That did it. Benson’s spidery frame marked him as a man without much physical strength, which increased his hesitation to get involved with a man of the Saint’s reputation—even if his hands were tied—but at the same time made him all the more sensitive to aspersions on his courage. He moved toward the Saint, whose back was now to the door which led to the forward compartment of the boat.
“You asked for it, Templar,” Benson said with forced toughness.
That was when Mary Bannerman picked up the heaviest thing she could lay hands on—a large metal Thermos jug—and slammed him on the back of the head. He fell to his knees without so much as a grunt, and Simon finished lulling him to sleep with a charitably restrained toe of his shoe.
“You’re a bright girl, Mary. Now please untie me before that other creep decides to drop back in.”
“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “You’ll turn Jeff in, and…”
“Mary, do you realize what’s going on? This scheme you got yourself involved in is no righteous crusade to force a bad leader out of office. It’s a power play, and it means upsetting a very delicate equilibrium if it goes through. And when equilibrium is upset in a place like Nagawiland it means more than new elections. It means disemboweled women and men skinned alive…”
Mary flinched.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures.”
“Well, you’ll be seeing a lot more pictures like that if we don’t manage to stop your friend Jeff. Liskard may be a rat in your book, and he may not be the best leader in the world, but he’s a lot better than most.”
Mary came to him and began tugging at the knots which held his wrists.
“I feel like a traitor,” she said bitterly.
“If it makes you feel any better, Liskard never had any thought of using you—which I’m afraid is more than I can say for Jeff Peterson.”
“Tom told you that?”
“Yes. Whatever he did, there was nothing coldblooded about it.”
She stopped untying Simon’s wrists.
“Still, I can’t just…turn Jeff in like this. Isn’t there some way we could stop him without having him…put in jail or anything like that? Especially since I might get put in jail, too, for helping him.”
“We’ll see,” Simon said. “In the meantime…”
He had been testing the bonds which still held his arms together. Mary had loosened them enough that he was able, with a sudden twisting movement and some quick work with his fingers, to tear them away. As he did it, he spun to face her.
“In the meantime,” he concluded, “you don’t have to feel guilty. I got away all by myself.”
She was frozen for a moment, and then she made a dive for the chart book, which she had dropped on one of the bunks. Simon knocked it aside and caught her squirming body up against his.
“See?” he said. “No guilt. You even fought back and tried to stop me.”
“I could scream,” she said tentatively.
She was squirming less. Simon smiled.
“Well, don’t. We need one another. Try using your head for a change. Can you do anything except pose for pictures?”
“Such as what?”
“Such as cast off those lines while I get this scow’s engine set to go. We’ll drift out quietly, then turn on the power and take off full speed.”
Mary did not offer any more arguments or resistance.
“I’ll handle the engine,” she said. “I’ve done it before.”
They both went on deck as soon as Simon had used the rope that had been taken from his own wrists to tie up Benson. The fog was thickening, and he could scarcely see beyond the fence which ran along the shore, which conveniently meant that Rogers would not be able to see the boat either. Within a few seconds the Saint had cast off both lines and sent the boat drifting toward midstream with a shove of his foot against the bank. He joined Mary Bannerman at the wheel. The bow had been headed upstream. Now, as the current caught it, it began to turn downstream toward London and the sea. The shore was five feet away, then ten, but the boat had still not entered the main current in the center of the river. The eddies it formed near the shore began to move the boat back toward land.
“Start it,” Simon whispered.
Mary Bannerman turned the ignition key. The engine turned over, coughed, and died.
“It’s tricky,” she said.
The boat had moved downstream only a few yards. It was turning and drifting back toward the bank. Mary tried the starter again. The engine seemed to catch, then stopped. In the abrupt silence Simon heard running footsteps on the murky shore.
“He’s heard us,” Mary said.
“Try it again before we run aground.”
The Saint hurried to the stern, which seemed the part of the boat most likely to strike land first. The starter was grinding loudly. Rogers was yelling as he ran through the fog.
“Benson! What’s happening? Is that you?”
Then suddenly he appeared among trees and mist on the bank as the engine at last grumbled into full rhythm. The propeller bit into the mud and then pushed free. The boat began to move back toward midstream. Rogers had already drawn his pistol, and he tossed off a wild shot in their general direction. The Saint ducked hastily behind the deckhouse.
“Get down!” he shouted to Mary Bannerman.
“Full speed ahead,” she cried, “and damn the torpedoes!”
Rogers fired out of the fog three more times in rapid succession. One of his bullets smashed a pane of glass a few inches from the girl’s head. She dropped to her knees, still holding the wheel. Simon heard her feeble exclamation.
“Oh, my…”
Rogers, who was just barely visible, started to run down the riverside parallel to the boat, but with the help of the current they were moving much faster than he could, and then he slipped and tripped over something and went sprawling.
“That’s one torpedo we won’t have to worry about any more for the present,” Simon said.
“He…he really was shooting at us,” Mary stammered shakily.
She got to her feet and Simon steadied her with an arm around her shoulders as he took the wheel.
“That’s revolution,” he said. “Remember, you can’t make an omelet without…”
“I know, I know,” Mary said.
Simon squinted into the misty dark.
“There’s just one thing. I wish you transformers of society had picked a more suitable time of year for your egg cracking. Like Easter, for instance.”
“What’ll we do now?”
“Get to a telephone, and then back to London as fast as possible.”
“In this?”
“No. We should be able to get a cab in Windsor even at this hour. In the meantime, tell me everything you know about this plot against Liskard.”
“You know it,” she said. “Jeff got the letters from me. We were going to send them to the papers and force Tom to resign.”
“Why all the pussyfooting around? Why didn’t you just publicize the letters right away without tipping Liskard off?”
Mary frowned and shook her head. Simon was piloting the boat, and she was standing close to him, hugging herself to keep warm.
“It seemed unnecessary to me. A bit extra sadistic. It was Jeff who insisted on it. I thought it would be safer and better all around if we just got it over with as fast as possible.”
“That would have been the reasonable way,” the Saint agreed. “So unless your boyfriend’s unreasonable he must have had something else in mind.”
“Don’t call him my boyfriend,” Mary said bitterly. “And what else could he have had in mind?”
“Something much worse than you did.”
“What?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Simon said grimly. “I see lights up ahead.”
10
The cluster of lights the Saint had seen through the fog marked the site of a cottage on the right bank of the river. There was a sound of loud
dance music even above the rumble of the boat’s engine.
“Maybe we can get a lift into London from there,” Simon said to Mary Bannerman.
Then came a muffled shout from below.
“Hallo! Who’s there?”
“I’ll have to take care of our patriot,” Simon said. “Cut the engine down and make a circle or something before we dock.”
He hurried below to the cabin, where Benson lay trussed on the floor. He stopped shouting and stared with open fear at the Saint.
“What are you going to do to me?” he whimpered. “Where are we?”
“You don’t happen to have any more chloroform among your stores, do you?” Simon asked him. “You used to be rather partial to it, I remember.”
Benson could only gape as Simon pulled out a knife and then did not use it on the thin man’s scrawny neck but on one of the bunk sheets.
“Open wide and take your medicine,” Simon said to him.
“What do you mean?” Benson quavered.
“Open your mouth,” Simon repeated harshly.
Benson opened, and the Saint shoved a generous wad of cloth into his mouth, then wrapped a long strip of the sheet around his head several times to cover his mouth.
“Now try to yell,” Simon said.
“Mmp!” grunted Benson unhappily.
The Saint tore a flyleaf out of a book from one of the shelves and wrote a brief message on it: “I am a bad man. Please hand me over to the police.”
He folded the note and tucked it into Benson’s shirt so that most of the paper would be plainly visible to anybody entering the cabin.
“I hope nobody will come and find you before Claud Eustace Teal can send somebody out to pick you up, but I can’t take you with me and I’m afraid Miss Mary wouldn’t approve of my throwing you overboard. You can wait for your pals in jail. Nighty-night.”
Simon left the cabin in darkness and rejoined Mary Bannerman at the helm.
“Now,” he said, “let’s bring her in.”
He steered the cruiser to the landing stage and skillfully brought her to rest without the slightest bump. Before the current could start to affect the craft he cut the power and made fast to shore. Three men—two with drinks in their hands—were already coming out of the cottage toward the river to see what was happening.
“Stay here, Mary, and just follow my lead,” he told her, and went to meet them.
“Come to join the party?” one of the men asked.
They were young, well-dressed, and obviously well along in the process of enjoying themselves. A girl came to the door of the cottage and looked out, sipping from a tall glass.
“We’re not party-crashing,” Simon said. “I’m afraid we have a bit of an emergency. My wife is ill and I must get her to our doctor in London. Could I use your phone to call a taxi?”
“Oh, the poor thing,” said the girl in the doorway. “We can’t let her just…pop off or something.”
“None of us here going to London,” mumbled one of the young men drunkenly.
“Would twenty pounds make the trip worth your trouble?” Simon asked.
The tipsy one who had spoken just before the girl was the first to answer.
“It jus’ happens I have to go London! It jus’ happens!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” one of his soberer companions said. Then he spoke to Simon. “Of course we’ll help. I’m the only one fit to drive. Is she really bad—your wife, I mean?”
“Not terribly, yet,” Simon answered. “It’s a sort of attack she gets sometimes, and only her own doctor knows what to do about it.”
He went back to get Mary, who made a face at him as he helped her out of the boat. She sagged against him as he walked with her toward the cottage.
“Now’s your chance to do some more acting,” he said under his breath. “Just moan in a spartan sort of way occasionally and don’t say anything. If anybody asks you questions just shake your head and close your eyes.”
The sober young man came to help.
“Shall we get right to the car or would she like to rest here first?” he asked.
“It’s best to go straight to town,” Simon answered. “If you have a telephone I’d like to make a call, though.”
“Go right ahead. It’s in the bedroom on the left. I’ll help your wife into the car.”
Simon made his way through the front door of the cottage and the girl who had come out to see him showed him to the telephone. He dialed Scotland Yard as soon as he was alone behind the closed door.
“Hullo,” he said when he received an answer. “This is Simon Templar…Yes…Exactly. I have a message for Inspector Teal…Yes…There’s a man named Jeff Peterson he’ll want to take into custody immediately because he’s a threat to the Prime Minister of Nagawiland—Prime Minister Liskard. Do you have that clear?”
The functionary at the other end of the line had it clearly enough, but he was skeptical.
“Just get the message to Teal and make sure he knows who sent it,” said the Saint. “Peterson should be at the flat of a Mary Bannerman in Chelsea. You can get her address from the directory. It’s very urgent. Secondly, I’ve another present for him out here—wait just a minute.”
He put down the phone and went to the door of the bedroom.
“Where are we, please?” he asked the girl in the adjoining living room.
“Forty-eight Meadow Road.”
Simon went back to the phone and gave the address.
“It’s somewhere between Bray and Windsor on the south bank of the Thames,” he said. “If you’ll have some men sent out you’ll find one of Peterson’s cronies tied up in the cabin of a boat just in front of the cottage.”
“And how did all this happen?” the Scotland Yard man asked.
“I don’t have time to talk now. I’ll tell Teal later.”
He left the phone and hurried out to the car.
“I’ll sit in back and let her stretch out with her head in my lap,” Simon said. “And if you don’t mind it would be best if we don’t talk. Here’s your twenty pounds.”
The young man protested, but took the money. Then, as Simon cradled Mary’s head and comforted her, the driver pulled his sports sedan into the road and aimed it toward London.
Less than an hour later they pulled up to the entrance of Nagawi House. The pickets had exhausted their zeal and gone home; the gate was closed, and a lone uniformed guard spoke through its bars when Simon got out of the car.
“Have you any sort of official pass?” he asked.
“We’re coming to the party,” Simon said.
The driver of the car, meanwhile, gaped as Mary Bannerman sat up, blinked her eyes brightly, and stepped out onto the sidewalk next to the Saint.
“The party’s over long since,” the guard said.
“As a matter of fact it’s urgent business,” Simon told him. “The Prime Minister knows me. I have information he’ll want immediately.”
“Have you telephoned for an appointment?” the guard asked.
Mary Bannerman began quietly explaining some of the true situation to the driver of the car.
“I have a very particular reason for not telephoning,” Simon said. “And I’m sure Prime Minister Liskard doesn’t make appointments in the middle of the night.”
“I know he doesn’t. You’d best come back tomorrow.”
“I’m telling you it’s urgent,” Simon said angrily. “The Prime Minister’s life literally may depend on it.”
Only then did the guard look particularly interested.
“I’ll call his secretary, then,” he said.
“No,” Simon insisted.
“Why not? I’ll do it now.”
Simon looked desperately toward the lighted windows on the ground floor of the big house. Behind him the driver of the car was saying a puzzled good night. He turned his car back in the direction from which he had come and drove away.
The sound of a shot cracked out through the night from one of
the rooms of Nagawi House. The guard stiffened and then started running toward the front door. Lights flashed on inside the house. Simon grabbed Mary’s hand and hurried with her around the corner of the wall away from the gate.
“Where are we going?” she gasped. “They haven’t shot Tom, have they?”
“I’m going over the wall, and you should know whether they’ve shot Tom or not.”
“I don’t know! It was just…”
“I believe you. Listen. Get away from here. Catch a taxi and check in at the Hilton—you can say you missed your last train home, since you’ve got no luggage. Stay in your room until I contact you. All right?”
“All right.”
“Good girl. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
They were next to the wall at its nearest distance to the house, in a sort of alleyway between it and the next building. Simon stepped back, and then with a light leap he caught the top of the wall and swung his body up and over it.
On the inside, he set off at a run toward the rear of the house. That area was lighted only by a single diffuse floodlight, and no one seemed to be keeping watch. With the night guard to testify that he had been at the front gate when the shot was fired, he had no fear of being accused of having anything to do with that, and now he only wanted to get to the scene of the shooting as fast as possible. He remembered the location of the Prime Minister’s study, which was near a corner of the building opposite the side on which he had entered the grounds.
When he reached the study windows he heard excited voices inside. One of the windows was open, its curtains stirring in the cold night air. Simon, in the light which came from the room, looked at the wet, soft earth along the side of the house. The only footprints were his own.
He hoisted himself up on the windowsill and vaulted into the study.
The effect on the people already there was dramatic in the extreme. Anne Liskard, who was in her nightgown, screamed. A half-dressed manservant fell back against the entrance door. Todd and Stewart, in pajamas and dressing gowns, froze and gaped. Another man, in a suit, had his hand on the telephone.
The only member of the tableau who did not react was Thomas Liskard. He was seated in his large chair with his head on the desk. In one of his hands was a pistol. Blood covered one side of his head and stained the blotter where it lay.
The Saint Abroad Page 16
