The Saint Closes the Case (8 page)

Fate was busy with him in those days.

They were running into Kingston at the modest
pace which was all the hired car permitted, when a yellow sedan purred
effortlessly
past them. Before it cut into the line of traffic ahead, Conway had had
indelibly imprinted upon his mem
ory the bestial, ape-like face that stared
back at them
through the rear window with the fixity of a carved
image.

“Ain’t he sweet?” murmured the
Saint.

“A sheik,” agreed Conway.

A smile twitched at Simon Templar’s lips.

“Known to us,” he said, “as
Angel Face or Tiny Tim—at
the option of the orator. The world knows him
as Rayt Marius.
He recognised me, and he’s got the number of the car.
He’ll
trace us through the garage we hired it from, and in twenty-
four hours
he’ll have our names and addresses and Y.M.C.A.
records. I can’t help
thinking that life’s going to be very
crowded for us in the near
future.”

And the next day the Saint was walking back
to Brook Street
towards midnight, in the company of Roger Conway, when
he stopped
suddenly and gazed up into the sky with a reflective
air, as if he had
thought of something that had eluded his
concentration for some
time.

“Argue with me, Beautiful,” he
pleaded. “Argue violently,
and wave your hands about, and look as fierce
as your angelic
dial will let you. But don’t raise your voice.”

They walked the few remaining yards to the
door of the
Saint’s apartment with every appearance of angry
dissension. Mr. Conway, keeping his voice low as directed, expatiated on the
failings of the Ford car with impassioned eloquence. The
Saint answered, with aggressive
gesticulations:

“A small disease in a pot hat has been
following me half
the day. He’s a dozen yards behind us now. I want to get
hold
of him, but if we chase him he’ll run away. He’s certain to
be coming
up now to try and overhear the quarrel and find
out what it’s about.
If we start a fight we should draw him
within range. Then
you’ll grab him while I get the front door
open.”

“The back axle——
” snarled Mr.Conway.

They were now opposite the Saint’s house; and
the Saint
halted and turned abruptly, placed his hand in the middle
of
Conway’s chest,
and pushed.

Conway recovered his balance and let fly. The
Saint took
the blow on his shoulder, and reeled back convincingly.
Then
he came whaling in and hit Mr. Conway on the jaw with
great
gentleness. Mr. Conway retaliated by banging the air
two inches from the
Saint’s nose.

In the uncertain light it looked a most
furious battle; and
the Saint was satisfied to see Pot Hat sneaking up along
the
area railings only a few paces away, an interested spectator.

“Right behind you,” said the Saint
softly. “Stagger back
four steps when I slosh you.”

He applied his fist caressingly to Conway’s
solar plexus, and
broke away without waiting to see the result; but he knew
that his lieutenant was well trained. Simon had just time to
find his
key and open the front door. A second later he was
closing the door again behind Conway and
his burden.
           

“Neat work,” drawled the Saint
approvingly. “Up the stairs with the little darling, Roger.”

As the Saint led the way into the
sitting-room, Conway put P
ot Hat down and removed his hand from the
little man’s
mouth.

“Hush!” said Conway in a shocked
voice, and covered his
ears.

The Saint was peering down through the
curtains.

“I don’t think anyone saw us,” he
said. “We’re in luck. If
we’d planned it we might have had to wait
years before we
found Brook Street bare of souls.”

He came back from the window and stood over
their pri
soner, who was still shaking his fist under Conway’s nose
and burbling blasphemously.

“That’ll be all for you,
sweetheart,” remarked the Saint
frostily. “Run through his
pockets, Roger.”

“When I find a pleeceman,” began Pot
Hat quiveringly.

“Or when a policeman finds what’s left of
you,” murmured
Simon pleasantly. “Yes?”

But the search revealed nothing more
interesting than three
new five-pound notes—a fortune which such a
seedy-looking
little
man would never have been suspected of possessing.

“So it will have to be the third
degree,” said the Saint
mildly, and carefully closed both windows.

He came back with his hands in his pockets
and a very
Saintly look in his eyes.

“Do you talk, Rat Face?” he asked.

“Wotcher mean—talk? Yer big bullies——
”

“Talk,” repeated the Saint
patiently. “Open your mouth, and emit sounds which you fondly believe to
be English.
You’ve been tailing me all day, and I don’t like it.”

“Wotcher mean?” demanded the little
man again, indig
nantly. “Tailing yer?”

The Saint signed, and took the lapels of the
little man’s
coat in his two hands. For half a hectic minute he bounced
and shook the little man like a terrier shaking a rat.

“Talk,” said the Saint monotonously.

But Pot Hat opened his mouth for something
that could
only have been either a swear or a scream; and the Saint
dis
approved of both. He tapped the little man briskly in the stomach, and he
never knew which of the two possibilities
had been the little
man’s intention, for whichever it was
died in a choking gurgle. Then the
Saint took hold of him
again.

It was certainly very like bullying, but
Simon Templar was
not feeling sentimental. He had to do it, and he did it
with
cold efficiency. It lasted five minutes.

“Talk,” said the Saint again, at
the end of the five minutes;
and the blubbering sleuth said he would talk.

Simon took him by the scruff of his neck and
dropped him
into a chair like a sack of peanuts.

The story, however, was not very helpful.

“I dunno wot ‘is name is. I met ‘im six
months ago in a pub off Oxford Street, an’ ‘e gave me a job to do. I’ve worked
for
‘im on an’ off ever since—followin’ people an’ findin’ out
things
about ‘em. ‘E allus paid well, an’ there wasn’t no
risk——
”

“Not till you met me,” said the
Saint. “How do you keep in
touch with him if he hasn’t told you his
name?”

“When ‘e wants me, ‘e writes to me, an’ I
meet ‘im in a pub
somewhere, an’ ‘e tells me wot I’ve got to do. Then I let
‘im
know wot’s ‘appening by telephone. I got ‘is number.”

“Which is?”

“Westminster double-nine
double-nine.”

“Thanks,” said the Saint.
“Good-looking man, isn’t he?”

“Not ‘arf! Fair gives me the creeps, ‘e
does. Fust time I sore ‘
im
——”

The Saint shouldered himself off the
mantelpiece and
reached for the cigarette-box.

“Go home while the goin’s good, Rat
Face,” he said. “You
don’t interest us any more. Door, Roger.”

” ‘Ere,” whined Pot Hat, “I got
a wife an’ four chil
dren——
”

“That,” said the Saint gently,
“must be frightfully bad luck
on them. Give them my love, won’t you?”

“I bin assaulted. Supposin’ I went to a
pleeceman——
”

The Saint fixed him with a clear blue stare.

“You can either walk down the
stairs,” he remarked
dispassionately, “or you can be kicked
down by the gentleman
who carried you up. Take your choice. But if
you want any
compensation for the grilling you’ve had, you’d better
apply
to your handsome friend for it. Tell him we tortured you
with hot
irons and couldn’t make you open your mouth. He
might believe
you—though I shouldn’t bet on it. And if you
feel like calling a
policeman, you’ll find one just up the
road. I know him quite
well, and I’m sure he’d be interested
to hear what you’ve got to say. Good-night.”

“Callin’ yerselves gentlemen!” sneered the sleuth
viciously.
“You——
”

“Get out,” said the Saint quietly.

He was lighting his cigarette, and he did not
even look up,
but the next thing he heard was the closing of the door.

From the window he watched the man slouching
up the
street. He was at the telephone when Conway returned from supervising the
departure, and he smiled lazily at his favourite lieutenant’s question.

“Yes, I’m just going to give Tiny Tim my
love… . Hullo
—are you Westminster double-nine double-nine? …
Splendid. How’s life, Angel
Face?”

“Who is that?” demanded the other
end of the line.

“Simon Templar,” said the
Saint.
 
“You may have heard
of me. I
believe we—er—ran into each other recently.” He
grinned at the
stifled exclamation that came faintly over the
wire. “Yes, I
suppose it
is
a pleasant surprise. Quite over
whelming… . The
fact is, I’ve just had to give one of your
amateur detectives a
rough five minutes. He’s walking home.
. The next friend of
yours I find walking on my shadow will
be removed in an
ambulance. That’s a tip from the stable.
Pleasant dreams, old
dear!”

He hung up the receiver without waiting for a
reply.
Then he was speaking to Inquiry.

“Can you give me the name and address of
Westminster
double-nine double-nine? … what’s that? … Well,
is there no way of finding out? … Yes, I know that; but there are
reasons why
I can’t ring up and ask. Fact is, my wife eloped
yesterday with the
plumber, and she said if I really wanted
her back I could ring
her up at that number; but one of the
bathtaps is dripping, and … Oh, all
right. Thanks very
much. Love to the supervisors.”

He put down the instrument and turned to shrug
at Con
way’s interrogatively raised eyebrows.

” ‘I’m sorry—we are not permitted to give
subscribers’
names and addresses,’ ” he mimicked. “I knew it,
but it was
worth trying. Not that it matters much.”

“You might,” suggested Conway,
“have tried the directory.”

“Of course. Knowing that Marius doesn’t
live in England, and that therefore Westminster double-nine
 
double-
nine is unlikely to
be in his name——
Oh,
of course.”

Conway grimaced.

“Right. Then we sit down and try to think
out what Tiny
Tim’ll do next.”

“Nope,” contradicted the Saint
cheerfully. “We know that one. It’ll either be prussic acid in the milk
to-morrow morn
ing, or a snap shot from a passing car next time I walk
out of
the front door. We can put our shirts on that, and sit tight
and wait
for the dividends. But suppose we didn’t wait… .”
The
emphatic briskness of his first words had trailed away
while he was speaking
into the gentle dreamy intonation that
Conway knew of old. It
was the sign that the Saint’s thoughts
had raced miles ahead
of his tongue, and he was only me
chanically completing a speech that
had long since become
unimportant.

Then for a little while he was silent, with his cigarette slant
ing up between his lips, and a kind of crouching
immobility
about his lean body, and a
dancing blue light of recklessness
kindling
in his eyes. For a moment he was as still and taut as a leopard gathering
itself for a spring. Then he relaxed,
straightening,
and smiled; and his right arm went out in one
of those magnificently romantic gestures that only the Saint
could make with such a superb lack of affectation.

“But why should we wait?” he
challenged.