The Saint and the People Importers (5 page)

Without leaving the telephone booth the Saint glanced at his wristwatch. It was still early in the evening, but any respectable importing company would have closed its doors by now anyway-and those which specialized in not quite so respectable imports were not likely to make wassail for the stranger at their gates at any hour. Simon put the “S” volume of the directory back to bed and opened the one that contained “R.”

There were half a column of “Rowans” inhabiting London, but of that illustrious clan only one, fortunately, possessed the first name of “Tam.” He also, fortunately, maintained a telephone, and he dwelt at Belsize Square.

The existence of Mr. Rowan’s telephone was of use to Simon mainly as a guide to the address. He had had enough of the silent treatment at the Golden Crescent. He was not going to risk giving Rowan the same easy way out by making his approach over the phone. He would beard the star reporter in his own lair.

The theatre crowds were in their playhouses by now, and the restaurant rush had not yet begun, so the streets in Simon’s vicinity were swarming with whole schools of unoccupied taxis. He commandeered one and was soon carried out of the whirlpool of the Piccadilly Circus-Leicester Square area into the more smoothly flowing streams farther north.

The street where he eventually stopped might have been two hundred miles in space or fifty years back in time from the thronged centre of London he had left behind just a few minutes before. Around Belsize Square Simon’s departing taxi was the only moving vehicle. Not even one solitary human being strolled the lamplit sidewalks. The trees were big, and so were the quiet houses-three and four-storey buildings shoulder to shoulder, with hedged gardens in front. Each garden, it seemed, was the property of a cat, and each cat Simon passed (he had gotten out of the taxi some distance from his destination so as not to advertise his arrival) was constructed on the same ample scale as the trees and the houses. They were great fat lazy trusting beasts ready to roll over on the sidewalk for a stomach rub by any human who happened to wander past their respective territories.

Simon obliged several friendly felines with a scratch and a pat, and thought that he rather admired Tam Rowan for choosing a neighbourhood so rich in animals, old trees, and nostalgia. It was not exactly the sort of section he would have expected an ambitious journalist to roost in- especially a journalist who got his name printed above lavish articles which were mentioned on the front page of his newspaper.

Rowan’s address led the Saint up a short walk presided over by a ginger cat too sluggish even to watch him go by. Simon mounted the cement stairs at the end of the walk, which brought him to a heavy oak door, the only part of the three-storey house which was not painted white. To the right of the door was a battery of six bell-buttons variously stained with use according to the popularity of their owners. Identifying cards, ranging from the finest engraved script to ballpoint longhand on a piece of wrapping-paper, were inserted in the slots next to the push-buttons.

The Saint passed over Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, grimaced at Laverne Larousse, Private Tutor, and was gratified to learn that his own Tarn Rowan lived in flat number 4.

The oak door of the house was not locked, so Simon opened it and walked into the dark hall. There was a pleasant smell of chocolate cake baking, and the muted sound of a television set or radio. The only light in the entrance hall came from under the door of one of the flats. Simon found the electric switch just inside the main entrance, wondering if perhaps the landlord had removed the bulbs from the public corridors for reasons of economy. But an overhead light came on at a flick of his finger and he could see his way up the broad heavily bannistered stairway to the next floor.

The sound of the loudspeaker which he had heard on the ground floor became louder as he climbed the neatly carpeted, slightly creaking stairs. Some species of chaos comparable to a Roman combat between Nubian dwarves and crazed baboons seemed-judging from the auditory indications-to be taking place before a screaming audience of thousands. Simon hoped fervently that the cacophony was not issuing from apartment number 4, but it was.

The varnished door with its brass numeral was closed firmly, but the sounds of slaughter came clearly from within by way of a crevice next to the floor. Simon listened for a few seconds and then knocked. There was no response. During a lull in the roaring he knocked again, this time more firmly, and a few seconds later he heard a woman’s voice from just inside, as if she had her mouth pressed almost directly against the door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“I’d like to see Mr. Tam Rowan,” Simon said.

“Who are you?” the female voice enquired with something close to outright hostility.

“Not the big bad wolf,” Simon told her. “If you’ll open the door you’ll be reassured by my cleancut and well-groomed appearance.”

There was a pause, and then a key turned in the lock on the other side of the door. The Saint felt that the wariness of the key-turner was completely understandable, considering that Reporter Rowan had been threatened with death by people who had already shown themselves quite capable of carrying out such threats. He was a little surprised, in fact, that he was being let in after such a short period of persuasion. And then, as the door opened three inches, he realised that he had another barrier to get past: there was a chain-lock preventing the door from being pushed any farther.

A pair of bright turquoise eyes appeared cautiously above the chain, and as little else of a lightly freckled face as the girl could show.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I’ve told you. I want to see the journalist of the house.”

“What for?” she asked unblinkingly.

“I sell submarines,” said Simon.

“Very funny.”

“Not very,” the Saint said. “I also bargain for information, and I enjoy meeting people who share my interests- in things like smuggled immigrants. Why don’t you let me in so we can swap stories without all the neighbours getting an earful.”

“Because I don’t know who you are and I don’t trust you,” she said bluntly.

“My name is Simon Templar, and those who tread the paths of righteousness can trust me from here to the moon. Does that answer your questions?”

Her cold blue-green eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down and scrutinized his face.

“You say you’re Simon Templar … the Saint?” she asked.

“Bingo,” he said. “The very man.”

She squinted at his face again.

“I really think you are.”

“I’d be awfully disappointed to find out I wasn’t,” he replied. “Think of it: getting somebody else’s laundry all these years. And who are you-a Rowan or something else?”

“I am the Rowan,” she said.

“Tam Rowan of crime-busting fame?” he asked with a lift of his brows.

“Right.”

“Shades of Amos Klein,” said the Saint.

2

“What?” she said blankly.

“She was another lad who turned out not to be a lad,” Simon explained. “I wish you emancipated females would retain some identifying characteristics in your names.”

“It’s too dangerous,” she said. If there was any relaxation in her tone it was the relaxation of a lion trainer between acts. “Strange men find out a woman is living alone and knock on her door at night.”

“Well, now that it’s happened what are you going to do about it?” he asked her.

“I’m going to let you in because I know you are the Saint because now I remember I’ve seen your picture-but if you try to get close to me I’ll yell so loud they’ll have to replace every crystal chandelier in this woodworm palace.”

“I’ll try to control any romantic impulses and keep my distance,” Simon said with exaggerated regret.

She slipped the chain free and opened the door, standing well back as he stepped into the room. Her bearing, if not her shape, reminded him of a drill sergeant looking over new recruits.

“Now you go to the middle of the room while I close the door,” she instructed him in a voice whose toughness matched her wary stance.

Simon strolled to the centre of the flat. The sitting room was simply but well furnished, mostly in gold and green, with a well-stocked bookshelf and a Breughel winter landscape above the fireplace. He decided he liked the person who lived there. There was a lack of show or of self-conscious nonchalance, and a feeling of honest use.

“Is this all right?” he asked, indicating the portion of carpet he was occupying.

She nodded as she closed the door. One of her hands remained, as if by a series of casual accidents in her movements, behind her.

“I don’t know if it’s more dangerous to lock myself in here with you or to leave it open and take a chance on somebody else barging in,” she said without a smile.

She was reasonably pretty, but not beautiful. Her healthy broad-cheeked face had too much of a Nordic peasant quality for the latter adjective. Her nose was pertly small, and combined with the crescent lilt of her mouth it gave her a built-in saucy look. Her light hair was cut short and fell with a defiant jaggedness around her ears and forehead. She wore a plain blouse that she filled rather nicely, blue jeans, and no shoes.

Simon faced her easily, lean and dark, sizing her up with the disconcerting directness of his gaze.

“Who else are we expecting?” he asked.

She had locked the door and come a short distance towards him.

“Some chums who’ve promised to slice me up in little pieces if I don’t stop immortalising them in print,” she said.

“Then that wasn’t just artistic licence for spicing-up your story.”

“Of course not,” she said curtly. “You read the story, in the paper tonight? Is that why you’re here?”

“Mainly. I could discuss the whole thing more comfortably if you’d take that butcher’s knife out from behind your back, though.”

She flushed slightly, a reaction he was sure she detested, signalling that he had hit the mark.

“What knife?” she countered uselessly.

“Girls who turn red when rattled should never try to keep secrets,” said Simon. “It’s really rather foolish of you to think you’re hiding anything.”

She showed her concealed hand, and it did indeed contain a large kitchen knife.

“It may seem kinky to you,” she said, “but at least I’m safe.”

He smiled a little sadly.

“You really think so?”

Her eyes flashed and she stepped towards him, trying to give him a scare by poking the point of the knife to within a foot or so of his chest.

“Yes!” she said.

She never did know exactly what had happened just after her “yes.” Instead of flinching away from the knife as she had expected, the Saint stepped aside and towards her with the fluid grace of a matador. She was not aware of what his hands were doing, but suddenly she was standing open-mouthed without her knife and he was holding it and regarding it as if it had been an interesting shell he had picked up on a beach.

“You really shouldn’t play with things like this,” he said gently. “It belongs in the kitchen, after all, along with grapefruit and women.”

Her teeth were set with fury, and suddenly without a sound she exploded and grabbed for his knife hand. He effortlessly evaded the lunge and caught her hard up against him, pinning her strong upper arms against her ribs.

“You are a vicious bird, aren’t you?” he chided.

“You’re a pig!” she spat.

Wishing to get free, she managed to raise her left hand almost to the level of his face. Just in time he realised that she was consciously doing something with her thumb to the inner part of a massive golden ring on her fourth finger. As her hand flexed he tilted his head aside and pushed her wrist away from him with his free hand.

In that instant there was a barely audible fizzle, and an almost microscopic quantity of some gaseous vapour puffed feebly from the centre of the heavily wrought metal of the ring, most of it into the girl’s own eyes.

“Curse!” she exploded.

Then she was coughing and squeezing her eyelids tightly shut, and tears were streaming down the freckled, milk-smooth skin of her cheeks.

Simon was supporting her rather than holding her against her will, and she was making no more effort to get away.

“What was that supposed to be?” he enquired kindly.

“Go ahead,” she growled. “Kill me. Get it over with.”

“That’s a very tempting suggestion, but I need you too much-for the moment.” He tossed the kitchen knife on to a sofa and lifted her left hand so that he could inspect the golden ring. “Is that Renaissance poison-squirter- something you got out of a breakfast-food box?”

She rubbed her eyes with her free hand.

“It’s a tear-gas ring,” she answered sullenly. “Or at least it’s supposed to be. It always worked when I was testing it.”

“It seems like a terribly inefficient form of suicide,” he said. “Something like trying to fold yourself to death in an ironing board. Most people find that shooting themselves with guns works pretty well.”

One corner of her mouth switched in what suspiciously resembled the germination of a smile.

“I don’t have a gun!” she snapped, killing the smile. “And if the damn thing had worked you’d have got the tear gas right in your face.”

“And afterwards you’d have cracked me over the head with a table lamp?” he suggested.

“Preferably with a poker,” she replied.

He let her go, and she stepped back rubbing her shoulder to convey the false impression that he had hurt it. In spite of the fiercely belligerent expression on her face he deduced that the war was over and that the next step was to define the conditions of peace.

“Well, love at first sight is dandy,” he said, “but isn’t it time we got on with more serious things? May I sit down?”

“Apparently I can’t stop you.”

He settled on to the sofa, flipped the long kitchen knife up into the air by its point and caught it by its handle, all the while smiling at her in the most dazzlingly benign way imaginable.

“Well?” she asked, unimpressed.

“It’s very nice to be here,” he said. “It isn’t every day I meet a fearless girl reporter. They should print your picture along with your articles.”