14 The Saint Goes On
Leslie Charteris
THE SAINT GOES ON LESLIE CHARTERIS .
CONTENTS Part I THE HIGH FENCE 9 Part II THE ELUSIVE ELLSHAW 75 Part III THE CASE OF THE FRIGHTENED INNKEEPER 181
THE SAINT GOES ON
Part I THE HIGH FENCE
APART from the fact that neither of them was a productive or useful member of the community, Johnny Anworth and Sunny Jim Fasson had very little in common. They did not own allegiance to the same Dear Old School; they had no meeting-ground in a passion for the poems of William Wordsworth, no shared devotion to collecting birds' eggs or the rarer kinds of cheese. But the circumstances in which they ceased to adorn their usual places in the files of Records Office at New Scotland Yard had a connecting link which must be the chronicler's excuse for reciting them in quick succession.
Johnny Anworth entered a jeweler's shop in Bond Street during the Easter holidays of that year, and omitted to pay for what he took out. He entered through the ceiling, from an apartment on the floor above which he had rented temporarily. It was a pretty neat job, for Johnny was a sound worker in his line; but it had his personality written all over it, and Headquarters put out the routine dragnet and in twenty-four hours duly brought him in.
He was taken to Market Street police station, where he was seen by the Divisional Inspector. The awkward part of it from Johnny's point of view was that he had most of the proceeds of his burglary on him when he was caught-at any rate he had all the precious stones, which had been prised out of their settings, carefully packed in a small cardboard box, and done up with brown paper and string. What he had not had time to do was to write an address on the package, and for this reason the D. I. was very gentle with him.
"You were going to send that stuff to the High Fence, weren't you, Johnny?" he said.
"I dunno wot yer talkin' abaht, guv'nor," answered Johnny mechanically. "I fahnd the stuff lyin' in the gutter in Leicester Square, an' I did it up to send it to the Lost Property Office."
The Divisional Inspector continued to be gentle.
"You've been in stir six times already," he said, consulting a memorandum on his desk. "If we wanted to be hard on you now, we could have you sent to the Awful Place. You could go to the Moor for seven years, and then have three years' preventive detention waiting for you. On the other hand, if you told us who you were going to send this parcel to, we might forget about those previous convictions and put in a word for you."
Johnny considered this. There is honour among thieves, but it is not designed to resist bad weather.
"Orl right, guv'nor," he said philosophically. "I'll squeal."
This story might have ended there if the station short-hand writer had been available. But he had already gone out to lunch; and the Divisional Inspector was also hungry.
They put Johnny Anworth back in his cell with instructions to order anything he wanted to eat at the D. I.'s expense, and an appointment to make his statement at two o'clock. His lunch, which consisted of roast beef and cabbage, was delivered from a nearby restaurant by an errand-girl who deposited it in the chargeroom. Almost as soon as she had gone, after some flirtatious exchanges with the charge-sergeant, it was picked up by the gaoler, who carried it in to Johnny. He was the last man who saw the talented Mr. Anworth alive.
The girl had taken the tray from the chef in the kitchen, and no one had stopped her or spoken to her on the way. The chef had had no unusual visitors. The only people in the charge-room when the girl delivered the tray were the gaoler, the charge-sergeant, and Inspector Pryke. And yet, somehow, somewhere on the short journey which Johnny Anworth's last meal had taken, someone had contrived to dope the horseradish sauce with which his plate of roast beef was garnished with enough cyanide to kill a regiment.
The murder was a nine days' wonder which provoked its inevitable quota of headlines, newspaper criticisms, and questions in Parliament. Every inquiry seemed to lead to a dead end. But the Criminal Investigation Department has become phlegmatically accustomed to dead ends; and Chief Inspector Teal was still working methodically on the case, six weeks later, when Mr. James Fasson clicked to the tune of five thousand pounds' worth of gems to which he had no legal right whatsoever.
The assets of Sunny Jim Fasson were a smile which made children and hard-boiled business men trust him instinctively, a wardrobe of prosperous-looking clothes, some high-class American luggage plastered with a wonderful collection of expensive cosmopolitan labels, enough ready cash to create an impression of affluence at any hotel where he stayed, and a girl friend who posed as his wife, sister, niece, or old widowed mother with equal success and distinction.
On this occasion he stayed at the Magnificent, a hotel which he had not previously honoured with his presence. He was a wealthy American on his honeymoon; and for a few days he and his charming wife were quite happy seeing the sights and making a round of the theatres. One day, however, a small rift appeared in their marital bliss.
"I guess she's feelin' kinda homesick, or something," Sunny Jim confided to a clerk at the inquiry desk. "Whaddaya do when your wife gets moody, son?"
"I don't really know, sir," confessed the clerk, who was not employed to answer that kind of inquiry.
"Y'know, I always think a woman wants some kinda kick outa life when she feels that way," mused Sunny Jim. "Some lil thing that makes her feel good with herself. A noo hat, or a fur coat, or-or a diamond bracelet. . . . That's what she wants!" he cried, recognising divine inspiration when it breathed on him. "A diamond bracelet! Say, what's the best store in this town to buy a diamond bracelet?"
"Peabody's, in Regent Street, are very good, sir," said the clerk, after a moment's thought.
Sunny Jim beamed.
"Ring 'em up and tell 'em to send some of their best diamond bracelets around," he said. "I'll have the man take 'em right up to her room, and she can pick what she likes. Say, I bet that'll put everything right."
Whether it put everything right or not is a question that the various parties concerned might have answered differently. The hotel was glad enough to oblige such a lavish guest; and Mr. Peabody, the jeweler, was so impressed with their brief account of Mr. James Fasson that he hurried round in person with six diamond bracelets in his bag. After a short discussion, Mrs. Fasson chose the most expensive, a mere trifle valued at a thousand pounds; and Mr. Fasson rang for a page-boy to take his cheque for that amount round to the bank to be cashed.
"You must have a drink while you're waitin' for your money," said Sunny Jim, turning to a bottle and a siphon which stood on a side table.
Mr. Peabody had a very small drink; and remembered nothing more for another hour, at the end of which time Mr. and Mrs. Fasson had left the Magnificent for ever, taking all his six diamond bracelets with them. Nor did Mr. Peabody's afternoon look any brighter when the bank on which Mr. Fasson's cheque had been drawn rang up the hotel to mention that they had never carried an account for anybody of that name.
This episode was the subject of a hurriedly assembled conference in the Assistant Commissioner's room at New Scotland Yard.
The other two men present were Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal and Junior Inspector Pryke. Mr. Teal, who was responsible for the conference, explained his point of view very briefly.
"Anworth and Fasson used to be fairly well acquainted, and if Anworth was using the High Fence there's a good chance that Fasson will be using him too. I know exactly where I can lay my hands on Sunny Jim, and I want permission to try and get a squeal out of him unofficially."
"What is your objection to having him arrested and questioned in the ordinary way?" asked the Commissioner.
"He'd have to be taken to Market Street, wouldn't he?" meditated Teal a
loud. His baby blue eyes hid themselves under studiously sleepy lids. "Well," he said dryly, "because I don't want him murdered."
Junior Inspector Desmond Pryke flushed. He was one of the first graduates of Lord Trenchard's famous Police College, and he usually gave the impression of being very well satisfied with his degree. He was dark, slim, and well-manicured; and the inventor of that classic experiment for turning gentlemen into detectives could certainly have pointed to him as a product who looked nothing like the traditional idea of a policeman. Mr. Teal had been heard to thank God that there was no possibility of confusing them, but there were obvious reasons why Mr. Teal was irrevocably prejudiced in favour of the old order.
"It's in your manor, Pryke," said the Assistant Commissioner. "What do you think?"
"I don't see what there is to be gained by it," said the other. "If Fasson hasn't been too frightened by the murder of Anworth to talk anyhow"
"What does Fasson know about the murder of Anworth?" demanded Teal quickly, for the official statements to the Press had contained certain deliberate gaps.
Pryke looked at him.
"I don't suppose he definitely knows any more than any other outsider, but it's common gossip in the underworld that Anworth was murdered because he was going to turn informer."
"You look as if you spent a lot of your time picking up gossip from the underworld," retorted Teal sarcastically. He caught the Assistant Commissioner's chilly eye on him, and went on more politely: "In any case, sir, that's only another reason why I don't want to take him to a police station. I want to try and prevent him thinking that any squeal could be traced back to him."
There was some further discussion, through which Teal sat stolidly chewing a worn-out lump of spearmint, with his round pink face set in its habitual mask of weary patience, and eventually gained his point.
"Perhaps you had better take Inspector Pryke with you," suggested the Commissioner, when he gave his permission.
"I should like to, sir," said Mr. Teal, with great geniality, "but I don't know whether this can wait long enough for him to go home and change."
Pryke adjusted the set of his coat delicately as he rose. It was undoubtedly part of a resplendent suit, being of a light fawn colour with a mauve over-check; a very different proposition from Teal's shiny blue serge.
"I didn't know that Police Regulations required you to look like an out-of-work rag and bone man," he said; and Chief Inspector Teal's complexion was tinged with purple all the way to Hyde Park Corner.
He resented having Inspector Pryke thrust upon him, partly because he resented Inspector Pryke, and partly because the High Fence had been his own individual assignment ever since Johnny Anworth put his knife and fork into that fatal plate of roast beef six weeks ago. For a lieutenant, when necessity called for one, Mr. Teal preferred the morose and angular Sergeant Barrow, who had never been known to speak unless he was spoken to, and who then spoke only to utter some cow-like comment to which nobody with anything better to do need have listened. Chief Inspector Teal had none of the theoretical scientific training in criminology with which the new graduates of the Police College were pumped to offensive overflowing, but he had a background of thirty years' hard-won experience which took the intrusion of manicured theorists uneasily; and at the entrance of the small apartment building in which Sunny Jim Fasson had been located he said so.
"I want you to keep quiet and let me do the talking," was his instruction. "I know how I'm going to tackle Fasson, and I know how to get what I want out of him."
Pryke fingered his M.C.C. tie.
"Like you've always known how to get what you want out of the Saint?" he drawled.
Mr. Teal's lips were tightly compressed as he stumped up the narrow stairway. His seemingly interminable failure to get anything that he really wanted out of that cool smiling devil who passed so incongruously under the name of the Saint was a thorn in his side which Inspector Pryke had twisted dextrously before. Whenever Chief Inspector Teal attempted to impress the rising generation of detectives with his superior craftsmanship, that gibe could always be brought up against him, openly or surreptitiously; and Mr. Teal was getting so tired of it that it hurt. He wished, viciously, that some of the smart infants who were being pushed up under him could have as much to cope with as he had had in his time.
But Sunny Jim Fasson was quite a different problem from the blue-eyed bantering outlaw who had occupied so much of Mr. Teal's time in other days; and he felt a renewal of confidence when he saw Sunny Jim's startled face through the slit of the opening door and wedged his foot expertly in the aperture.
"Don't make a fuss, and nobody's going to hurt you, Sunny," he said.
Sunny Jim, like Johnny Anworth, was also a philosopher, in his way. He retreated into the tiny bed-sitting-room without dropping the ash from his cigar.
"What's it about this time, Mr. Teal?" he inquired, with the sang-froid of old experience.
He did not even bother to put on his cultivated American accent; which saved him considerable trouble, for he had been born in the Old Kent Road and had learnt all that he knew of America from the movies.
"It needn't be about some diamond bracelets that were stolen from Peabody's-unless you want it to be," said Teal, with equal cold-bloodedness.
Sunny Jim raised his eyebrows. The gesture was mechanical.
"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Teal."
"Would you know what I meant," replied the detective, with impregnable drowsiness, "if I told you that Peabody has identified your photograph and is quite sure he can identify you; and half the Magnificent Hotel staff are ready to back him up?"
Sunny Jim had no answer to that.
"Mind you," said Teal, carefully unwrapping a fresh slice of chewing gum, "I said that we needn't go into that unless you want to. If you had a little talk with me now, for instance- why, we could settle it all here in this room, and you needn't even come with us to the station. It'd be all over and forgotten -just between ourselves."
When Sunny Jim Fasson was not wearing the well-trained smile from which he had earned his nickname, his face fell into a system of hard-bitten lines which drew an illuminating picture of shrewd and sharp intelligence. Those lines be came visible now. So far as Sunny Jim was concerned, Teal's speech needed no amplification; and Sunny Jim was a man who believed in the comfort and security of Mr. James Fasson first, last, and in the middle. If Teal had arrived half an hour later he would have been on his way to Ostend, but as things were he recognised his best alternative health resort.
"I'm not too particular what I talk about with an old friend, Mr. Teal," he said at length.
"Do you sell your stuff to the High Fence, Sunny?"
Fasson held his cigar under his nose and sniffed the aroma.
"I believe I did hear of him once," he admitted cautiously.
The appearance of bored sleepiness in Chief Inspector Teal's eyes was always deceptive. In the last few seconds they had made a detailed inventory of the contents of the room, and had observed a torn strip of brown paper beside the waste-basket and a three-inch end of string on the carpet under the table.
"You've already got rid of Peabody's diamond bracelets, haven't you?" he said persuasively; and his somnolent eyes went back to Sunny Jim's face and did not shift from it. "All I want to know from you is what address you put on the parcel."
Sunny Jim put his cigar back in his mouth till the end glowed red.
"I did send off a parcel not long ago," he confessed reminiscently. "It was addressed to"
He never said who it was addressed to.
Mr. Teal heard the shot behind him, and saw Sunny Jim's hand jerk to his chest and his body jar with the shock of the bullet. The slam of the door followed, as Teal turned round to it in a blank stupor of incredulity. Pryke, who was nearest, had it open again when his superior reached it; and Teal barged after him in a kind of incandescent daze, out on to the landing. The sheer fantastic unexpectedness of what had happened had knocked his brain mo
mentarily out of the rhythm of conscious functioning, but he clattered down the stairs on Pryke's heels, and actually overtook him at the door which let them out on to the street.
And having got there, he stopped, with his brain starting work again, overwhelmed by the utter futility of what he was doing.
There was nothing sensational to be seen outside. The road presented the ordinary aspect of a minor thoroughfare in the Shepherd Market area at that time of day. There was an empty car parked on the other side of the road, a man walking by with a brief-bag, two women laden down with parcels puttering in the opposite direction, an errand-boy delivering goods from a tricycle. The commonplace affairs of the district were proceeding uninterrupted, the peace of the neighbourhood was unbroken by so much as a glimpse of any sinister figure with a smoking gun scooting off on the conventional getaway. Teal's dizzy gaze turned back to his subordinate. "Did you see him?" he rasped.
"Only his back," said Pryke helplessly. "But I haven't the faintest idea which way he went." Teal strode across to the errand-boy.
"Did you see a man come rushing out of that building just now?" he barked: and the lad looked at him blankly. "Wot sort of man, mister?"
"I don't know," said Teal, with a feeling that he was introducing himself as the most majestic lunatic in creation. "He'd have been running hell for leather-you must have noticed him"
The boy shook his head.
"I ain't seen nobody running abaht, not till you come aht yerself, mister. Wot's the matter-'as 'e pinched something?"
Mr. Teal did not enlighten him. Breathing heavily, he rejoined Junior Inspector Pryke.
"We'd better get back upstairs and see what's happened," he said shortly.
But he knew only too well what had happened. The murder of Johnny Anworth had been repeated, in a different guise, under his very nose-and that after he had pleaded so energetically for a chance to guard against it. He did not like to think what ecstatic sarabands of derision must have been dancing themselves silly under the smug exterior of Desmond Pryke. He clumped up the stairs and across the landing again in a dumb paroxysm of futile wrath, and went back into the flat.
14 The Saint Goes On Page 1
