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

by Leslie Charteris

  Hoppy's brain had not been working overtime, because the hours between one breakfast and the following bedtime were rarely long enough to let it do much more than catch up with where it had left off the previous night. Nevertheless the wheels, immersed in the species of thick soup in which nature had asked them to whizz round, had been doggedly trying to revolve.

  "Boss," said Hoppy Uniatz, articulating with some indistinctness through a slice of toast, two ounces of butter, a rasher of bacon, and half an egg, "de cops knows you got dis house."

  Simon harked back over some leagues of his own cerebrations and recognized the landmark which Hoppy had contrived to reach.

  "That's perfectly true," he remarked admiringly. "Now don't go doing any more of that high-pressure thinking--give your brain a minute to cool off, because I want you to listen to me."

  He rang the bell and smoked quietly until Orace answered. Mr. Uniatz, happily absolved from further brainwork, engulfed the rest of the food within his reach and cast longing eyes at a decanter of whisky on the sideboard.

  "Orace," said the Saint, "I'm afraid Claud Eustace is after us again."

  "Yessir," said Orace phlegmatically.

  "You might sound more sympathetic about it," Simon complained. "One of the charges is wilful murder."

  "Well, it's yer own thunderin' fault, ain't it?" retorted Orace, unmoved.

  The Saint sighed.

  "I suppose you're right," he admitted. "Anyway, Hoppy's idea is that we ought to pull an Insull."

  "Dat means to take it on de lam," explained Hoppy, clarifying the point.

  Orace's faded eyes lost none of their ferocity, but his overhanging moustache twitched.

  "If yer can wite 'arf a minnit, sir," he said, "I'll go wiv yer."

  The Saint laughed softly and stood up. His hand fell on Orace's shoulder.

  "Thanks a lot, you old humbug; but it isn't nec- , essary. You see, Hoppy's wrong. And you ought to know it, after all the years you've been around with me." He leaned back against the mantelpiece, one hand in his pocket, and looked at the two men with eyes that were beginning to twinkle again. "Hoppy reminds me that Teal knows all about this house, but he's forgotten that Teal also, knows I know it. Hoppy thinks we ought to pack our keisters and take it on the lam, but he's for-gotten that that's the very thing Teal is expecting us to do. After all, Claud Eustace has seen me hang it on the limb before. . . . Are you there, Hoppy?"

  "Yes, boss," said Mr. Uniatz, after glancing around to reassure himself of the fact.

  "It's quite true that you'll probably see some cops skating up the drive before long; but somehow I don't think Claud Eustace will be with them. It'll be almost a formality. They may browse around looking for incriminating relics, but they won't be seriously looking for me--or Hoppy. And that's why none of 'em will ever be great detectives, because this is exactly where Hoppy is going to be--lying snug and low in the secret room off the study, which is one of the things they still don't know about this house."

  "Chees!" said Mr. Uniatz, in pardonable awe. "Didja t'ink of all dat while ya was eatin' breakfast?"

  The Saint smiled.

  "That and some more; but I guess that's enough for your head to hold at one time." He looked at his watch. "You'd better move into your new quarters now--Orace will bring you food and drink from time to time, and I'll know where to find you when I want you."

  He steered Hoppy across the hall and into the study, slid back the bookcase beside the desk, and pushed him through the gap in the wall behind it. Framed in the narrow opening, Mr. Uniatz blinked out at him pleadingly.

  "Boss," he said, "it's gonna be toisty waitin'."

  "Hoppy," said the Saint, "if I think you're going to have to wait long, I'll tell Orace to have a pipeline laid from a distillery right into the room. Then you can just lie down under the tap and keep your mouth open--and it'll be cheaper than buying it in bottles."

  He slammed the bookcase into place again and turned round on the last puff of his cigarette as Orace came in.

  "You've got to be an Orpen of the Storm, and draw the fire," he said. "But it shouldn't be very dangerous. They've nothing against you. The one thing you must do is get in touch with Miss Holm --let her know all the latest news and tell her to keep in contact. There may be fun and game! for all before this party's over."

  "Addencha better 'ide in there yerself, sir?" asked Orace threateningly. "I can look after every-think for yer."

  The Saint shook his head.

  "You can't look after what I'm going to look after," he said gently. "But I can tell you some more. It won't mean much to you, but you can pass it on to Miss Holm in case she's curious, and remember it yourself in case anything goes wrong." He caught Orace by the shoulders and swung him round. The mocking blue eyes were reckless and wicked; the Saintly smile was as blithe and tranquil as if he had been setting out on a picnic--which, according to his own scapegrace philosophy, he was.

  "Down at Betfield, near Folkestone," he said, "there's a place called March House, where a guy called Sir Hugo Renway lives. The night before last, this guy murdered a Spanish airman named Manuel Enrique, on the Brighton road--and left my mark on him. Last night, this same guy pinched an aeroplane out of the Hawker factory over the road--and left my mark on the night watchman. And in the small hours of this morning, an aeroplane which may or may not have been the one that was pinched landed in the grounds of March House. I was there, and I saw it. A few hours back, Claud Eustace Teal tried to run me in for both those efforts.

  "I wasn't responsible for either of 'em, but Teal doesn't believe it. Taking things by and large, you can't exactly blame him. But / know better, even if he doesn't; and I'm just naturally curious. I want to know what all this jolly carnival is. about that Renway's trying to tack onto me. And there's one thing you'll notice, Orace, with that greased-lightning brain of yours, which ties all these exciting goings-on together. What is it, Orace?"

  The war-like moustache of his manservant bristled.

  "Hairyplanes," said Orace brilliantly; and Simon smote him on the back.

  "You said it, Horatio. With that sizzling brain of yours, you biff the ailnay on the okobay. Hairy-planes it is. We've got to get to the bottom of this, as the bishop said to the actress; and it strikes me that if I were to fetch out the old Gillette and go hairyplaning--if I blundered into March House as a blooming aviator waiting to be pruned-----"

  The peremptory zing of the front doorbell interrupted him, and he looked up with the mischief hardening on his lips. Then he chuckled again.

  "I expect this is the deputation. Give them my love, Orace--and some of those exploding cigarettes. I'll be seein' ya!"

  He reached the window in a couple of strides and swung himself nimbly through. Orace watched him disappear into the dell of bracken at the other end of the lawn and strutted off, glower-ing, to answer the front door.

  VI

  There is believed to exist a happy band of halfwits whose fondest faith it is that the life of a government official, the superman to whom they entrust their national destiny, is one long treadmill of selfless toil from dawn to dusk. They picture the devoted genius labouring endlessly over reports and figures, the massive brain steaming, the massive stomach scarcely daring even to call a halt for food. They picture him returning home at the close of the long day, his shoulders still bowed beneath the cares of state, to fret and moil over their problems through the night watches. They are, we began by explaining, a happy band of half-wits.

  The life of a government official is very far from that; particularly if he is of the species known as "permanent," which means that he is relieved even of the sordid obligation of being heckled from time to time by audiences of weary electors. His job is safe. Only death, the Great Harvester, can remove him; and even when he dies, the event may pass unnoticed until the body begins to fall apart. Until then, his programme is roughly as follows.

  10:30 a.m. Arrive at office in Whitehall. Read newspaper. Discuss night before with fel
low officials. Talk to secretary. Pick up correspondence tray. Put down again. 11:30 a.m. Go out for refreshment. 12:30 p.m. Return to office. Practise putting on H. M. carpet.

  1:00 p.m. Go out to lunch.

  3 :00 p.m. Back from lunch. Pick up correspondence tray. Refer to other department.

  3:30 p.m. Sleep in armchair.

  4:00 p.m. Tea.

  4:30 p.m. Adjourn to club. Go home.

  As a matter of fact, Sir Hugo Renway was not thinking of his office at all at half-past nine that morning. He was discussing the ravages of the incorrigible green fly with his gardener; but he was not really thinking of that, either.

  He was a biggish thin-lipped man, with glossily brushed grey hair and a slight squint. The squint did not make him look sinister: it made him look smug. He was physically handicapped against looking anyone squarely in the face; but the impression he managed to convey was, not that he couldn't, but that he didn't think it worth while. He was looking at the gardener in just that way while they talked, but his air of well-fed Jmugness was illusory. He was well-fed, but he was troubled. Under that smooth supercilious exterior, his nerves were on edge; and the swelling drone of an aeroplane coming up from the Channel harmonized curiously well with the rasp of his thoughts.

  "I don't think none of them new-fangled washes is any good, zir, if you aarsk me," the man was reiterating in his grumbling brogue; and Renway nodded and noticed that the steady drone had suddenly broken up into an erratic popping noise.

  The man went on grumbling, and Renway went on pretending to listen, in his bored way. Inwardly he was cursing--cursing the stupidity of a man who was dead, whose death had transformed the steady drone of his own determination into the erratic popping which was going through his own, nerves.

  The aeroplane swept suddenly over the house. It was rather low, wobbling indecisively; and his convergent stare hardened on it with an awakening of professional interest. The popping of the engine had slackened away to nothing. Then, as if the pilot had seen sanctuary at that moment, the machine seemed to pull itself together. Its nose dipped, and it rushed downwards in a long glide, with no other accompaniment of sound than the whining thrum of the propeller running free. Instinctively Renway ducked; but the plane sideslipped thirty feet over his head and fishtailed down to a perfect three-point landing in the flat open field beyond the rose garden.

  Renway turned round and watched it come to a standstill. He knew at once that the helmeted figure in the cockpit had nothing left to learn about the mastery of an aeroplane. That field was a devil to get into, he had learned from experience; but the unknown pilot had dumped his ship in it with a dead stick as neatly as if he had had a whole prairie to choose from. Enrique had been the same--a swarthy daredevil who could land on a playing card and make an aeroplane do anything short of balancing billiard balls on its tail, whose nerveless brilliance had been so maddeningly beyond the class of all Renway's own taut-strung effort. . . . Renway's hands tensed involuntarily at his sides for a moment while he went on thinking; and then he turned away and began minutely examining some buds of rose-crimson Papa Gontiers as the pilot walked under a rustic arch and came towards him.

  "I'm terribly sorry," said the aviator, "but I'm afraid I've had a forced landing in your grounds."

  Renway looked at him for a moment. He had a dangerous devil-may-care sort of mouth, which showed very white teeth when he smiled. Enrique had had a smile very much like that.

  "So I see," said Renway and returned to his study of rosebuds.

  His voice was an epitome of all the mincing rudeness which the English lower classes have been so successfully trained to regard as a symbol of superiority. The Saint would have liked to hit him with a spanner; but he restrained himself.

  "I'm terribly sorry," he repeated. "My oil pressure started to drop rather quickly, and I had to come down where I could. I don't think I've done any damage. If you can direct me to the village, I'll arrange to get the machine moved as quickly as possible."

  "One of the servants will show you the way."'

  Renway looked up with his complacent squint and glanced at the gardener, who put away his pruning knife and dusted his hands.

  "It's very good of you," said the Saint; and then an unfortunate accident happened.

  He was carrying a valise in one hand, which he had taken out of the machine and brought with him. It could not have been very securely fastened, for at that moment it fell open.

  A cascade of shirts, socks, pyjamas, shaving tackle, and similar impedimenta might not have distracted Renway for more than a couple of seconds from his horticultural absorption; but nothing of the kind fell out. Instead, the valise emptied itself of a heavy load of small square tins such as cough lozenges are sold in. The tins did, in fact, carry printed labels proclaiming their contents to be cough lozenges; but one of them burst open in its fall and scattered a small snowfall of white powder over the path.

  Simon dropped on his knees and shoveled the tins back with rather unsteady hands, forcing them into the attache case with more haste than efficiency. He scraped the white powder clumsily back into the one which had burst open; and when Renway touched him on the shoulder he jumped.

  "Pardon my curiosity," said Renway, with unexpected suaveness, "but you have the most unusual luggage."

  Simon laughed somewhat shortly.

  "Yes, I suppose it is. I'm the Continental traveller for--er--some patent-medicine manufacturers------"

  "I see."

  Renway looked back at the aeroplane again; and again his hands tensed involuntarily at his sides. And then, once more, he looked at the Saint. Simon forced the last tin into his case, crammed the locks together, and straightened up.

  "I'm awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," he said.

  "Not at all." Renway's voice was dry, unnatural. He was aghast at himself, sweating coldly under the arms at the realization of what he was doing; but he spoke without any conscious volition. The jangling of his nerves forced him on, provided the motive power for the fantastic inspiration which had seized him. "In fact, my chauffeur can drive into Folkestone himself and make the necessary arrangements, while you stay here. You can give him instructions; and it's sure to mean a good deal of waiting about. I surrpose the authorities will have to be notified . . ."

  He was watching the pilot closely when he uttered that last sentence, although the cast in his eye made him appear to be staring past him; and he did not miss the slight instantaneous tightening of the dangerous mouth.

  "Oh, I couldn't possibly let you do that," Simon protested. "I've given you quite enough trouble as it is-----"

  "Not a bit of it," insisted Renway, still watching him.

  He was quite sure now. The pilot stiffened almost imperceptibly--Renway saw the shift off his eyes and the whitening of his knuckles on the hand which clutched the valise, and went on with more pronounced assurance: "It's no trouble at all to me, and my chauffeur has far too little to do. Besides, that landing must have given you one or two bad moments; and I'm sure you wouldn't refuse a drink. Come along up to the house, my dear fellow, and let me "see what I can find for you."

  He took the Saint's arm and led him away with a grim cordiality which it would have been difficult to resist---even if Simon had wanted to. They went through a small rockery up to the tennis lawn, across the lawn to a paved terrace, through open French windows into a rather stuffy library.

  "Will you have a cigarette--or is it too early for a cigar?"

  Simon took a cigarette and lighted it while Renway rang the bell.

  "Sit down, Mr.--er------"

  "Tombs."

  "Sit down, Mr. Tombs."

  The Saint sat on the edge of a plush armchair and smoked in silence until the butler answered the bell. Renway ordered drinks, and the butler went out again. The silence went on. Renway went over to a window and stood there, humming unmusically to himself.

  "Awkward thing to have happen to you," ventured the Saint.

  Renway half
turned his head.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I said, it's an awkward thing to have happened to you--oil pressure going down."

  "Quite," said Renway and went on humming.

  The butler came in with a tray, put it down, and departed. Renway crossed over to it and poured whisky into two glasses.

  "Soda?"

  "Thanks."

  Renway worked the siphon and handed over the drink. Then he took up his own glass; and abruptly, as if he were blurting out something which he had been mustering his determination to say for several minutes, he snapped: "I suppose you don't think I believe that story of yours about being a patent-medicine salesman?"

  "Don't you?" said the Saint evasively.

  "Of course not. I know cocaine when I see it."

  Simon, who had carefully rilled all his tins with boracic, wanted to smile. But he glanced apprehensively at the valise, which he had put down beside his chair, and then hardened his face into an ineffective mask.

  "But don't worry," said Renway. "I'm not going to tell the police. It's none of my business. I'm only wondering why a fellow like you--clever, daring, a good pilot--why you should waste your time over small stuff like that."

  Simon licked his lips.

  "It isn't so very small. And what else is there for me to do? There aren't so many jobs going these days for an out-of-work ace. You know yourself that war heroes are two a penny nowadays. I'm desperate enough to take the risk; and I want the money."