Saint Intervenes (15 page)

“I’m
getting so expert at this sort of thing, I believe I
could find you a
three-humped camel overnight if you wanted
it,” Peter said
modestly, when he returned to announce success
.

Simon
grinned.

The
mechanical details of his scheme were not completed
until the Friday
afternoon, but he added every hour and
penny to the private account which he had
with Sir Melvin F
lager, of which that
slave-driving knight was blissfully in
ignorance.

It was
barely possible that there may survive a handful of
simple
unsophisticated souls who would assume that since Mr. Justice Goldie’s candid
criticism had been pronounced in
open court and printed in every newspaper of
importance,
Sir Melvin Flager had been hiding his head in shame,
shunned by his erstwhile
friends and treated with deferential
contempt
even by his second footman. To these unfledged
innocents we extend our
kindly sympathy, and merely point
out that
nothing of the sort had happened. Sir Melvin Flager,
of course, did not move in the very Highest
Society, for an
uncle of his on his
mother’s side still kept and served in a
fried-fish shop near the Elephant and Castle; but the society
in which he did move did not ostracise him. Once
the first statement-seeking swarm of reporters had been dispersed, he
wined and dined and diverted himself and ran his
business
exactly the same as he had
done before; for the business and
social
worlds have always found it remarkably easy to forgive the trespasses of a man
whose prices and entertainments are
respectively
cheaper and better than others.

On that
Friday night Sir Melvin Flager entertained a small
party to dinner, and
took them on to a revue afterwards.
Conscience had never troubled him
personally; and his guests
were perfectly happy to see a good show
without worrying
about such sordid trifles as how the money that paid for
their
seats was earned. His well-laden lorries roared through the
night with
red-eyed men at the wheel to add to his fortune;
and Sir Melvin Flager
sat in his well-upholstered seat and
roared with carefree laughter at the
antics of the comedian,
forgetting all about his business until
nearly the end of the first act, when a programme girl handed him a sealed en
velope.

Flager slit
it open and read the note.

One of our trucks has had another accident. Two
killed.
Afraid it may be bad for us if this comes out so
soon after
the last one. May be able to square it, but
must see you first.
Will wait in your car during the
interval.

It was in
his business manager’s handwriting, and it was signed with his business
manager’s name.

Sir Melvin
Flager tore the note into small pieces and
dumped it in the
ashtray before him. There was a certain
forced quality about
his laughter for the next five minutes;
and as soon as the curtain
came down he excused himself to
his guests and walked down the line of cars parked in a side
street adjoining the theatre. He found his own
limousine,
and peered in at the back.

“You
there, Nyson?” he growled.

“Yes,
sir.”

Flager
grunted, and opened the door. It was rather dark
inside the car, and he
could only just make out the shape of
the man who sat there.”

“I’ll
fire every damned driver I’ve got tomorrow,” he swore, as he climbed in.
“What the devil do they think I
put them on the road for—to go to
sleep? This may be
serious.”

“You’ve
no idea how serious it’s going to be, brother,”
said the man beside
him.

But the
voice was not the voice of Mr. Nyson, and the
mode of address was not that which Sir
Melvin Flager encouraged from his executives. For a moment the managing
director of the Flager Road Transport Company did
not
move; and then he leaned sideways
to stare more closely at
his
companion. His eyes were growing accustomed to the
dark, but the movement did not help him at all, for
with a
sudden shock of fear he saw
that the man’s features were
completely
covered by a thin gauzy veil which stretched from
his hat-brim down to
his coat collar.

“Who
the hell are you?” rasped Flager uncertainly.

“On
the whole, I think it would be better for you not to
know,” said the
Saint calmly.

Another
man had climbed into the driver’s seat, and the
car vibrated almost
imperceptibly as the engine started up.
But this second man,
although he wore a chauffeur’s peaked cap, had a silhouette that in no way
resembled that of the chauffeur whom Sir Melvin Flager employed.

Under his
touch the car began to edge out of the line;
and as he saw the
movement Flager came back to life. In the
stress of the moment
he was unable to form a very clear idea
of what was happening,
but instinct told him that it was nothing to which he wanted to lend his tender
person.

“Well,
you won’t kidnap me!” he shouted, and lashed out
wildly at the veiled
face of the man beside him.

Which was the last thing he
knew about for the next half-hour, for his desperate swing was still far from
its mark when
a fist like a ball of iron
struck him cleanly on the point of
the
jaw and lifted him back on to the cushions in a dreamless
slumber.

When he
woke up, his first impulse was to clasp his
hands to his
painfully singing head; but when he tried to
carry it out his
wrists refused to move—they felt as if they
were anchored to some
solid object. Blinking open his eyes,
he looked down at them. They were
handcuffed to what ap
peared to be the steering wheel of a car.

In another
second the memory of what had happened to
him before he fell
asleep returned. He began to struggle
frantically, but his body also refused to respond, and he
saw
that a broad leather strap like the
safety belt of an aeroplane
had been
passed round his waist and fastened in front of his
abdomen, locking him securely to his seat. Wildly
he looked
about him, and discovered
that he was actually sitting in the
driving
seat of a lorry. He could see the bonnet in front of
him, and, beyond it, a kind of white screen which
seemed
vaguely familiar.

The
feeling that he had been plunged into some fantastic
nightmare seized him,
and he let out a stifled yell of fright.

“That
won’t help you,” said a cool voice at his side; and Flager jerked his head
round to see the veiled face of the
unknown man who had sat at his side in
the car.

“Damn
you!” he raved. “What have you done to me?”

He was a large fleshy man, with
one of those fleshy faces
which look as if
their owner had at some time invited God
to strike him pink, and had found his prayer instantaneously
answered. Simon Templar, who did not like large
fleshy men
with fleshy pink faces,
smiled under his mask.

“So
far, we haven’t done very much,” he said. “But we’re
going to do
plenty.”

The
quietness of his voice struck Flager with a sudden
chill, and
instinctively he huddled inside his clothes. Some
thing else struck him
as unusual even as he did so, and in
another moment he realised what it was. Above the waist, he
had no clothes on at all—the whole of his
soft white torso was exposed to the inclemency of the air.

The Saint
smiled again.

“Start
the machine, Peter,” he ordered; and Flager saw
that the chauffeur who had driven the car
was also there, and
that he was similarly
masked.

A switch
clicked over, and darkness descended on the
garage. Then a second
switch clicked, and the white screen
in front of the truck’s bonnet lighted up with a low
whirring
sound. Bewildered but afraid, Flager
looked up and saw a
free moving
picture show.

The picture
was of a road at night, and it unrolled to
wards him as if it had been photographed
from behind the
headlights of a car that was
rushing over it. From time to
time,
corners, cross-roads, and the lights of other traffic pro
ceeding in both direction swept up towards
him—the illusion
that he was driving
the lorry in which he sat over that road
was almost perfect.

“What’s
this for?” he croaked.

“You’re
taking the place of one of your own drivers for the
week-end,”
answered the Saint. “We should have preferred
to do it out on the
road under normal working conditions,
but I’m afraid you would have made too
much noise. This
is the best substitute we were able to arrange, and I
think it’ll work all right. Do you know what it is?”

Flager
shook his head.

“I
don’t care what it is! Listen here, you
   
“

“It’s
a gadget for testing people’s ability to drive,” said
the Saint
smoothly. “When I turn another switch, the steer
ing wheel you have there will be
synchronised with the film.
You will then be
driving over the road yourself. So long as
you keep on the road and don’t try to run into the other
traffic, everything will be all right. But
directly you make a
movement that would have taken you off the road or
crashed
you into another car—or a cyclist,
brother—the film will stop for a moment, a red light will light up on top of
the
screen, and I shall wake you up
like this.”

Something
swished through the air, and a broad stinging
piece of leather which
felt like a razor strop fell resound
ingly across Sir Melvin’s well-padded
shoulders.

Flager
gave a yelp of anguish; and the Saint laughed softly.

“We’ll
start right away,” he said. “You know the rules and
you know
the penalties—the rules are only the same as your
own employees have to
obey,
 
and the penalties are really
much less
severe. Wake up, Flager—you’re off!”

The third
switch snapped into place, and Flager grabbed
blindly at the
steering wheel.
 
Almost at once the
picture
faltered, and a red light glowed on top of the screen.

Smack!
came the
leather strap across his shoulders.

“Damn
you!” bellowed Flager. “What are you doing this
for?”

“Partly
for fun,” said the Saint. “Look out—you’re going
to hit
that car!”

Flager did
hit it, and the strop whistled through the dark
ness and curled over
his back. This shriek tortured the
echoes; but Simon was without mercy.

“You’ll
be in the ditch in a minute,” he said. “No… .
Here comes
a corner… . Watch it! … Nicely round, brother, nicely round. Now mind
you don’t run into the
back of this cart—you’ve got plenty of room
to pass… .
Stick to it.
…
Don’t hit the
cyclist… . You’re going to
hit him… . Mind the fence—you’re heading
straight for it
—look out… . Look out!”

The strap
whacked down again with a strong and willing
arm behind it as the
red light sprang up again.

Squealing
like a stuck pig, Sir Melvin Flager tore the
lorry back on to its
course.

“How
long are you keeping this up for?” he sobbed.
“Until Monday
morning,” said the Saint calmly. “And I
wish it could be a
month. I’ve never seen a more responsive
posterior than you
have. Mind the cyclist.”

“But
you’re making me drive too fast!” Flager almost
screamed. “Can’t
you slow the machine up a bit?”

“We
have to average over thirty miles an hour,” answered
the Saint
remorselessly. “Look out!”