Saint and the Fiction Makers (6 page)

Constable Jarvis held back, protesting that he was not sure of any such great or immediate danger, but the Saint, with fingers very much like steel clamps not yet exerting a tenth of their potential pressure, took the man’s arm and urged him into the hall with firm friendliness. Amity closed the door and bolted it.

‘Can we offer you a drink?’ she asked.

‘Not on duty, ma’am. Thanks just the same.’ The policeman looked rather longingly over his shoulder at the locked door. ‘It’d be best if you could just come along now, so the Inspector can explain everything to you himself.’

‘Is Charlie Huggins with you?’ Simon asked. ‘No, sir.’

‘Too bad. I’d like to see old Charlie. Will he be at the station if we come down?’

‘Huggins?’ the policeman asked.

The Saint became openly suspicious.

‘Constable Huggins,’ he said.

Constable Jarvis broke into a broad grin.

‘Oh, Huggins! Of course. He’s not on duty this evening, but I’ll give him your regards tomorrow.’

‘That’s very good of you. Please do it … as soon as you wake up.’

On the words ‘wake up’ the Saint’s fist blurred into the tender flab of the other’s jaw like an upswung sledgehammer. Without even a groan the man dropped to the floor.

Amity was aghast.

‘What are you doing?’ she squeaked.

‘The ring’s suspicious enough on a country constable, but I know for a fact there’s no such person as Charlie Huggins here, because Charlie Huggins is a bartender friend of mine in Chelsea.’

‘So who’s this?’ Amity asked, pointing at the limp plump form on the floor.

‘Warlock?’ Simon asked.

‘Oh, that’s really too much!’

‘I agree. And there may have been somebody with him in that car, so let’s take the other way out and see what we can see. Our friend here will be happy to rest till we get back.’

They went back to the writing room, turned off the lights, and Simon parted the curtains to peek out of the french windows. A very tall, very brawny figure in a uniform and cap similar to the one worn by P.C. Jarvis appeared in the light of the quarter moon.

‘It’s a little crowded out here,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s take the front way after all.’

‘What was it?’ Amity asked as he towed her through the hall.

‘He looked a bit like one of Dr. Frankenstein’s play toys. I’m afraid we may as well admit to ourselves that your ivory tower is under attack, and that we’re at least temporarily on the defensive. Here’s your gun back, but let’s not start killing people unless it’s absolutely necessary.’

Amity Little gave a low moan. ‘Killing people?’

Simon’s hand was on the front door lock preparatory to opening it.

‘It shouldn’t bother you,’ he said. ‘You killed at least thirty in your last book, and you came pretty close to bumping me off tonight, so let’s not get emotional. Show you’re a real man, Amos! Let’s make a dash for my car.’

He took the girl’s hand in his and ran silently across the grass. The police car, which appeared to be empty, was only partly blocking the driveway. His first concern was to get Amity to safety, to protect her from capture; with that accomplished, he could go to work on the group which was taking such an extraordinary interest in her literary career. The drastic measures to find her, the elaborate impersonation of police complete with official car, not to mention the offer of fifty thousand pounds, all postulated an organization and capital resources beyond the capacity of mere cranks. And that being the case, it was doubtful that shooting it out with a pair of bogus cops on the spot would be likely to settle anything, although it might rid the world of two of its less attractive inhabitants.

‘Get in,’ Simon whispered.

Amity obeyed as he opened the driver’s side of his car. She scrambled past the steering wheel to make room for him. As he turned the key in the ignition, the front door of Amity’s cottage opened and the bulk of the second imitation policeman was outlined against the dim light inside, having evidently discovered the broken french windows and taken advantage of them to enter and come through. Simon slammed the gear lever into reverse and stepped on the gas to send the car screeching into the road.

But then a curious thing happend. Even as the engine took hold and the car started back, he lost all interest in driving. He felt a sort of cool and queer-smelling breeze in his face, and had just enough ability for analytical thought left in his consciousness to tell him that some somnific gas must be coming through the heater vents.

‘Simon …’

It was Amity mumbling his name groggily as she slumped down into her seat, her head flopping over against his arm. But the arm was as heavy as iron, and more debilitating even than that was the nonchalance with which his spirit insisted on treating the whole event, no matter how desperately a small and helpless part of his mind told him he ought to resist.

He could no more avoid losing consciousness than a stone could have floated on the sea whose surf hissed in his ears. As greater and greater depths of unawareness came between him and the surface world of light and sound, he caught a last rippling glimpse of forms—the faces of men looking down at him, like white grinning masks bobbing above the dark cloth of uniforms, cloth like night sky, where constellations of silver buttons bloomed like stars.

3

Simon Templar thought he had been dreaming about a play taking place in a setting as vast as a football stadium; on the stage more and more people entered, some actors and some not actors, until reality was so confused with make-believe that the whole scene was in milling chaos …

And then, as brighter light sifted into his eyes, the Saint saw the stage become smaller, like the plush little private theatre of some eighteenth-century nobleman, and its intimate red velvet curtains had parted, and there was a beautiful young woman waiting to greet the audience.

‘Good morning, Mr. Klein.’

Simon focussed his eyes and realized that he was in a bed of proportions almost as extravagant as those of the stage in his dream. It was a canopied four-poster bed with curtains all around. The curtains at its foot were being held apart by the gorgeous creature who had spoken. She could not have been much over twenty, her face was classic perfection, and her long hair was like faintly tarnished silver.

‘Good morning, blessed damosel,’ Simon murmured.

His poetic greeting was not entirely due to romanticism or his admittedly muddled head. His mind, clicking rapidly back into action like a computer centre after a power failure, was recollecting the circumstances that had brought him here. He wanted to stall the girl while he woke up more thoroughly and took stock of the situation.

‘I hope that’s nice,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘What you said: blasted …’

‘Blessed?’ Simon offered.

‘Blessed dam … what?’

‘Blessed damosel. It’s a kind of angel, you might say. I never was completely clear on it myself. She looked out from the gold bar of heaven, it says in the poem. They must have some pretty fancy pubs there.’

The girl allowed herself to smile as she opened the curtains on either side of the bed, flooding it with morning sunlight.

‘That does sound nice,’ she said.

She wore a sleeveless white top and skin-tight stretch pants of a kind of pink iridescent silken material. Her figure was positively baroque in its voluptuousness, and her swinging movements around the bed did a great deal towards lifting the Saint’s metabolism back to normal.

‘I suppose it would be too much to guess I’ve gone to heaven?’ he said. ‘Not that I haven’t earned it, but I never thought heaven could be so … tactile.’

He was feeling the silk sheets of his bed, but he was looking at the girl.

‘You’re not dead, Mr. Klein,’ she replied, ‘but in a sense you might say you’ve gone to heaven.’

Simon looked past her out the open window of his spacious room at the wide lawn and brilliantly flowering garden beyond.

‘Looks more like Sussex than heaven,’ he said. ‘I hate to be so unoriginal, but where am I?’

‘You’ll hear all about that in a minute. I’m not suposed to discuss anything except your comfort and pleasure with you.’

The Saint nodded.

‘You’re a specialist, then, I take it.’

She gave him a dazzling smile.

T hope so. Are you comfortable?’

‘Supremely.’

‘Do your pyjamas fit?’ she asked. ‘I had to guess the size.’

‘A perfect guess, Miss …’

‘You can call me Galaxy.’

‘Galaxy? As in Milky Way?’

‘Of course. Galaxy Rose. From your novel, remember? Volcano Seven.’

She turned towards the closed door on Simon’s left as he sat in bed.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’d like to …’

‘Oh, I’m not leaving you, Mr. Klein. I’m here to serve you … with anything you want.’

She opened the door and drew in a wheeled table laid with white linen, crystal, and silver serving dishes. There was a single rose in a slender vase. Simon, at the sight of the breakfast, discovered that his appetite had not been hurt in the least by whatever had happened during the night. He got out of bed, Galaxy helped him into a robe, and he took a seat at the table.

‘Comfy?’ she asked, pouring his coffee.

‘Absolutely.’

‘The London papers,’ she said.

Simon put the newspapers aside and applied himself to the coffee.

‘Very thoughtful, but I don’t think the news I’m interested in would be in the papers.’

‘What news? If you’re thinking of your … ah … friend, or secretary, or whatever she is, she’s in the room next door. She’s still asleep, and she’s fine.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. And secondly, then, I’d like to know whether you’ve kidnapped us or rescued us. In either case I can’t say I’m terribly unhappy at the moment, but it might affect my long-range view of things.’

Galaxy Rose was serving him honeydew melon in its nest of ice.

‘I hope you like melon,’ she said. ‘From now on you can order anything, but this time I had to do it for you.’

‘That’s great, but back to my question …’

‘You’re in a private house, in the country,’ the girl said evasively.

‘Whose private house?’

She looked at her watch.

‘For that information, you’ll have to wait thirty seconds. I already told you I can’t answer those kind of questions. Would you like a bath or shower before you get dressed?’

‘Shower. What happens in thirty seconds?’

‘Look up there.’

She pointed to a wooden panel on the wall to the right, on the opposite side of the room from the door through which she had brought Simon’s breakfast.

‘Fascinating,’ he said.

‘You’ll see,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go see that everything’s ready for your shower when you’ve finished.’

She left through a door next to the wooden panel. The instant she was out of sight, Simon started to get to his feet, but at the same time an almost imperceptible buzzing sound called his attention back to the panel. It was sliding up, revealing a television screen that flickered with featureless light. Then the face of a man appeared. He was a plump man, and he looked absolutely delighted with himself and the world. He was staring directly at Simon, smiling broadly.

‘Good morning, Mr. Klein, and welcome!’ he boomed.

His countenance produced inevitable thoughts of Mr. Pickwick, the Wizard of Oz, and Father Christmas. At the same time, there was something small and piggish and strange about the opaque darkness of his eyes. He was also capable of producing recollections of such mad and unsavoury gentlemen as certain Roman emperors who were given to killing their friends and relatives in moments of pique, and whose delusions knew no bounds.

He licked his thick lips and went on: ‘Firstly, I must apologize for my rather forceful method of bringing you here, but when it became obvious that you were not going to cash my cheque, I had to force the issue.’ He paused for effect. ‘Yes, Mr. Klein … I am Warlock.’

Judging from the intensity with which the man who called himself Warlock seemed to be looking at him, Simon decided that he actually could be seen. There was undoubtedly a television camera—probably more than one —scanning the room in which he was being served such a well-prepared breakfast. He went back to enjoying it, waving a piece of toast at Warlock’s image in cheerful salutation.

‘No doubt you are wondering what this is all about,’ the speaker continued. ‘I shall explain only briefly now, for we shall have ample opportunity to discuss details in the days to come.’

Warlock clasped his hands, took a happy sigh, and looked very much like a man about to distribute toys to a roomful of orphans … or like Caligula, with a laurel crown of thinning hair rimming his bald head, about to set in motion some monstrous battle between Christians and crocodiles.

‘This is your imagination brought to reality,’ he said, extending an upturned palm on either side. ‘I’ve long admired your books. They’ve given me more pleasure and stimulated more dreams than you would ever have believed if you had never come here. Yes, I am Warlock, and you are in the headquarters of S.W.O.R.D. Everything is exactly as you described it in your books. Not one detail is missing … though I must flatter myself in telling you that in transforming an author’s fantasies into reality, however thorough and brilliant the author may be—as you most certainly are, Mr. Klein—one nevertheless discovers that some details have been overlooked in the books and must be supplied by the practical man.’

The Saint nodded understandingly towards the screen and went to work on his eggs and bacon. Warlock sat back in his chair and beamed.

‘I know you’ll understand that no criticism is intended,’ he went on. ‘I’m only pointing out an inevitable difference between literature and life. But far be it from me to pretend to be a literary critic. I am a simple and wholehearted admirer of the creative imagination, with only amateurish pretensions in that direction myself. A few poems here and there—childish things really, not worth your trouble, but of course if you should have time to glance at them and give me your honest …’ Warlock, who obviously had a tendency to become hypnotized by the sound of his own voice, waved a disparaging hand. ‘But I’m wandering. You are the creative genius, and I am the practical man. One might compare our relationship to that of Voltaire and Frederick the Great, or Michelangelo and the Medici … But again I’m getting ahead of myself. You had a trying night, Mr. Klein. Please finish your breakfast at your leisure, bathe if you wish, and when you’re quite ready, please join us in the planning room. I’ll explain everything there. Galaxy—one of your more delightful creations, I must say—will show you the way. In the meantime, if there’s anything we’ve overlooked, or if there’s anything you want, you have only to ask her. Anything at all. Welcome again, Mr. Klein, and good-bye for now.’