The Saint's Getaway

by Leslie Charteris

  He surrendered the unequal contest towards midday and went in search of a bathroom. Shaved and dressed, and feeling a little better, he descended on the dining room in the hope of finding some relics of breakfast with which to complete the restoration of his tissues; and his apologetic order had scarcely been executed when the Saint sauntered in and joined him, looking so intolerably fresh and fit that Monty could have as­saulted him.

  "Get those Spiegeleier inside you quickly, old lad," he said, "and we'll be on our way again."

  "Have you pinched another car?" asked Monty resignedly. "And if so, what was wrong with the last one?"

  Simon laughed.

  "Nothing. Only stolen cars are notified, and that never makes things easier. Besides which, it isn't every day that you knock off a car complete with its tryptique and general docu­ments of identity, and if you hadn't pulled off that fluke yes­terday we should have had a long walk from the frontier. No —I've been over to the station and unearthed a pretty good train, and I don't see why we should turn it down."

  Monty carved an egg.

  "Where's Pat?"

  "Having breakfast in bed. She was asleep when I went out."

  "She must be stone deaf," said Monty, glumly. "No one who wasn't could sleep here in the daytime. There were four thou­sand trams outside my room, and they took every one of them to pieces. I think they used several large hammers and a buzz-saw. Then they threw all the bits through the window of a china-shop and laughed like hell." Monty Hayward sliced a rasher of bacon with meditative brutality and finished the dish in silence. "Where do we go to-day?" he inquired.

  "Cologne," said the Saint. "Where they make the Eau." He was lighting a cigarette and gazing into the mirror on the wall above Monty's head, watching the two men who had just en­tered the room. They were, in their way, a brace of the most flabbergasting phenomena that he had seen for a long while; and yet they oiled into the inexorable scheme of things with a smoothness that was almost wicked. And the Saint's face was utterly sterile of emotion as he tacked onto his opening an­nouncement the one sweeping qualification that the arrival of those two men implied. "If we get away at all," he said.

  2

  With the cigarette slanting between bis lips and a slow drift of smoke sinking thoughtfully down into his lungs, Simon Templar lounged back in his chair and watched the two detec­tives coming up behind him.

  The convex surface of the ornamental glass condensed their imposing figures into the vague semblance of two trousered sausages seen through the wrong end of a telescope; but even so, the grisly secret of their calling was blazoned across their bosoms in letters that the Saint could read five hundred yards away with his eyes closed. That was the one disastrous certainty which emerged unchallenged from the chaotic fact of their arrival. Not once since the first instant when they had bulked ponderously through the doors of the deserted Speisezimmer had the Saint allowed himself to luxuriate in any sedative de­lusions about that. When one has played ducks and drakes with the Law for ten hectic years, and, moreover, when one has been fully occupied for the last three of those years with the business of being the most coveted fox in the whole western hemisphere, one's nose becomes almost tediously fa­miliar with the scent of hounds. And if ever the Saint had sniffed that piquant odour, he could smell it then—one breast-high wave of it, which spumed aromatically past his nostrils with enough pungency to make a salamander sneeze.

  How those detectives had got there was still an inch or two beyond him. Granted that in the last twelve hours the purlieus of Innsbruck had been the location of no small excitement, in the course of which a quite unnecessary little man had been violently shoved on out of this world of woe, and an unfortu­nate misunderstanding had caused the three policemen who should have arrested him to be dumped painfully into the cold waters of the Inn—granted, even, that the estimable Monty Hayward was most unjustly suspected of having personally shoved on the aforesaid little man, and was most accurately known to have taken part in the assault and bathing of the po­lice, to have subsequently assaulted one of them a second time, to have appropriated his uniform, and to have stolen a large car—well, a few minor disturbances like these were a small price to pay for the quarter of a million pounds' worth of gen­uine crown jewels. And the Saint had most emphatically done his best to avoid any superfluous unpleasantness. His mind flashed back over the details of the getaway; and at the end of the flash he had to admit that the Law was playing a fast ball. Their passing had been reported from the frontier, of course, as soon as the alarm was raised: that was inevitable; but after that the trail should have petered out—for several hours, anyway. A police organization which, in the short time that had been at its disposal, could discover an abandoned car, and then, by an essentially wearisome system of exhaustive inquir­ies, could trace its fugitive passengers through the separate and devious routes which they had taken to the hotel, argued that somewhere in Munich there were a few devoted souls with no little energy left over from the more important busi­ness of assimilating large quantities of Löwenbräu. It argued a strenuous efficiency that was as upsetting as anything the Saint had seen for many years.

  Across the table, Monty Hayward was staring at him puz­zledly, with the last fork-load of egg and bacon poised blankly in midair. And then, for a second, his gaze veered over the Saint's shoulder; and he began to understand.

  The Saint's eyes tore themselves away from the queer fasci­nation of the mirror. On its surface the figures of the men be­hind had swollen in grotesque distortion, until he knew that they were only a yard or two away. He felt their presence even more vividly after he had ceased to watch them, in an infinitely gentle little shiver that twitched up his back as if a couple of spiders had performed a rapid polka along his spine. It slith­ered coldly along his ganglions in a tingle of desperate alert­ness, an instinctive tautening of nerves that was beyond all hu­man power to control.

  He took the cigarette from his mouth and looked Monty Hayward squarely in the face. Within that yard or two of where they sat, the menace of the Law had loomed up again, with a suddenness that took the breath away—a menace which it had always been so fatally easy to forget, even if the Saint himself had never quite forgotten. And Monty Hayward looked back at a man who, in some guises, still seemed a stran­ger to him. The Saint's eyes were as hard as flints, cold and blue and mercilessly clear; and yet somewhere in their grim depths there was a tiny glitter like shifting sunlight, a momentary twinkle of mockery that loved the wild twists of the game for their own sake.

  "For many years, Monty," said the Saint very quietly and distinctly, "I've been meaning to tell you the Illuminating History of Wilbraham, the Wonderful Worm. Wilbraham was in the very act of becoming the high tea of a partridge named Theobald, when the cruel bird was brought down by a lucky shot from the gun of a certain Mr. Hugglesboom, who was a water-diviner by profession and generally considered to be eccentric. I said a lucky shot, because Mr. Hugglesboom believed that he was aiming his weapon at a rabbit that was nibbling his young lettuces. On retrieving the bird, Mr. Hugglesboom discovered Wilbraham in its beak. Being a kind-hearted gentleman, he released the unhappy reptile; and he would have thought nothing more about it, if Wilbraham had not had other views. Wilbraham, in fact, being overcome with gratitude to his deliverer, followed Mr. Hugglesboom home, and showed such symptoms of devotion that Mr. Hugglesboom's heart was touched. A lonely man, he adopted the small creature, and found much companionship on his solitary travels, in which Wilbraham would follow him like a faithful dog. Shortly afterwards Wilbraham thought that he might assist Mr. Hugglesboom in his work. He took it upon himself to spy out, by tireless burrowing, the land which his master was commissioned to survey; with the result that in course of time Mr. Hugglesboom attained such eminence in his vocation ——"

  Monty Hayward's face had run through a sequence of ex­pressions that would have made a movie director skip like a young ram with joy; and then it had gone blank. The meaning and purpose of that
astonishing cascade of imbecility were utterly beyond him. There came to him the hysterical belief that Simon Templar must have gone suddenly and irrevocably haywire. The strain of recent happenings had been too much for a brain that had never in its life been truly stable.

  He looked up dumbly at the two men who were now stand­ing by the Saint's oblivious shoulder, and in their faces he saw the beginnings of an answering blankness that fairly kicked him between the eyes. It was so staggering that for a space of time he doubted the evidence of his own senses.

  And then it dawned upon him that the two men were also listening, and at the same time running through a gamut of emotions similar to his own. As the Saint's beautifully articu­lated phrases reached their ears, their heavy-footed and pur­poseful advance had waned away. They had ended up behind the Saint's chair as if they were walking over pins; and there they stood, with their mouths hanging open, sucking in his drivelling discourse with both ears. Their awed entrancement was so obvious that for an awful interval Monty Hayward be­gan to wonder whether after all it was his own brain that had slipped its trolley.

  "The climax came," said the Saint, with that flute-like clarity which did every single thing in its power to render the words comprehensible to anyone whose knowledge of English might leave much fluency to be desired, "at a garden party organized by Lady Tigworthy, at which Mr. Hugglesboom was to give a demonstration of his art by finding a receptacle of water which had been carefully hidden in the grounds. Keeping his usual rendezvous behind the refreshment tent, Mr. Huggles­boom was duly accosted by a worm who gave him explicit in­structions; and shortly afterwards, being a dim-sighted man, he faithfully made his find directly over a shiny pink globe which showed on the lee side of a grassy knoll. This was discov­ered to be the head of Lord Tigworthy, who was enjoying an afternoon siesta. Mr. Hugglesboom was expelled from the fête in disgrace; and the worm, which was reclining in an intoxi­cated condition under the tap of a barrel of mild ale, was thrown after him. It was not until he reached home that Mr. Hugglesboom perceived that this worm was not Wilbraham"— the Saint was looking Monty rigidly in the eyes—"but Wil­braham's twin brother, who, filled with jealousy of his luckier relation, had gone out of his way to discredit an unblemished record of unselfish service. Mr. Hugglesboom——"

  Behind him, one of the detectives cleared his throat apolo­getically, and the Saint glanced round.

  He glanced round absolutely at his leisure, as if he were no­ticing the presence of the detectives for the first time. He did it as if they meant nothing whatever in his life, and never could—with a smilingly interrogative composure which cost him perhaps more effort than anything he had done in the last twenty-four hours.

  The detective coughed.

  "Excuse me, gentleman," he said, in excellent English. "I am a police officer, and I have to ask you to give an account of yourselves."

  Monty Hayward had an insane desire to laugh. The contrast between the detectives' confident march across the room, and the almost ingratiating tone of that opening remark, was so comical that for a moment it made him forget the tightness of the corner from which they had still to make their getaway.

  Coolly the Saint shifted his chair round, and waved an oblig­ing hand.

  "Sit down, Sherlock," he murmured, "and tell us all your troubles. What's the matter—has somebody declared war, or something?"

  Somewhat uncertainly the detective lowered himself into a seat, and after a second's hesitation his companion followed suit They looked at one another dubiously, and at length the spokesman attempted to explain.

  "It is in the matter of a crime that was committed in Inns­bruck last night, mein Herr. We received proof that the crim­inals had reached Munich, and afterwards we believed that we had traced them to this hotel. Their descriptions were tele­graphed to us from Innsbruck. You will pardon me, gentle­men, but the resemblance . . ."

  Simon raised his eyebrows.

  "Good Lord! D'you mean we're going to be arrested?"

  His startled innocence was beyond criticism. Every line of it was etched into his face and his voice with the touch of a consummate artist. And the detective shrugged.

  "Before I spoke to you, I permitted myself to listen to your conversation. I hoped to learn something that would help us. But after I had listened——"

  "As far as I remember," said the Saint puzzledly, "I was beguiling the time with a highly moral and uplifting anecdote about a worm named——"

  "Vilbraham?" suggested the detective, with a tinge of hu­mour in his homely features. "I admit I did not appreciate all the—the——die Bedeutung—the what-do-you-say of the story?"

  He looked appealingly at the Saint, but Simon shook his head. "It is not important. But it is my experience that a man who had committed a crime so soon ago, and who would expect every minute to be arrested, would not talk like that. His mind is too worried. Also you did not translate die Bedeutung for me, which would have been very clever of you if you were one of the criminals, because both of them speak German like I do."

  Simon gazed at him with admiration.

  "That was cunning of you," he said ingenuously. "But I suppose that's part of your job." He dropped his cigarette into a coffee cup and beckoned a passing waiter. "Have a spot of Schnapps and let's see if there's anything we can do to clear up the difficulty."

  The detective nodded.

  "You have your passports?"

  The Saint took a blue booklet from his pocket and dropped it on the table. The detective turned courteously to Monty Hayward. Something hard was jabbing into the side of Monty's thigh: he slipped his hand quite naturally under the table and grasped it. He was wide awake now; the whole purpose of the Saint's two-edged bluff was plain to him, and his brain was humming into perfect adaptation.

  He slid the passport round behind him and produced it as if from his hip pocket. Where it had come from he had no idea, and he had even less idea what information it contained; but he watched it across the table while the detective turned the pages, and gathered that he was George Shelston Ingram, marine architect, of Lowestoft. The photograph was undoubt­edly his own—he recognized it immediately as the one from his own passport, and the evidence of the Saint's inexhaustible thoroughness amazed him. The Saint must have put in an hour's painstaking work before breakfast on that job alone, faking up the missing part of the Foreign Office embossments which linked the photograph with the new sheet on which it had been pasted.

  The examination was concluded in a few minutes, and the detectives returned the passports to their respective claimants with a slight bow.

  "I have apologized in advance," he said briefly. "Now, Mr. Ingram, will you please tell me your recent movements? One of our men saw you at the Ostbahnhof this morning, besides the one who happened to see you arrive at the hotel. They re­membered you when the descriptions were received; and it was near the Ostbahnhof that the car in which our criminals escaped was found."

  "I think I can explain that," Monty answered easily. "I've been walking around the country in this neighbourhood, and last night I ended up at Siegertsbrun. After dinner I had a telegram from my brother asking me to meet him in Munich this morning, and saying it was a matter of life and death. So after thinking it over I caught a very early train and came straight here."

  "Your brother?"

  The detective seemed suddenly to have gone out of control. He sat forward as if he could scarcely contain his excitement. And Monty nodded.

  "Yes. He's my twin. If you didn't grasp the point of my friend's story, I can tell you that he was being extremely rude."

  "Donnerwetter! And where would he meet you—Ihr Heir Bruder?" "He said he'd meet me here at ten o'clock; but he hasn't turned up yet——"

  "You have this telegram?"

  "No—I didn't keep it. But——"

  "From where was it despatched?"

  "From Jenbach." Monty's resentment had plainly been boil­ing up against the hungry rattle of questions, and at that point he ex
ploded. "Damn it, are you suggesting that my brother is a crook?"

  The detective hunched his shoulders. An inscrutable hard­ness had crept in under the amiable fleshiness of his face. He retorted with the dehumanized bluntness of official logic.

  "It is a matter of probability. You are so much alike. Also this telegram was sent from Jenbach, where the criminals have last been seen. For them it is certainly a matter of life and death."

  In the silence that followed, the waiter returned and set up the drinks which had been ordered. Simon flicked a note onto bis tray and dismissed him with curt gesture. He slid the glasses round in front of the detectives and looked from them to Monty and then back again.

  "This is serious," he said. "Are you quite sure you haven't made a mistake?"

  "That is to be discovered. But it is strange that Mr. Ingram's brother has not yet arrived."

  The reply was unexceptionably polite. And just as incontest­ably it declined to be drawn into abstract argument. It slammed up one stark circumstance, and invited explanations that would convince a jury—nothing less.

  Simon took a fresh cigarette from the packet on the table and slouched back in his pew, watching the two detectives like a hawk. There was not an atom of tension in his poise, not one visible quiver of a muscle to flash hints of danger to a sus­picious man, and under the smooth, level brows bis eyelids drooped no more than thoughtfully against the smoke; but behind that droop the eyes were alive with frozen steel. His right arm was crooked lazily round the chair back, but the hand hung less than an inch from his gun pocket.

  "It does seem odd," he drawled.