He paid off his taxi at the corner of Duchess Place and walked up towards number six. It was one of a row of those dingy unimaginative brick houses, with rusty iron railings and shabbily painted windows, which would be instantly ranked as cheap tenement cottages by any stranger who had not heard of the magic properties of the word “Mayfair.” Simon went up the steps and rang the tarnished brass bell without hesitation—he hadn’t the faintest notion how he would continue when the door was opened, if it was opened, but he had gone into and emerged from a great deal of trouble with the same blithe willingness to let circumstances provide for him.
The door opened in a few moments, and circumstances proceeded to provide for him so completely and surprisingly that he was ready for some unpleasantness.
The man who looked out of the door was rather small and wiry, with thin grey hair and a sallow bird-like Cockney face on which the reddish tint of his nose stood out so unexpectedly that it looked at first sight like one of those ageless carnival novelties which give so much harmless pleasure to adult infants engaged in the laborious business of having a good time. With his threadbare and baggy trousers, and his pink shirt fastened together with a stud at the neck but virginally innocent of collar or tie, he looked like the very last sort of man who ought to be answering a doorbell in that expensive slum.
“I want to see Mr Ellshaw,” said the Saint, with sublime directness, and knew at once that he was talking to the man he wanted.
His first surprise was when this was admitted.
“I’m Ellshaw,” said the man at once. “You’re Mr Templar, ain’t yer?”
The Saint drew at his cigarette with a certain added thoughtfulness. He never forgot a face, and he was sure that this little bird with the carmine beak could not have slipped out of his mind very easily if their paths had ever crossed before. But he acknowledged the identification with outwardly unaltered amiability.
“How did you know that, Archibald?”
“I was just comin’ round to see yer, guv’nor.” The little man opened the door wider, and stepped back invitingly. “Would yer like ter step inside fer a minute?—I’ve got somefink to tell yer.”
The Saint stepped inside. He put his hands in his pockets as he crossed the threshold, and one of them rested on the butt of his gun.
Ellshaw led him through the uncarpeted hall to the nearest door, which brought them into the front ground-floor room. There was hardly any furniture in it—a piece of cheap hair carpet, a painted deal table carrying a bottle and glasses and the scars of cigarette-ends, and a couple of ancient arm-chairs with soiled chintz covers would have formed a practically complete inventory. There were grimy lace curtains nailed up on the windows at the street end, and a door communicating with the back room at the other. From the oak parquet floor, the tinted ceiling and tasteful electric-light fittings, it was obvious that the room had once been lived in by someone of a definite class, but everything in it at that moment spoke loudly of the shoddiest stock of the second-hand sale-room.
“Sit down, guv’nor,” said Ellshaw, moving over to the chair nearer the window and leaving Simon no choice about the other. “’Ow abaht a drink?”
“No, thanks,” said the Saint, with a faint smile. “What is it you were so anxious to tell me?”
Ellshaw settled himself in his chair and lighted a drooping fag.
“Well, guv’nor, it’s abaht me ole woman. I left ’er a year ago. Between you an’ I, she ’ad a lot of bad points, not that I want to speak evil of the dead—oh, yes, I know ’ow she committed suicide,” he said, answering the slight lift of the Saint’s eyebrows. “I sore it in the pypers this mornin’. But she ’ad ’er faults. She couldn’t never keep ’er mouf shut. Wot could I do? The rozzers was lookin’ for me on account of some bloke that ’ad a grudge against me an’ tried ter frame me up, an’ I knew if she’d knowed where I’d gorn she couldn’t ’ave ’elped blabbin’ it all over the plyce.”
Simon was beginning to understand that he was listening to a speech in which the little Cockney had been carefully rehearsed—there was an artificial fluency about the way the sentences rattled off the other’s tongue which gave him his first subtle warning. But he lay back in his chair and crossed his legs without any sign of the urgent questions that were racing through his mind.
“What was the matter?” he asked.
“Well, guv’nor, between you an’ I, seein’ as you understands these things, I used ter do a bit of work on the rice trains. Nothink dishonest, see—just a little gamble wiv the cards sometimes. Well, one dye a toff got narsty an’ said I was cheatin’, an’ we ’ad a sort of mix-up, and my pal wot I was workin’ wiv, ’e gets up an’ slugs this toff wiv a cosh an’ kills ’im. It wasn’t my fault, but the flatties think I done it, an’ they want me for murder.”
“That’s interesting,” said the Saint gently. “I was talking to Chief Inspector Teal only a little while ago about you, and he didn’t tell me you were wanted.”
Ellshaw was only disconcerted for a moment.
“I don’t spect ’e would’ve told yer, knowin’ wot you are, guv’nor—if you’ll ixcuse me syin’ so. But that’s Gawd’s troof as sure as I’m sittin’ ’ere, an’ I wanted to come an’ see yer—”
Simon was watching his eyes, and saw them wavering to some point behind his shoulder. He saw Ellshaw’s face twitch into a sudden tension, and remembered the communicating door behind him in the same instant. With a lightning command of perfectly supple muscles he threw himself sideways over the arm of the chair, and felt something swish past his head and thud solidly into the upholstery, beating out a puff of grey dust.
In a flash he was on his feet again, in time to see the back of a man ducking through the door. His gun was out in his hand, and his brain was weighing out pros and cons with cool deliberation even while his finger tightened on the trigger. The cons had it—it was no use shooting unless he aimed to hit his target, and at that embryonic stage of the developments a hospital capture would be more of a liability than an asset. He dropped the automatic back in his pocket and jumped for the door empty-handed. It slammed in his face as he reached it, and a bottle wildly thrown from behind smashed itself on the wall a foot from his head. Calmly ignoring the latter interruption, Simon stepped back and put his heel on the lock with his weight behind it. The door, which had never been built to withstand that kind of treatment, surrendered unconditionally, and he went through into a chamber barely furnished as a bedroom. There was nobody under the bed or in the wardrobe, but there was another door at the side, and this also was locked. Simon treated it exactly as he had treated the first, and found himself back in the hall—just at the moment when the front door banged.
Ellshaw himself had vanished from the front room when he reached it, and the Saint leaned against the wreckage of the communicating door and lighted a fresh cigarette with a slow philosophical grin for his own ridiculous easiness.
As soon as they learned that the bomb had failed to take effect, of course, they were expecting him to follow up the clue which Mrs Ellshaw must have given him. Probably she had been followed from Duchess Place the previous morning, and it would not have been difficult for them to find out whom she went to see. The rest was inevitable, and the only puzzle in his mind was why the attempt had not been made to do something more conclusive than stunning him with a rubber truncheon while he sat in that chair with his back to the door.
But who were “they”? He searched the house from attic to basement in the hope of finding an answer, but he went through nothing more enlightening than a succession of empty rooms. Inquiries about the property at neighbouring estate agents might lead on to a clue, but there was none on the premises. The two ground-floor rooms were the only ones furnished—apparently Ellshaw had been living there for some time, but there was no evidence to show whether this was with or without the consent and knowledge of the landlord.
Simon went out into the street rather circumspectly, but no second attack was made on him. He wa
lked back to Cornwall House to let Patricia Holm know what was happening, and found a message waiting for him.
“Claud Eustace Teal rang up—he wants you to get in touch with him at once,” she said, and gazed at him accusingly. “Are you in trouble again, old idiot?”
He ruffled her fair hair.
“After a fashion I am, darling,” he confessed. “But it isn’t with Claud—not yet. What the racket is I don’t know, but they’ve tried to get me twice in the last twelve hours, which is good going.”
“Who are they?”
“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself all day. They’re just ‘person or persons unknown’ at present, but I feel that we shall get to know each other better before long. And that ought to be amusing. Let’s see what Claud Eustace is worrying about.”
He picked up the telephone and dialled Scotland Yard. Instructions must have been left with the switchboard operator, for he had scarcely given his name when he heard Teal’s sleepy voice.
“Were you serious about getting a bomb last night, Templar?”
“Mr Templar to you, Claud,” said the Saint genially. “All the same, I was serious.”
“Can you describe the bomb again?”
“It was built into a small fibre attaché-case—I didn’t take it apart to inspect the works, but it was built to fire electrically when the door was opened.”
“You haven’t got it there, I suppose?”
Simon smiled.
“Sure—I wouldn’t feel comfortable without it. I keep it on the stove and practise tap-dancing on it. Where’s your imagination?”
Teal did not answer at once.
“A bomb that sounds like exactly the same thing was found in Lord Ripwell’s house at Shepperton today,” he said at last. “I’d like to come round and see you, if you can wait a few minutes for me.”
3
The detective arrived in less than a quarter of an hour, but not before Simon had sent out for a packet of spearmint for him. Teal glanced at the pink oblong of waxed paper sitting up sedately in the middle of the table, and reached out for it with a perfectly straight face.
“Ripwell—isn’t he the shipping millionaire?” said the Saint.
Teal nodded.
“It’s very nearly a miracle that he isn’t ‘the late’ shipping millionaire,” he said.
Simon lighted a cigarette.
“Did you come here to tell me about it or to ask me questions?”
“You might as well know what happened,” said the detective, unwrapping a wafer of his only vice with slothful care. “Ripwell intended to go down to his river house this evening for a long week-end, but during the morning he found that he wanted a reference book which he had left down there on his last visit. He sent his chauffeur down for it, but when the man got there he found that he’d forgotten to take the key. Rather than go back, he managed to get in through a window, and when he came to let himself out again he found the bomb. It was fixed just inside the front door, and would have been bound to get the first person who opened it, which would probably have been Ripwell himself—apparently he doesn’t care much about servants when he uses the cottage. That’s about all there is to tell you, except that the description I have of the bomb from the local constabulary sounded very much like the one you spoke of to me, and there may be some reason to think that they were both planted by the same person.”
“And even on the same day,” said the Saint.
“That’s quite possible. Ripwell’s secretary went down to the house the day before for some papers, and everything was quite in order then.”
The Saint blew three perfect smoke-rings and let them drift up to the ceiling.
“It all sounds very exciting,” he murmured.
“It sounds as if you may have been right about Mrs Ellshaw, if all you told me was true,” said Teal grimly. “By the way, where was it she saw her husband?”
Simon laughed softly.
“Claud, that ‘by the way’ of yours is almost a classic. But I wouldn’t dream of keeping a secret from you. She saw him at number six, Duchess Place, just round a couple of corners from here. I know he was there, because I saw him myself a little while ago. But you won’t find him if you go round now.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s pulled his freight—he and another guy who tried to blip me over the head.”
Teal chewed out his gum into a preoccupied assortment of patterns, gazing at him stolidly.
“Is that all you mean to tell me?”
Simon cocked an abstracted eyebrow at him.
“Meaning?”
“If an attempt was made to murder you, there must be a reason for it. You may have made yourself dangerous to this man, or this gang, in some way, and they want to get rid of you. Why not let us give you a hand for once?”
Pride would not let Mr Teal say any more, but Simon saw the blunt sincerity in the globular pink face, and knew that the detective was not merely putting on a routine blarney.
“Are you getting sentimental in your old age, Claud?” he protested, in a strain of mockery that was kinder than usual.
“I’m only doing my job.” Teal made the admission grudgingly, as if he was afraid of betraying an official secret. “I know you sometimes get on to things before we hear of them, and I thought you might like to work in with us for a change.”
Simon looked at him soberly. He understood the implications of everything that Teal had left unsaid, the unmentioned vials of acid comment which must have been decanted on that round lethargic head as a result of their last contest, and he sympathized. There had never been any malice behind the ebullitions of Teal-baiting which enlivened so many chapters of his scapegrace career.
He hooked one leg over the arm of his chair.
“I’d like to help you—if you helped me,” he said seriously “But I’ve damned little to offer.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then ran briefly over the events which had made up the entertainment in Duchess Place.
“I don’t suppose that’s much more use to you than it is to me,” he ended up. “My part of it hangs together, but I don’t know what it hangs on. Mrs Ellshaw was killed because she’d seen her husband, and I was offered the pineapple because I knew she’d seen him. The only thing I don’t quite understand is why they didn’t try to kill me when they had me in Duchess Place, but maybe they didn’t want to hurry it. Anyway, one gathers that Ellshaw is a kind of unhealthy guy to see—I wonder if Ripwell saw him?”
“I haven’t seen Ripwell myself yet,” said Teal. “He’s gone down to Shepperton to look at things for himself, and I shall have to go down tonight and have a talk with him. But I thought I’d better see you first.”
The Saint fixed him with clear and speculative blue eyes for a few seconds, and then he drawled, “I could run you down in the car.”
Somehow or other, that was what happened; Mr Teal was never quite sure why. He assured himself that he had never contemplated such a possibility when he set out to interview the Saint. In any case on which he was engaged, he insisted to this sympathetic internal Yes-man, the last thing he wanted was to have Simon Templar messing about and getting in his way. He winced to think of the remarks the Assistant Commissioner would make if he knew about it. He told himself that his only reason for accepting the Saint’s offer was to have both his witnesses at hand for an easier comparison of clues, and he allowed himself to be hurled down to Shepperton in the Saint’s hundred-mile-an-hour road menace with his qualms considerably soothed by the adequacy of this ingenious excuse.
They found his lordship pottering unconcernedly in his garden—a tall spare vigorous man with white hair and a white moustache. He had an unassuming manner and a friendly smile that were leagues apart from the conventional idea of a big business man.
“Chief Inspector Teal? I’m pleased to meet you. About that bomb, I suppose—a ridiculous affair. Some poor devil as mad as a hatter about capitalists or something, I expec
t. Well, it didn’t do me any harm. Is this your assistant?”
His pleasant grey eyes were glancing over the Saint; Teal performed the necessary introduction with some trepidation.
“This is Mr Templar, your lordship. I only brought him with me because—”
“Templar?” The grey eyes twinkled. “Not the great Simon Templar, surely?”
“Yes, sir,” said Teal uncomfortably. “This is the Saint. But—”
He stopped, with his mouth open and his eyes starting to protrude, blinking speechlessly at one of the most astounding spectacles of his life. Lord Ripwell had got hold of the Saint’s hand, and was pumping it up and down and beaming all over his face with spontaneous warmth that was quite different from the cheerful courtesy with which he had greeted Mr Teal himself.
“The Saint? Bless my soul! What a coincidence! I think I’ve read about everything you’ve ever done, but I never thought I should meet you. So you really do exist. That’s splendid. My dear fellow—”
Mr Teal cleared his throat hoarsely.
“I was trying to explain to your lordship that—”
“Remember the way you put it over on Rayt Marius twice running?” chortled his lordship, continuing to pump the Saint’s hand. “I think that was about the best thing you’ve ever done. And the way you got Hugo Campard, with that South American revolution? I never had any use for that man—knew him too well myself.”
“I brought him down,” said Mr Teal, somewhat hysterically, “because he had the same—”
“And the way you blew up Francis Lemuel?” burbled Lord Ripwell. “Now, that was a really good job of bombing. You’ll have to let me into the secret of how you did that before you leave here. I say, I’ll bet Chief Inspector Teal would like to know. Wouldn’t he? You must have led him a beautiful dance.”
The Saint Goes On (The Saint Series) Page 11
