The Saint Sees It Through (10 page)

Ah, well. That was the sort of thing
reporters put on copy
paper. City editors had to be considered, too. If you, as a re
porter, phoned your desk with a story, you wanted
something
to lead into a follow-up
yarn, and “arrest expected” certainly
indicated more to come.

Avalon met him in a housecoat of greenish
blue that in a strange and not understandable way was completely right for
her. She
turned up her face and he kissed her on the mouth,
that mouth so full of promise. They said
nothing.

She led him to a divan, where he sat
wordless with her beside
him. Her tawny hair was shot with glints of
gold. Her eyes, he
noted in passing, were dark, yet alight. He thought of a
title by
Dale Jennings: “Chaos Has Dark Eyes.”

She said: “Hullo, boy.”

He grinned.

“I burgle joints and discover bodies. I
am not a respectable
character. You wouldn’t like me if you knew
me.”

“I know you,” she said. “I like
you. I’ll demonstrate—later.”

She got up, went into the kitchen, and brought
back a bottle
of beer.

“I hope you belong to the beer-for-breakfast
school.”

“There’s nothing like it, unless it’s
Black Velvet. But that’s
for special breakfasts.”

“Isn’t this?”

“Well, not quite, you must admit.”

“Yes, I must admit.” She gave him a
smile, a short kiss.
“Excuse me while I make eggs
perform.”

He sipped his beer and wondered about Mrs.
Gerald Meldon,
whose Park Avenue address he had decided to visit. Gerald
Meldon was a name to conjure with in Wall Street. He was at
one time
the Boy Wonder of the mart. If he went for a stock, it signalled a rush of hangers-on.
This had caused him to operate
under pseudonyms, which the Saint considered
having a touch
of swank—a stock-market operator using phony names. If
Meldon were known to be dumping a stock, this was another signal.
Everybody
who could get hold of the information, dumped his.
The stock usually went
down.

It had been Gerald Meldon, the
son—obviously—of a rich
father, who had made collegiate history by
dressing in white coveralls, driving along Fifth Avenue, and stealing all the
street lamp bulbs one afternoon. It had been Gerald Meldon who had been chosen
by Grantland Rice as All-American tackle from
Harvard, accent and
all.

The Saint knew nothing of Mrs. Gerald Meldon,
but he could
understand that reasons might exist why she should seek
psychiatric help from Dr. Z. Well, he would see what he would see.

It was easy enough to find Meldon’s address in
the directory,
and after breakfast that was what he did.

When he and Avalon arrived there later—she
was now in a
tailored suit of tan gabardine—the first thing he saw
caused
him to clutch her arm.

“Sorry,” he muttered, “but my
eyes have suddenly gone back
on me.”

She put a hand on his. Her dark eyes clouded.

“What is it, darling?”

“I’m seeing things. It must have been
the beer.”

She followed his gaze.

“I’m seeing things, too.”

“Surely not what I’m seeing. Describe to me carefully what
you think you see.”

“Well, there’s a kind of liveried slave
on the end of a dog
leash. Then, on the other end of the leash is a mink
coat, and inside the coat is a dachshund. The man is leading the dog—or
vice versa—from, er, pillar to
post.”

The Saint sighed explosively.

“If you see it, too, there’s nothing
wrong with me, I guess.”

The sad-faced little dog led the liveried
attendant nearer. The
dog wagged its tail at them, the attendant elevated his nose a
trifle.

“Doesn’t the little beast find that a
trifle warm, this time of
year?” he asked the attendant.

“It isn’t a question of warmth, sir,
it’s—ah, shall we say face?
He’s a Meldon property, you know.”

Simon could detect no trace of irony in tone or attitude.

“But—mink? A trifle on the ostentatious
side?”

“What else, sir?” asked the gentleman’s
gentleman.

The Saint rang the doorbell. He and Avalon
were presently shown into the drawing room, furnished in chrome and leather,
lightened
by three excellent Monets, hooded in red velvet
drapes. Mrs. Meldon
came to them there.

She was most unexpected. She did not
conform. She was
beautiful, but not in the fashion affected by the house.
Hers was
an ancient beauty, recorded by Milton, sung by Sappho. She
was tall and dark. Her hair reminded you of Egyptian prin
cesses—black
and straight, outlining a dark face that kings
might have fought
for. She walked with an easy flowing motion
in high heels that
accentuated a most amazing pair of slim
ankles and exciting
legs. These latter were bare and brown.

Her dress was of some simple stuff, a
throwaway factor until you saw how it highlighted such items as should be
highlighted.
It
clung with loving care to her hips, it strutted where it should
strut. She had a placid smile, dark eyes
brightened with amuse
ment, and a firm
handshake.

Her voice held overtones of curiosity.
“You wanted to see
me?”

The Saint introduced himself.

“I am Arch Williams, a researcher for
Time
magazine. This
is
my wife.”

“Quite a dish,” Mrs. Meldon said.
“I’ll bet you play hell with
visiting firemen. I’m very happy to meet
you. Drink? Of course.
You look the types.”

Her teeth, the Saint noted, were very white. She rang a bell
with a brown hand. A servant appeared.

“Move the big bar in here, Walker.” To the Saint:
“Those
monkey suits kill me. Gerry
thinks they’re necessary. Prestige,
you
know.” She made the phrase sound like unacceptable lan
guage from a
lady.
“Time,
hmm? What do you want from me?
Never mind, yet. Wait’ll we get a drink. You have lovely legs,
Mrs.
Williams.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. I had nothing to do
with it. But they
are pretty. I hope your husband appreciates them. So many
don’t.”

The Saint said nothing. He wanted to watch.

“I think he appreciates them,”
Avalon murmured. “Don’t
you, dear?”

Simon smiled.

“So many don’t,” Mrs. Meldon said.
“You can pour yourself
into a sheer tube of a dress, like mine, and a husband will look
at you, glance at his watch, and give you hell for
being thirty
minutes late. My God,
how do men expect us to make our
selves——
Oh, here are the drinks. Name your poison.”

When they had drinks, Mrs. Meldon gave the
Saint a slow
smile.

“Well, Mr. Researcher, what now?”

“I have been assigned to find out what I
can about Dr. Ernst Zellermann. We’re going to pick a Doc of the Year. No slowpoke,
medicine, you know.”

Mrs. Meldon stared at him.

“My God, you talk in that style! Don’t
you find it nauseating
?”

“I quit,” Simon said. “But
could I ask you a few questions,
Mrs. Meldon? We’ve picked some possible
subjects from the
professional standpoint, and it’s my job to find out what
their
patients think of. them.”

“Why pick on me?”

“You’re a patient of Dr.
Zellermann’s?”.

“Well—uh, yes.”

The Saint filed her hesitation away for future
reference.

“How do you like him?” he asked.

“He’s rather colossal, in a nauseating
way.”

“So? I should think a feeling of that
sort would hamper the
—er—rapport between doctor and patient.”

“Oh, it does,” she said, “no
end. He wishes I’d like him. A phony, he.”

“Really ? I thought he was quite reputable.”

“What is reputable?” Mrs. Meldon
countered. “Is it what
empty-headed bitches say, who are suckers for a patriarchal look
and soft hands? Is it what some jerk says—‘Five
hundred dollars I paid, for a single interview’—after he’s stung? He has an
M.D., so what? I know an abortionist who has
one.”

“It helps,” said the Saint.

“What do you want to know about
him?” Mrs. Meldon
asked. “When he was three years old in
Vienna, a butcher
slapped his hands because he reached for a sausage. As a
result
he puts his nurse in a blue smock. He won’t have a white uni
form
around him. He doesn’t know this, of course. He has no
idea that the
butcher’s white apron caused a psychic trauma. He
says he insists on
blue uniforms because they gladden the eye.”

“He begins to sound like not our kind of man,” the Saint
put in.

“Oh, go ahead and pick him,” said
the Egyptian princess.
“Who the hell cares? He wouldn’t be the
first mass of psychic
trauma picked as an outstanding jerk. No inhibitions, says he.
It’s a little tough on somebody who’s put
inhibitions by the
board lo these
many moons to go to him as a patient. Shooting fish down a barrel, I calls it.
Another drink? Of course. Mix it
yourself.”

She crossed her lovely legs in such a
fashion that a good por
tion of thigh was visible. She didn’t bother
to pull down her
dress. She seemed tired of the discussion, even a trifle
embit
tered, and a
pattern began to form in the Saint’s mind. He put
early conclusions aside in the interest of conviviality and mixed
drinks.

“Tell me,” he said, “how you
expect to get psychiatric help
from a man you hold in such disregard?”

She straightened up.

“Disregard? Nothing of the sort. He knows
the patter, he
has the desk-side manner. He can make you tell things
about
yourself you wouldn’t tell yourself. Maybe it helps, I don’t know.
Yes, I
must admit it does. It helped me to understand myself, whatever small
consolation that may be. I don’t want to under
stand myself. But
Gerry insisted. He wants to keep up with
things. Like mink
coats on dogs.”

“You would say, then, that your
relations with Dr. Zellermann have been pleasant?”

She looked at him steadily as he handed her
a drink. “Pleasant? What’s that? Sometimes you get caught up in an
emotion.
Emotion is a driving power you can’t ignore. When you get
caught up in it, whatever you do seems pleasant at the time. Even if you
curse yourself afterwards, and even if you don’t dare talk about it.”

“Do you mean, then, he isn’t
ethical?”

She twisted a smile.

“What’s ethical? Is being human
ethical? You’re born human,
you know. You can’t help certain impulses.
See Freud. Or
Krafft-Ebing. To err is human.”

“And he errs?”

“Of course he does. Even if he is a
so-called witch doctor of the mind. Even if he has studied Adler and Brill and
Jung and
Jones. You don’t change a character. All the things that
went
into making him what he is are unalterable. They’ve happened.
Maybe some
of his professors, or fellow psychiatrists, have
helped him to evaluate
those factors in their proper perspective, but he’s still homo sapiens and
subject to the ills they’re heir to.”

The Saint drank his drink, set the empty glass
on the elabo
rate portable bar.

“We’ve taken enough of your time. Thanks
for being so
helpful.”

Mrs. Meldon rose to her full and lovely
height. “I’m no
cross section on the man. Many more think he’s
wonderful than
not. And in some ways,” she said thoughtfully,
“he’s quite a
guy, I guess.”

The Saint did not ask what those ways were. He
took himself
and Avalon away, and hailed a taxi. When they were in it,
and
he had given the address of James Prather to the driver, he let
himself
consider Mrs. Meldon.