12 The Saint in London (The Misfortunes of Mr Teal)

by Leslie Charteris

  Nassen was listening, too. And suddenly the Saint realized that the chance he had never looked for, the chance he had never thought of, had been given him. Nassen's attention was distracted--he, too, had been momentarily fascinated by the imaginary picture that could be deduced from the sequence of sounds. But he recovered less quickly than the Saint. And Simon's fist had already been clenched for a desperate blow when the interruption came.

  The Saint launched it. Snowdrop, the Rose of Peckham, was never very clear in his mind about what happened. He was not by nature addicted to physical violence of the cruder sort; and no experience of that kind had ever come his way before to give him a standard of comparison. He saw a bony fist a few inches from his face, travelling towards him with appalling speed; and his mouth opened. The fist shut it again for him, impacting on the point of his chin with a crack that seemed to jar his brain against the roof of his skull. And beyond that there was nothing but a great darkness filled with the hum of many dynamos. . . .

  Simon caught him by the coat lapels and eased him silently to the floor, gathering up the automatic as he did so. As he did so, the door burst open and the rounded rabbit features of Mr. Neville Yorkland looked into the room.

  "Hullo," he stuttered. "What's happened? Got Lord Iveldown's message. Said he'd caught our man." His weak blinking eyes travelled all over the room and came to rest on the prostrate form of the slumbering Nassen. He pursed his lips. "Oh. I see. Is this------"

  The Saint straightened up; and a slow godless gleam came into his blue gaze.

  "That's the guy," he said, in the accents of Pete the Blood. "Hoppy an' me was just waitin' to see ya before we scram. We gotta get on to London-- Lord Iveldown wants us there!"

  IX

  PATRICIA Holm was waiting for the Saint when the telephone bell rang to announce the penultimate round of that adventure.

  "It's that detective again, miss," said Sam Outrell hoarsely. "Mr. Teal. An' he's got another detective with him. They wouldn't wait for me to ask if they could go up."

  The girl's heart missed a beat; and then she answered quite quietly:

  "All right, Sam. Thanks. Tell Mr. Templar as soon as you see him--if they haven't gone before he comes in."

  She put down the receiver and picked up the cigarette which she had been about to light. She looked about the room while she put a match to it --her hand was steady, but her breath was coming a little faster. She had walked with Simon Templar in the ways of lawlessness too long to be flung into panic; but she knew that she was on trial. The Saint had not come back, and he had sent no message: his habits had always been too erratic for a thing like that to frighten her, but this time she was left to hold the fort alone, with no idea of what he had done or was doing or what his plans might be. The only thing she could be sure of was that Chief Inspector Teal had not! arrived for the second time that day, bringing another detective with him, on a purely social call. The book, Her Wedding Secret, lay on the table. Patricia picked it up. She had to think--to think quickly and calmly, building up deduction and prophecy and action, as the Saint himself would have done. Simon had left the book there. He had not troubled to move it when Hassen came. But Teal--Teal and another man. . . 1 The bell of the apartment rang while she was still trying to reach a conclusion. There was an open bookcase beside the fireplace, and with a sudden tightening of her lips she thrust the book in among the row of novels on the bottom shelf. She had no time to do anything more; but she was desperately conscious of the inadequacy of what she had done.

  Chief Inspector Teal did not know it. He looked across the threshold with affectedly weary eyes at the slim startling beauty of the girl who even to his phlegmatic unimpressionable mind was more like a legendary princess than any other woman he had ever seen, who for reasons not utterly beyond his understanding had chosen to give up the whole world that she might have queened to become the companion in outlawry of a prince of buccaneers; and he saw in her blue eyes, so amazingly like the Saint's own, the same light of flickering steel with which Simon Templar had greeted him so many times.

  "Good-evening, Miss Holm," he said sleepily. "I think you know me; and this is Sergeant Barrow. We have a warrant to search this apartment."

  He held out the paper; and she glanced at it and handed it back.

  "Mr. Templar isn't in," she said coolly. "Hadn't you better call back later?"

  "I don't think so," said Mr. Teal and walked past her into the hall.

  She closed the door and followed the two detectives into the living room. Mr. Teal took off his bowler hat and put it on the table--it was the only concession he made to her presence.

  "We may as well start here," he said to Barrow. "Go over the usual places first."

  "Would you like to borrow the vacuum cleaner," inquired Patricia sweetly, "or will you just use your heads?"

  "We'll manage," said Teal dourly.

  He was more keyed up than he would have cared to admit. The assistant commissioner's parting speech still rang in his ears; the resentment of many other similar interviews rang carillons through his brain. He was a man of whom Fate had demanded many martyrdoms. In doing his duty he had to expose himself to the stinging shafts of Saintly irreverence; and afterwards he had to listen to the acidulated comments of the assistant commissioner; and there were days when he wondered whether it was worth it. Sometimes he wished that he had never been a policeman.

  Patricia stood around and watched the progress of the search with a triphammer working under her ribs and a sinking sensation in her stomach. And in a frightful hopeless way she realized that it was not going to fail. It was not a hurried haphazard ransacking of drawers and cupboards such as Nassen and his colleague had conducted. It was thorough, systematic, scientific, ordered along the rigid lines of a training that had reduced hiding places to a tabulated catalogue. It would not glance at the cover of a book and pass on. . . . She knew that even before Barrow came to the] bookcase and began to pull out the books one byj one, opening them and flicking over the pages] without looking at the titles. . . .

  What would the Saint have done?

  Patricia didn't know. Her face was calm, almost unnaturally calm; but the triphammer under her ribs was driving her into the clutches of a maddening helplessness that had to be fought off with all her willpower. There was an automatic in the bedroom: if she could only put over some excuse to reach it ... But the Saint would never have done that. Teal had his warrant. He was within his rights. Violence of any kind would achieve nothing--nothing except to aggravate the crash when it came.

  Barrow had reached the second row of books. He was halfway through it. He had finished it. The first two shelves were stripped, and the books were heaped up untidily on the floor. He was going on to the third.

  What would the Saint have done?

  If only he could arrive! If only the door would open, and she could see him again, smiling and unaccountable and debonair, grasping the situa-tion with one sweep of lazy blue eyes and finding the riposte at once! It would be something wild and unexpected, something swift and dancing like sunlight on open water, that would turn every-thing upside down in a flash and leave him mocking in command with his forefinger driving gaily and unanswerably into Teal's swelling waistcoat; she knew that, but she could not think what it would be. She only knew that he had never been at a loss--that somehow, madly magnificently, he could always retrieve the lost battle and snatch victory from under the very scythe of defeat.

  Barrow was down to the third shelf.

  On the table were the bottle of beer and the glass which she had set out ready for him--the glass over which the Saint's eyes should have been twinkling while he harried the two detectives with his remorseless wit. Her hands went out and took up the bottle and the opener, as she would have done for the Saint if he had walked in.

  "Would you care for a drink?" she asked huskily.

  "No, thank you, Miss Holm," said Teal politely, without looking at her.

  She had the opener fitted on the
crown cap. The bottle opened with a soft hiss before she fully realized that she had done it. She tried to picture the Saint standing on the other side of the table-- to make herself play the scene as he would have played it.

  "Excuse me if I have one," she said.

  The full glass was in her hand. She sipped it. She had never cared for beer, and involuntarily she grimaced. . . .

  Teal heard a gasp and a crash behind him and whirled round. He saw the glass in splinters on the table, the beer flowing across the top and pattering down onto the carpet, the girl clutching her throat and swaying where she stood, with wide horrified eyes.

  "What's the matter?" he snapped.

  She shook her head and swallowed painfully before she spoke.

  "It . . . burns," she got out in a whisper. "Inside. . . . Must have been something in it. ... Meant for . . . Simon. . . ."

  Then her knees crumpled and she went down.

  Teal went to her with surprising speed. She was writhing horribly, and her breath hissed sobbingly through her clenched teeth. She tried to speak again, but she could not form the words.

  Teal picked her up and laid her on the chesterfield.

  "Get on the phone," he snarled at Barrow with unnatural harshness. "Don't stand there gaping. Get an ambulance."

  He looked about him awkwardly. Water--that was the first thing. Dilute the poison--whatever it was. With a sudden setting of his lips he lumbered out of the room.

  Patricia saw him go.

  Sergeant Barrow was at the telephone, his back towards her. And the bookcase was within a yard of her. Writhing as she was, the sound of one movement more or less would not be noticed. There was no need for stealth--only for speed.

  She rolled over and snatched Her Wedding Secret from its place in the bottom shelf. Barrow had been too practical--too methodical. He had not looked at titles. With a swift movement she lifted the first three volumes of one of the inspected piles which he had stacked on the floor, and thrust the book underneath. . . .

  "Thank you," said Teal's drowsy voice.

  He was standing in the doorway with a grim gleam of triumph in his eyes; and he had not even got a glass of water in his hand. She realized that he had never gone for one. He had thought too fast.

  Barrow was gaping at him stupidly.

  "You can cancel that call," said Teal shortly.

  Patricia sat up and watched him cross the room and pick the book out of the pile. The trip hammer under her ribs had stopped work abruptly; and she knew the fatalistic quiet of ultimate defeat. She had played and lost. There was no more to do.

  Mr. Teal opened the book with hands that were not quite steady. The realization of success made him fumble nervously--it was a symptom which amazed himself. He learned then that he had never really hoped to succeed; that the memory of infinite failures had instilled a subconscious presentiment that he never could succeed. Even with the book in his hands, he could not quite believe that the miracle had happened.

  It was in manuscript--he saw that in a moment. Manuscript written in a minute pinched hand that crowded an astonishing mass of words onto the page. Methodically he turned to the beginning.

  The first page was in the form of a letter:

  Villa Philomene, Nice,

  A. M. My dear Mr. Templar :

  It is some time now since we last met, but I have no fear that you will have forgotten the encounter. Lest it should have slipped my mind at the time, let me immediately pay you the tribute of saying that you are the only man in the world who has successfully frustrated my major plans on two occasions, and who has successfully circumvented my best efforts to exterminate him.

  It is for this reason that, being advised that I have not many more months to live, I am sending you this small token of esteem in the shape of the first volume of my memoirs.

  In my vocation of controller of munition factories, and consequently as the natural creator of a demand for their products, I have had occasion to deal with other Englishmen, fortunately in a more amicable manner than you would permit me to deal with you. In this volume, which deals with certain of my negotiations in England before and during the last World War, you will find detailed and fully documented accounts of a few notable cases in which prominent countrymen of yours failed to view my activities with that violent and unbusinesslike distaste which you yourself have more than once expressed to me.

  The gift has, of course, a further object than that of diminishing any insular prejudices you may have.

  At the same time as this book is sent to you, there will be sent, to the gentlemen most conspicuously mentioned in these notes, letters which will inform them into whose hands the book has fallen. After reading it yourself, you will see that this cannot fail to cause them great perturbation.

  Nevertheless, while it would be simple for you to allay their alarm and assure your own safety from molestation, I cannot foresee that a man such as I recall you to be would so tamely surrender such a unique opportunity to apply moral pressure towards the righting of what you consider to be wrongs.

  I therefore hope to leave behind me the makings of a most diverting contest which my experiments in inter-national diplomacy may have excelled in dimension, but can scarcely have excelled in quality. And you will understand, I am sure, my dear Mr. Templar, that I can hardly be blamed for sincerely trusting that these gentlemen, or their agents, will succeed where I have

  failed. Very truly yours,

  Rayt Marius.

  Teal read the letter through and looked up with an incredulous half-puzzled frown. Then, without speaking, he began to read it through again. Patricia stood up with a little sigh, straightened her dress, and began to comb out her hair. Sergeant Barrow shifted from one foot to the other and compared his watch with the clock on the mantelpiece--it would be the fourth consecutive night that he had been late home for dinner, and his wife could scarcely be blamed for beginning to view his explanations with suspicion.

  Mr. Teal was halfway through his second reading when the telephone rang. He hesitated for a moment and then nodded to the girl.

  "You can answer it," he said.

  Patricia took up the instrument.

  "There are two gentlemen here to see you, miss," said Sam Outrell. "Lord Iveldown and Mr. Farwill."

  "Send them up," she said recklessly.

  She had no idea why those two should have called to see her, but she was also beyond caring.

  "Lord Iveldown and the Home Secretary are on their way," she told Teal, as she put down the telephone. "You're holding quite a gathering here, aren't you?"

  The detective blinked at her dubiously. He was Unable to accept her statement at its face value, and he was unable for the moment to discover either an insulting witticism or the opening of another trap in it. He returned to his reading with only half his mind on it; and he had just finished when the buzz of the doorbell took her from the room.

  He closed the book and changed his position so that he could see the hall.

  ". . . so unceremoniously, Miss Holm," Lord Iveldown was saying, as he entered the room. "But the matter is urgent--most urgent." He stopped as he saw Teal. "And private," he added. "I did not know that you were entertaining."

  "It must have been kept a secret," said the girl ironically.

  She moved aside to shut the door; and as she did so, Mr. Teal and the Honourable Leo Farwill saw each other at the same time. There was a moment's dead silence; and then Farwill coughed.

  "Ah--Inspector," he said heavily. "I hope we are not--ah--disturbing you."

  "No, sir," said Teal, looking at him curiously. He added: "I think you'll be glad to know, sir, that as far as I can see we've got all the evidence we need."

  Farwill's hand went to his moustache. His face had gone puffy and grey, and there was a dry hoarseness in his voice.

  "Ah--evidence," he repeated. "Ah--quite. Quite. Ah--evidence. That book------"

  "Have you read it?" asked Iveldown raspingly.

  "Only the first page, my
lord," said Teal. "The* first page is a letter--it's rather involved, but I think the book will turn out to be the one we were looking for."

  His heavy-lidded china-blue eyes were fixed on the Home Secretary perplexedly and with a trace of subconscious hostility. There was a kind of gritty strain in the atmosphere which he could not understand; and, not understanding it, it bothered him. His second reading of the letter had definitely been distracted, and he had not yet clearly sorted its meaning out of the elaborate and unfamiliar phrases in which it was worded. He only knew that he held triumph in his hands, and that for some unaccountable reason the Honourable Leo Farwill, who had first put him on the trail, was not sharing his elation.

  "Let me see the book," said Farwill.

  More or less hypnotized, Teal allowed it to be taken out of his hand; and when it was gone, a kind of wild superstitious fear that was beyond logic made him breathe faster, as if the book had actually dissolved into thin air between his fingers.

  Farwill opened the book at the first page and read the letter.

  "Ah--quite," he said short-windedly. "Quite. Quite."

  "Mr. Farwill was going to say," put in Lord Iveldown, "that we came here for a special purpose, hoping to intercept you, Inspector. Critical international developments----"

  "Exactly," boomed Farwill throatily. "The matter is vital. I might almost say--ah--vital." He tucked the book firmly under his arm. "You will permit me to take complete charge of this affair, Inspector. I shall have to ask you to accompany Lord Iveldown and myself to Scotland Yard immediately, where I shall explain to the chief commissioner the reasons of state which obviously cannot be gone into here--ah--and your own assiduous efforts, even if misdirected, will be suitably recognized------"