any good,” Angelworth said heavily. “They have Carole. I’ve got to
do whatever they want.”

He turned back to Simon.

“So what is it you
want
…
to set her free, without
hurting
her?”

“I told you,” Simon said. “Your
co-operation. You can start
by proving your
good faith—handing over your records, giving
us a run-down on all your, ah, enterprises. Then West Coast
Kelly will tell you how much he wants. There must
be some
very special files. A hidden
safe, maybe?”

“You can’t show him
anything!” Hamlin said furiously. “If you
do,
Kelly could put us out and take everything!”

Hyram Angelworth turned
desperately to Simon.

“Listen—you owe me
your life. Give me mine in return, and leave Carole out of this!”

“I’m sorry,”
said the Saint. “I’ve got my orders. And Carole
won’t
be hurt unless you force us to.”

Angelworth’s shoulders
sagged as he let out a long deep
breath.

“You leave me no
choice.” He turned wearily. “Come into my study.”

“Wait a minute!” Hamlin barked,
waving his gun. “There’s
more people
involved than just Carole. I can’t let you do it!”

“Can’t
let
me
do it?” Angelworth said in a dangerously quiet
voice.
“I decide what’s done here. I pulled you out of jail and
turned you from a convict into a rich man—”

“And he’ll turn you
back into a convict if you don’t behave yourself,” Simon put in.
“With your record you’ll make a perfect
fall
guy if the cops ever start suspecting your boss.”

“I have
decided,” Angelworth said to Hamlin, “to combine
forces with West Coast Kelly. Now get out of the way and
let me
settle this business.”

Hamlin hesitated a moment,
but placed himself between An
gelworth and the study.

“I won’t tolerate
insubordination,” Angelworth snapped. “Get out of the way.”

“No!” Hamlin
half screamed.

Angelworth shot first and
sent Hamlin careening back against the wall, his gun flying from his hand and
tumbling across the
carpet. As Hamlin sagged to the floor,
blood soaking the left side
of his body, Simon had
time to wonder if the secretary really
would
have pulled the trigger of his own pistol. He had certainly
been destroyed by the hesitant mentality of an employee, while
Angelworth had been quickened by the mentality of the leader.

“Nice shot,”
said the Saint. “I see how you got to be the Supremo.”

He followed Angelworth
past Hamlin, who was unconscious
but still bleeding, into
the book-lined study. In a moment Angel
worth
had swung one of the bookshelves away from the wall and
was opening the door of a safe which had been hidden behind it.

“All the important
records are here,” Angelworth said. “Take what you want and look at
it.”

The Saint felt triumphant
relief. He took the folders which An
gelworth handed
him and strolled out into the living-room look
ing
through the papers. Angelworth’s eyes followed him anx
iously.

Simon leaned against the
wall near a window. Without taking his eyes from his reading, he pulled the
curtain aside, waved his
arm up and down three
times, and let the curtain fall into place
again.
Angelworth’s body stiffened.

“What was that?”

“Signaling,”
Simon said.

“Signaling
what?”

“That everything’s
okay.” His signal would have been received
by
a watcher on the roof of the building opposite, and relayed
back to the floor below the New Sylvania’s penthouse. He looked
up from the folders. “This is interesting stuff. You’re very crea
tive with numbers. For Carole’s sake I wish you’d been a
math
professor instead of a crook.”

The door from the hallway
burst open, and suddenly the room
was invaded by
three blue uniforms led by a man in a plain
suit.
Confronted with this police presence, Hyram Angelworth’s
instincts told him to bolt for the rear exit, but
intelligence told
him to try a last desperate sound.

“Thank God you’ve
come!” he cried, pointing a shaking finger
at
the Saint. “This man broke in here and—”

“Spare us,”
said the Saint. “The law, for once, is with me.” He
spoke to Lieutenant Stacey, who was leading the task force.
“This fine-looking gent is the Supremo. He was
obliging enough to hand over the evidence from the wall safe, and to plug his
assistant there for trying to stop him. Brother Hamlin seems to be
alive; he should make a very willing witness.”

“You’re working for
the police?” Angelworth grated. “Then
where’s
Carole? What have you done with Carole?”

“She’s downtown, at Police Headquarters,
protected by a
charming detective
lieutenant. She was picked up on a phoney
charge to make certain she wouldn’t be in touch with you after
lunch.”

“Did she know?”
Angelworth asked almost piteously.

“No, she
didn’t,” Simon answered.

With incredible swiftness
Angelworth spun round and dashed
back into the study. As
the policemen raced after him, Simon shouted: “Watch out—he’s got a gun in
there!”

But there was no sound of
shots. A moment later, after scuf
fling noises, the
police emerged into the living-room again with a
handcuffed
and crestfallen ex-Supremo in their charge.

“He was trying to
kill himself,” one of them said. “We got the gun just when he was
putting it to his head.”

“I’ll give him one
thing,” Simon said thoughtfully. “He did
love
one person in the world more than himself.”

The atmosphere at the
airport the next noon was clear, kero
sene-perfumed,
and—to the Saint—supercharged with his own
eagerness
to get away from Philadelphia. Brad Ryner sat in the
police
car with the door open, and Lieutenant Stacey stood beside
the Saint as a porter carried Simon’s bag into the
terminal.

“I want you to know
how much we appreciate what you did,” Stacey said earnestly.

Simon shook his head,
nodding, and turned to Ryner.

“Look,” Ryner
said, “I feel mighty bad about this. When I
used
those pictures to get you to help out, I didn’t realise what it was gonna cost
you. I mean about the girl. I didn’t know what a
crummy
mess it would put you in, not until she told you off at
headquarters last night.”

The Saint’s mind was forced
to leap back and relive that
scene again. Carole had
been released, with explanations, when
her
father was brought in, and had then had to cope alone with
the shock of his arrest and the revelations that went with it,
while Simon was indulging the authorities in their mania
for pa
perwork. It had not been necessary for him to see her
even after
she had helped with summoning lawyers
and fending off vulturine
reporters. In fact,
Stacey, who was well aware of her feelings
by
that time, had tried to avert the unpleasantries.

Sitting in his office that
evening, he had said to Simon, while
Brad Ryner
listened: “She’s very upset, naturally. She’s not being
rational. She’s got to blame somebody, and it’s easier for her to
blame you than her father. I’d suggest that you don’t see her.
At least not for some time, till she’s cooled down.”

“Yeah,” Ryner had joined in.
“Just blow. What good
can it
do
to let her chew you out?”

“If she wants to see me, I at least owe
her that,” Simon had
said. “Let
her in.”

It had been worse than he
had anticipated. When Carole en
tered Stacey’s office she
had looked so haggard, her eyes so swol
len
and reddened with crying, that Simon could scarcely recog
nise her as the lively happy girl he had known so briefly.
It was understandable. Before this she had not been able to imagine to herself
that there was even a one per cent clay content in her pa
ternal idol’s feet, and now he turned out to be ninety-nine per
cent pure mud. And the man she had loved was the one who
had shattered her world, doomed her father to prison, and
condemned her at the very least to humiliation and a terrible time of
readjustment.

“You pig!” she said, and for as long
as he lived he would re
member the corrosive
bitterness of every syllable. “I can’t think
of anything low enough to call you.”

“Now wait a
minute,” Ryner had put in. “Don’t blame Simon
for what your father did. He was only …”

Simon silenced the
detective with a glance, but did not try to reply to Carole himself.

“You could have told
me,” she said. “You knew I
…
I loved
you. And all the time you were using
me to get at my father!”

That was all she could
say. A racking sob choked her so that
no more words
could get through. Simon had taken one step to
wards
her, and then she had turned and run from the office.

Now, at the airport, Ryner was saying:
“But since you did face
her like that,
why didn’t you at least explain why you had to do
it? You didn’t have to let her think you’re a
heel. You weren’t us
ing her, the way
she said.”