“Just for once,” Teal said grimly, “let’s leave my stomach out of this.”
“By all means,” said the Saint generously. “And it’ll leave a lot of room. After all, how much more convex can a thing be than convex?”
Like a man struggling to hold down a paroxysm of seasickness, Chief Inspector Teal felt all the frustrated bitterness of the old days welling up in him again, all the hideous futility of a score of humiliations brought on by his dutiful efforts to put that impudent Robin Hood behind the bars where every law said that he belonged; and enriching it was the gall of a hundred interviews such as this, in each one of which he had not only been thwarted but made farcically ridiculous. He never could understand how it happened, it was as if the Saint could actually put some kind of Indian sign on him, but it was a black magic that never failed. Normally a man of no small presence and dignity, impressive to his subordinates and respected even by the underworld, Mr Teal could be reduced by a few minutes of the Saint’s peculiar brand of baiting to the borders of screaming imbecility.
But now he would not, he must not, let it happen again…
“Yes, I’m retiring,” he said doggedly. “Next week. And since you’ve been away this long, you could have stayed away just a few days longer.”
“But I had to be in on your last performance, Claud. And as soon as you heard I was on this passenger list, bless your old fallen arches, you hurried out here to welcome me and—”
“And tell you, whatever you’re thinking of doing here, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll put if off for at least a week!”
The speech, which had a certain breathlessness built right into it, ended on something like a yelp. Teal had not meant it to. He had meant to speak firmly and masterfully, but somehow it had not come out like that.
“You yelped,” said the Saint.
“I did not!” Teal stopped, and cleared his throat with a violence that almost choked him. “I’m just warning you to behave yourself, and we’ll let bygones be bygones. Is that clear?”
“Of course,” said the Saint earnestly. “In fact, just to prove how forgiving I am, I’m only here to make sure that your career ends in a blaze of glory. I’m going to make sure that you solve your last case—even if I have to do it for you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Why, is it going that well?”
“Quite satisfactorily, thank you.”
“You’ve got the goods on him already?”
“It isn’t my business to get the goods on anyone,” Teal said ponderously. “Just the evidence, if there has been a crime.”
“But you’re reasonably sure the guy is guilty?”
“I think so. But proving it is another matter. These Bluebeards are pretty tricky to…But what the devil,” Teal blared suddenly, “do you know about the case?”
“Nothing,” said the Saint blandly. “Except what you’re telling me.”
The detective glared at him suspiciously.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You pain me, Claud. Do you think I’m a liar?”
“I’ve known it for twenty years,” Teal said hotly. “And let me tell you something else. You’re not coming back and getting away with any more of your private acts of what you call justice. If anything happens to Clarron, I’ll know damn well who—”
“Clarron?”
“Or Smith, or Jones, or Tom, or Dick, or Harry!” shouted Teal, and knew just how lame a recovery it was.
Simon lighted a cigarette.
“Clarron,” he murmured. “Well, well. Where is he living right now?”
“I suppose you want me to believe you don’t know that too.”
“Once again,” said the Saint reproachfully, “a more sensitive soul might take offense at your delicate insinuations that I fib.”
Mr Teal made a last frantic clutch at a self-possession which had already assumed some of the qualities of a buttered eel.
“Just let me tell you,” he said in a labored voice, “that if I catch you going anywhere near Maidenhead—”
“Maidenhead?” mused the Saint. “A charming spot. I’ve been wanting to see it again for years. And somebody told me only the other day that an old pal of mine is now running the famous pub there on the river. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the first places I was planning to visit. I might even drive straight out there, and skip London entirely.”
“If you do,” yammered Teal apoplectically, “I’ll—”
His voice strangled incoherently as the Saint’s mocking brows lifted over clear cerulean eyes.
“What will you do, Claud? It’s still a free country, isn’t it? Maidenhead hasn’t been made a Forbidden City. Hundreds of tourists go there without being arrested. I don’t see why you should pick on me…I don’t even see why you should keep me here any longer, if you feel so unfriendly. So may I get my bag from the Customs and breeze along?” The Saint hitched himself lazily off the corner of the desk where he had rested one hip for a while. “But if you do think of some crime to charge me with, I hope you’ll run down and make the pinch yourself. It’ll give the natives a laugh. You’ll find me at Skindle’s.”
2
“You must forgive the wop kind of welcome,” Giulio Trapani said, releasing Simon from an uninhibited bear-hug. “But it is so good to see you again!”
“It’s good to see you,” said the Saint. “And as a contrast with the Scotland Yard treatment I got at the airport, I wouldn’t care if you kissed me.”
He sat at the bar, and Trapani went behind it and brushed the bartender aside.
“I mix it myself,” he said ebulliently. “Whatever you’d like.”
“At this hour, just a pint from the barrel—warm, flat, nourishing, and British. I was thinking about it all the way over on the plane. It may be an acquired taste, but it’s still the only beer in the world that tastes like a meal.”
“It still isn’t the same as before the war,” Trapani said, setting a tankard before him. “But this is the best you can get.”
“Nothing is ever the same, after enough years,” said the Saint.
He drank deeply and contentedly. The brew still tasted good, without its forebears near enough for easy comparison.
“You’ve made a change too,” he said. “This is a lot more pub than the old Bell at Hurley.”
“Skindle’s, Mr Templar, is a hotel.”
“A good hotel should also be a good pub.”
“I try to make it a good pub too—with trimmings.”
Simon nodded, and glanced out for a moment over the river. It was still early in the season, but it was one of those warm sunny days of almost unbelievable balminess which the climate of Britain can produce as capriciously as it will inevitably snatch them back under a mantle of rain, cold, or fog; and on that pleasant reach of the Thames the skins and punts were moving up and down, drifting with their own portable radio or phonograph music or propelled by vigorous and slightly exhibitionistic young males with girls in bathing suits or print dresses reclining on gay cushions as luxuriously as any Cleopatra on the Nile, exactly as they had done when he was last there; and he thought that some things like that might survive all changes.
A girl came in from the riverside, in shorts, giving away legs that men would have spent money to see across a row of footlights, with dark rumpled hair and the face of a thoughtful pixie; and the Saint turned away again with some reluctance.
“And you,” Trapani was saying eagerly. “How is everything? You didn’t really have any trouble, of course?”
“Not really.”
“And you’re going to relax here and have a good time. I’m so glad that you heard about me and came here. Is there anything you want, anything I can do? You only have to ask me.”
Simon put down his tankard and looked up from it speculatively.
“Well, Giulio, since you mention it—would you happen to know anyone living around here by the name of Clarron?”
“Why, yes. Mr Re
ginald Clarron. I think his house is on the river, quite near here. I don’t know him personally, but I’ve heard of him.”
Trapani flashed a quick look around the bar. It might have been nothing but the automatic vigilance of a professional host, but Simon noticed it. There were not many customers just then—the girl with the legs who had just come in, who was being served a Martini, two young men in flannels who were drinking Pimm’s Cups, a thin elderly man in a dark suit with the anxious air of a traveling salesman, and a stout middle-aged woman in a respectable high-necked long-sleeved black dress, with a cupola of carroty hair capped with a pie-dish straw hat trimmed with some kind of artificial fruit salad, who was sipping a glass of port in the corner. She looked, Simon thought, like the prototype of every comic housekeeper he had ever seen in vaudeville.
“What sort of a guy is he?” Simon asked.
“A very distinguished-looking gentleman. Very charming, I’ve heard. But he doesn’t go out much. His wife is an invalid. She had a terrible accident a few months ago. But if you know them, I expect you heard about it.”
“Just how did it happen?” Simon evaded innocently.
“They were out shooting together. He put down his gun to help her over a fence, and it went off and shot her. His own gun. They saved her life, but her spine was permanently injured. Of course, he can never forget it. He spends all his time with her.” Trapani had lowered his voice discreetly, and his glance flicked away again for a moment. He leaned over and explained in an undertone, “That woman in the corner is their housekeeper.”
Her ears must have been abnormally sharp, or perhaps it was not too hard to interpret the furtive glance and the lowered voice, but the woman allowed no doubt that she had taken in the whole conversation.
“Indade I am,” she called out in a rich cheerful brogue.
“And a sweeter master an’ mistress I niver worked for. Jist as devoted as if they were on their honeymoon, an’ her so patient an’ forgiving, an’ himself eatin’ his heart out, poor man, with an awful thing like that on his conscience. Begorra, if anyone says a word aginst him, they’ll be answerin’ for it to me.”
“I’ve never heard one, Mrs Jafferty,” Trapani assured her hastily.
“Sure an’ it’d bring tears to the eyes of a potato to see them together, with himself waitin’ on her hand an’ foot, readin’ to her or playin’ cards with her or whativer she has a mind for, an’ bringin’ flowers from the garden ivery day.”
She squeezed herself cumbrously out from behind the little table, picked up a market bag that bulged as bountifully as her figure, and waddled across towards the Saint.
“An’ why would you be askin’ about them, sorr—if I may be so bold?”
“A friend of mine said I should look them up, if I happened to be around here,” Simon answered.
He had to think quickly, for this was a little sooner than he had expected to need a ready answer. And her eyes were very sharp and inquisitive.
“I’m on me way home now, sorr, with a bite for their dinner. If you’d be tellin’ me the name, I could tell them what to look forward to.”
“This was a friend of Mr Clarron’s former wife. He mightn’t even remember her. A Mrs Brown.”
“From America, maybe? Mr Clarron’s late wife was an American lady, they tell me.”
“Yes,” said the Saint gratefully. “From New York.”
“And your name, sorr, in case you should be callin’?”
“This is Mr Templar, Mrs Jafferty,” Trapani said.
Simon gazed at him gloomily.
“I’ll tell him you were askin’,” Mrs Jafferty said. “And good day to ye, gentleman.”
She hitched up her bag of groceries and bustled busily out.
“I’m sorry.” Trapani said. “Did I do wrong? You hadn’t told me you wanted to be incognito.”
“Forget it,” said the Saint. “I hadn’t had a chance to. It’s not your fault.”
He emptied his mug and put it down, and Trapani picked it up.
“Another? Or do you feel like some lunch?”
“Mr Templar is having lunch with me,” said the girl with the legs. Simon Templar blinked. He turned, with a cigarette between his lips and his lighter halted in mid-air. Finally, he managed to light it.
“If you say so,” he murmured. “And if Giulio will excuse me.”
“I excuse you and congratulate you,” Trapani beamed.
The girl drained her cocktail and came over, putting out her hand as the Saint stood up.
“I’m Adrienne Halberd,” she said.
“I’d never have recognized you.”
She laughed.
“That may take some explaining. But do you mind if I rush you off? I’m expecting a phone call at home, and I’ve got to get back for it.”
“I’ll see you later,” Simon told Trapani.
She was on her way to the other door, and he followed her.
“I walked over,” she said as they came out in front of the hotel. “But I expect you’ve got a car.”
“That rented job over there.”
They got in, and she said, pointing, “That way, to the right, and I’ll tell you where to turn.”
Simon spun the wheel and relaxed, letting cigarette smoke float from mildly amused lips.
“And now that we’re alone,” he said calmly, “may I ask any questions? Or do we go on playing blindfold chess?”
“All of a sudden? You didn’t argue when I practically kidnapped you.”
“I never argue with legs like yours, darling. But sometimes I ask questions.”
“You are the Saint, aren’t you?”
“True. But my mind-reading gifts have been slightly exaggerated.”
“You were asking about Reggie Clarron.”
“Which should prove that I didn’t know much about him.”
“You knew he’d been married before.”
“An inspired guess. A fat friend of mine happened to tag the name ‘Bluebeard’ on him, rather carelessly, just a few hours ago. Bluebeards, if you remember, don’t get much of a rating with only one wife. It was worth taking a chance on.”
“All right,” she said. “I took a chance on you. He’s only had two so far, I think, but you might help to nail him before he finally manages to kill the third. Not to mention saving the prospective fourth.”
The Saint raised his eyebrows.
“He has one picked out already?”
“Me,” said the girl.
3
The dining alcove was one corner of the living room of her cottage, sharing the row of gaily curtained windows that looked out over the green lawn that sloped down to the river bank. They sat there over some excellent cold roast beef and salad and mustard pickles, and the Saint sipped a tall glass of Guinness.
“He isn’t a mystery man at all,” Adrienne Halberd said. “That’s what makes it so difficult.”
“One of those open-book boys?” said the Saint.
“Absolutely. He went to a good school, where he didn’t get into any particular trouble. Then he became an actor. He never made any hit, but he managed to make a living. He didn’t care much what he did as long as it was something theatrical. He got married the first time when he was twenty-five. He and his wife were both in the chorus of some revue. Later on they joined up with one of those troupes that used to play on the piers at the seaside in the summer. He was about thirty when she got drowned in a boating accident.”
“Why did he wait that long?”
“It wasn’t so long after she’d inherited some money from an uncle in Australia, and right on top of that they’d taken out mutual insurance policies.”
“So then he became a capitalist.”
“He still wasn’t so awfully rich, but he moved up a notch. He helped to produce some shows in London, which were mostly flops. But he always got other people to invest with him, so his own money lasted longer than you’d think. He was getting a bit short, though, when he married his second wife
.”
“The American?”
“Yes. That was after the war, when the tourists started coming over again. He married her, and they went to America together—after taking out insurance policies for each other. Six months later she was electrocuted. She was lying in the bath listening to a small radio, apparently, and it fell in.”
“Just doing his bit to improve Britain’s dollar balance,” Simon remarked.
“Then it was the same story all over again—a night club, plays, a film company that never produced anything, and some other business schemes. Never anything crooked that you could put your finger on, except that his partners somehow always lost more money than he did. And about a year ago he married the present Mrs Clarron.”
“He sounds like a real cagey operator. At least, until that shooting accident misfired—if we should use the expression.”
She nodded.
“That was when the Southshire Insurance Company got very interested, as I told you. Being stuck three times in a row was a bit too much. Of course it could all be coincidence, but it had to be looked into.”
Simon regarded her appreciatively.
“They’re not so stupid. I’d have taken a long time to spot you as a detective.”
“It’s a new discovery,” she said spiritedly. “They found out that investigators could do a lot more if they didn’t look like investigators, and somebody told them that a woman with brains isn’t obliged to look like a hippopotamus.”
He grinned.
“I must tell Teal that the same could apply to policemen,” he said.
“What does he think about you butting in—or doesn’t he know?”
“Oh, he knows all right, and he disapproves strongly. But there’s nothing he can do about it. I told him that the insurance company stood to lose ten thousand pounds if Clarron managed to get away with killing another wife, and they couldn’t afford to bet that much on Scotland Yard being smart enough to stop him.”
The Saint Around the World (The Saint Series) Page 6
