The Saint went back to the kitchen and shrugged heavily in answer to Chris’s unspoken question. Chris was silent for a short while, and then went on talking again as if nothing had happened. In ten minutes the telephone rang again.
Simon lighted a fresh cigarette to steady his nerves—he was surprised to find how much they had been shaken. He went out and listened again.
“Simon? This is Fay.”
The Saint’s heart leaped, and his hand tightened on the receiver; he was pressing it hard against his ear as if he were afraid of missing a word. She had no need to tell him who it was—the cadences of her voice would ring in his memory for the rest of his life.
“Yes,” he said. “What’s the news?”
“I haven’t been able to get him yet. I’ve tried all the usual channels. I’m still trying. He doesn’t seem to be around. He may get one of my messages at any time, or try to get through to me on his own. I don’t know. I’ll keep on all night if I have to. Where will you be?”
“I’ll stay here,” said the Saint.
“Can’t you get some rest?” she asked—and he knew that he would never, never again hear such soft magic in a voice.
“If we don’t find him before morning,” he said gently, “I shall have all the time in the world to rest.”
He went back slowly into the kitchen. Chris took one look at his face and stood up.
“There’s a bed upstairs for you, Simon. Why don’t you lie down for a bit?”
Simon spread out his hands.
“Who’ll answer the telephone?”
“I’ll hear it,” Chris assured him convincingly. “The least little thing wakes me up. Don’t worry. Directly that telephone rings, I’ll call you.”
The Saint hesitated. He was terribly tired, and there was no point in squandering his waning reserve of strength. There was nothing that he himself could do until the vital message came through from Fay Edwards. His helplessness, the futile inaction of it, maddened him, but there was no answer to the fact. The rest might clear his mind, restore part of his body, freshen his brain and nerves so that he would not bungle his last chance as he had bungled so much of late. Everything, in the end, would hang on his own quickness and judgment; he knew that if he failed he would have to go back to Fernack, squaring the account by the same code which had given him this one fighting break…
Before he had mustered the unwilling instinct to protest, he had been shepherded upstairs, his coat taken from him, his tie loosened. Once on the bed, sleep came astoundingly. His weariness had reached the point where even the dizzy whirligig of his mind could not stave off the healing fogs of unconsciousness any longer.
When he woke up there was a brilliant New York morning in the translucent sky, and Chris was standing beside his bed.
“Your call’s just come, Simon.”
The Saint nodded, and looked at his watch. It was just before eight o’clock. He rolled out of bed and pushed back his disordered hair, and as he did so felt the burning temperature of his forehead. His shoulder was stiffened and aching. Yet he felt better and stronger than he had been before his sleep.
“There’ll be some coffee and breakfast for you as soon as you’re ready,” Chris told him.
Simon smiled and stumbled downstairs to the telephone.
‘‘I’m glad you’ve had a rest,” said the girl’s voice.
The Saint’s heart was beating in a rhythmic palpitation which he could feel against his ribs. His mouth was dry and hot, and the emptiness was trying to struggle back into his stomach.
“It’s done me good,” he said. “Give me anything to fight, and I’ll lick it. What do you know, Fay?”
“Can you be at the Vandrick National Bank on Fifth Avenue at nine? I think you’ll find what you want.”
His heart seemed to stand still for a second.
“I’ll be there,” he said.
“I had to park the car,” she went on. “There were too many cops looking for it after last night. Can you fix something else?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Au revoir, Simon,” she whispered, and he hung up the receiver and went through into the kitchen to a new day.
There was the good rich smell of breakfast in the air. A pot of coffee bubbled on the table, and Chris was frying eggs and bacon at the big range. The door to the back yard stood open and through it floated the crisp invigorating tang of the Atlantic, sweeping away the last mustiness of stale smoke and wine. Simon felt magnificently hungry.
He shaved with Chris’s razor, clumsily left-handed, and washed at the sink. The impact of cold water freshened him, swept away the trailing cobwebs of fatigue and heaviness. He wasn’t dead yet. Inevitably, yet gradually because of the frightful hammering it had sustained, his system was working towards recovery; the resilience of his superb physique and dynamic health was turning the slow balance against misfortune. The slight feeling of hollowness in his head, the consequence of over tiredness and fever, was no more than a minor discomfort. He ate hugely, thinking over the problem of securing the car which Fay Edwards had asked for, and suddenly a name and number flashed up from the dim hinterlands of reminiscence—the name and number of the garrulous taxi-driver who had driven him away from the scene of Mr Papulos’s Waterloo. He got up and went to the telephone, and admitted himself lucky to find the man at breakfast.
“This is the Saint, Sebastian,” he said. “Didn’t you say I could call you if I had any use for you?”
He heard the driver’s gasp of amazement, and then the eager response.
“Sure! Anyt’ing ya like, pal. What’s it woit?”
“Twice as much as you’re asking,” replied the Saint succinctly. “Meet me on the corner of Lexington and Forty-Fourth in fifteen minutes.”
He hung up and returned to his coffee and a cigarette. He knew that he was taking a risk—the possibility of the chauffeur having had a share in the betrayal of his hide-out at the Waldorf Astoria was not completely disposed of, and the prospect of a substantial reward might be a temptation to treachery in any case—but it was the only solution Simon could think of.
Nevertheless the Saint’s mouth was set in a grim line when he said good-bye to Chris and walked along Forty-Fifth Street to Lexington Avenue. He walked slowly, and kept his left hand in his pocket with the fingers fastened round the comforting butt of Fernack’s revolver. There was nothing out of the ordinary about his appearance, no reason for anybody to notice him—he was still betting on the inadequacy of newspaper photographs and the blindness of the average unobservant man, the only two advantages which had been faultlessly loyal to him from the beginning. And if there was a hint of fever in the brightness of the steel-blue eyes that raked the sidewalks watchfully as he sauntered down the block to the rendezvous at Forty-Fourth Street, it subtracted nothing from their unswerving vigilance.
But he saw nothing that he should not have seen—no signs of a collection of large men lounging against lamp-posts or kicking their heels in shop doorways, no suspiciously crawling cars. The morning life of Lexington Avenue flowed normally on and was not concerned with him. Thus far the breaks were with him. Then a familiar voice hailed him, and he stopped in his tracks.
“Hi-yah, Pal!”
The Saint looked round, and saw the cab he had ordered parked at the corner. And in the broad grin of the driver were no grounds for a solid belief that he was a police stool-pigeon or a scout of the Big Fellow’s.
“Better get inside quick, before anyone sees ya, pal,” he advised hoarsely, and the Saint nodded and stepped in. The chauffeur twisted round to continue the conversation through the communicating window. “Where ja wanna go dis time?”
“The Vandrick National Bank on Fifth Avenue,” said the Saint.
The driver started up his engine and hauled the cab out into the stream of traffic.
“Chees!” he said in some awe, at the first cross-town traffic light. “Ya don’t t’ink we can take dat joint wit’ only two guns?”
&nb
sp; “I hadn’t thought about it,” Simon confessed mildly.
The driver seemed disappointed in spite of his initial scepticism.
“I figgered dat might be okay for a guy like you, wit’ me helpin’ ya,” he said. “Still, maybe ya ain’t feelin’ quite yourself yet. I hoid ja got taken for a ride last night—I was t’inkin’ I shouldn’t be seein’ ya for a long while.”
“A lot of other people are still thinking that,” murmured the Saint sardonically.
They slowed up along Fifth Avenue as they came within a block of the Vandrick Bank Building.
“Whadda we do here, pal?” asked the driver.
“Park as close to the entrance as you can get,” Simon told him. “I’ll wait in the cab for a bit. If I get out, stay here and keep your engine running. Be ready for a getaway. We may have a passenger—and then I’ll tell you more.”
“Okay,” said the chauffeur phlegmatically, and then an idea struck him. He slapped his thigh. “Chees!” he said, “I t’ought ya was kiddin’. Dat’s better’n hoistin’ de bank!”
“What is?” inquired the Saint, with slight puzzlement.
“Aw, nuts,” said the driver. “Ya can’t catch me twice. Why, puttin’ de arm on Lowell Vandrick himself, of course. Chees! I can see de headlines. ‘Sebastian Lipski an’ de Saint Snatches off de President of de Vandrick National Bank.’ Chees, pal, ya had me guessin’ at foist!”
Simon grinned silently and resigned himself to letting Mr Lipski enjoy himself with his dreams. To have disillusioned the man before it was necessary, he felt, would have been as heartless as robbing an orphan of a new toy.
He sat back, mechanically lighting another cigarette in the chain that stretched far back into the incalculable past, and watched the imposing neo-Assyrian portals of the bank. A few belated clerks arrived and scuttled inside, admitted by a liveried doorkeeper who closed the doors again after each one. An early depositor arrived, saw the closed doors, scowled indignantly at the doorkeeper, and drifted aimlessly round the sidewalk in small circles, chewing the end of a pencil. The doorkeeper consulted his watch with monotonous regularity, every half-minute. Simon became infected with the habit, and began counting the seconds until the bank would open, finding himself tense with an indefinable restlessness of expectation.
And then, with an effect that gripped the Saint into almost breathless immobility, the first notes of nine o’clock chimed out from somewhere near-by.
Stoically the doorkeeper dragged out his watch again, corroborated the announcement of the clock to his own satisfaction, opened the doors, and left them open, taking up his impressive stance outside. The early investor broke off in the middle of a circle and scurried in to do his business. The bank was open.
Otherwise Fifth Avenue was unchanged. A few other depositors arrived, entered the bank, and departed, with the preoccupied air of men who were carrying the weight of the nation’s commerce. A patrolman strolled by, with the preoccupied air of a philosopher wondering what to philosophise about, if anything. Pedestrians passed up and down on their own mysterious errands. And yet Simon Templar felt himself still clutched in the grip of that uncanny suspense. He could give no account for it. He could not even have said why he should have been so fascinated by the processes of opening the bank. For all he knew, it might merely have been a convenient landmark for a meeting-place, and even if the building itself was concerned there were hundreds of other offices on the upper floors which might have an equal claim on his attention; nine o’clock was the hour, simply an hour for him to be there, without any evidence that something would explode at that instant with the precision of a timed bomb, but he could not free himself from the almost melodramatic sense of expectation that made his left hand close tightly on the pearl grips of Fernack’s gun.
And then, while his eyes were searching the street restlessly, he suddenly saw Valcross sauntering by, and for the moment forgot everything else.
In a flash he was out of the cab, crossing the pavement—he did not wish to make himself conspicuous by yelling from the window of the taxi. He clapped Valcross on the shoulder, and the older man turned quickly. His eyes widened when he saw the Saint.
“Why, hullo, Simon. I didn’t know you were ever up at this hour.”
“I’m not,” said the Saint. “Where on earth have you been?”
“Didn’t you find my note? It was on the mantelpiece.”
Simon shook his head.
“There are reasons why I haven’t had a chance to look for notes,” he said. “Come into my taxi and talk—I don’t want to stand around here.”
He seized Valcross by the arm and led him back to the cab. Mr Lipski’s homely features lighted up in applause mingled with delirious amazement—if that was kidnapping, it was the slickest and simplest job that he had ever dreamed of. Regretfully, Simon told him to wait where he was, and slammed the communicating window on him.
“Where have you been, Bill?” he repeated.
“I had to go to Pittsburgh and see a man on business. I heard about it just after you’d gone out, and I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. I had supper with him and came back this morning—flying both ways. I’ve only just got in.”
“You haven’t been to the Waldorf?”
“No. I was short of cash, and I was going into the bank first.”
Simon drew a deep breath.
“It’s the luckiest thing that ever happened to you that you had business in Pittsburgh,” he said. “And the next luckiest is that you ran short of cash this morning. Somebody’s snitched on us, Bill. When I got into the Waldorf in the small hours of this morning it was full of policemen, and one detachment of ’em is still waiting there for you unless it’s starved to death!”
Valcross was staring at him blankly.
“Policemen?” he echoed. “But how—”
“I don’t know, and it isn’t much use asking. The Big Fellow did it—apparently he said I was treading on his toes. Since his own mobs hadn’t succeeded in getting rid of me, I suppose he thought the police might have a try. He’s paying their wages, anyway. That needn’t bother us. What it means is that you’ve got to get out of this state like a bat out of hell.”
“But what about you?”
The Saint smiled a little.
“I’m afraid I shall have to wait for my million dollars,” he said. “I’ve got five of your men out of six, but I don’t know whether I shall be able to get the sixth.”
He told Valcross what had been happening, in terse crackling sentences pared down to the uttermost parched economy of words. The other’s eyes were opening wider from the intervention of Fay Edwards at the last moment of the ride—on through the slaying of Dutch Kuhlmann to the pleasantness of Mr Kestry and the amazing reprieve that Fernack had offered. The whole staggering course of those last few hectic hours was sketched out in clipped impressionistic phrases that punched their effect through like a rattle of bullets. And all the while the Saint’s eyes were scanning the road and sidewalks, his fingers were curled round the butt of Fernack’s gun, his nerves were keyed to the last milligram of vigilance.
“So you see it’s been a big night,” he wound up. “And there isn’t much of it left. Fernack’s probably wondering already whether I haven’t skipped into Canada and left him to hold the baby.”
“And Fay Edwards told you the Big Fellow would be here at nine?” said Valcross.
“Not exactly.” She asked me to be here at nine—and she was looking for the Big Fellow. I’m hoping it means she knows something. I’m still hoping.”
“It’s an amazing story,” said Valcross thoughtfully. “Do you know what to make of that girl?”
Simon shrugged.
“I don’t think I ever shall.”
“I shall never understand women,” Valcross said. “I wonder what the Big Fellow will think. That marvellous brain—an organization that’s tied up the greatest city in the world into the greatest criminal combine that’s ever been known—and a harlot who fall
s in love with an adventurer can tear it all to pieces.”
“She hasn’t done it yet,” said the Saint.
Valcross was silent for a few moments; then he said, “You’ve done your share. You’ve got five men out of the six names I gave you. In the short time you’ve been working, that’s almost a miracle. The Big Fellow’s your own idea—you put him on the list. If you fail—if you feel bound to keep your word and go back to Fernack—I can’t stop you. But I feel that you’ve earned the reward I promised you. I’ve had a million dollars in a drawing account, waiting for you ever since you came over. I’d like to give it to you, anyhow. It might be some use to you.”
Simon hesitated. Valcross’s eyes were fixed on him eagerly.
“You can’t refuse,” he insisted. “It’s my money, and I think it’s due to you. No one could have earned it better.”
“All right,” said the Saint. “But you can pay me in proportion. I haven’t succeeded—why try to make out that I have?”
“I think I’m the best judge of that,” said Valcross, and let himself out of the cab with a quick smile.
Simon watched him go with a troubled frown. There was an unpleasant taste in his mouth which he had not noticed before. So the accounts of death would be paid according to their strict percentages, the blood money handed over, and the ledger closed. Six men to be killed for a million dollars. One hundred and sixty-six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents per man. He had not thought of it that way before—he had taken the offer in his stride, for the adventure, without seriously reckoning the gain. Well, he reflected bitterly, there was no reason why a man who in a few short weeks would be a convicted felon should try to flatter his self-esteem. He would go down as a hired killer, like any of the other rats he had killed…
Valcross was closing the door, turning away towards the bank, and at that moment another taxi flashed past the one in which Simon sat, and swung in to the kerb in front of them. The door opened, and a woman got out. It was Fay Edwards.
The Saint In New York (The Saint Series) Page 21
