Saint Errant (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  For several hours he certainly didn’t think much more about any of the three people who had just met at his table, or attach any immediate significance to the meeting—not even when he brought Patricia into his suite at the Ambassador for a nightcap, and switched on the lights and found himself looking down the barrel of a gun in the hand of an unexpected guest who had beat them to it without an invitation.

  Simon Templar had looked down the barrels of guns before, and it had ceased to be a surprising experience for him. The turbulent course of his career had left enough survivors to constitute a sizable roster of characters whose principal ambition would always be to view the Saint again from behind the percentage end of a small piece of ordnance. The only remarkable thing about it was that Simon couldn’t at the moment think of any particular person in the vicinity who had reason to be trying to fulfill such a whim at that time.

  “Well, well, well,” he murmured. “Look what people are doing now to get a hotel room.”

  “Shut the door, bub,” said the man. “But don’t put your hat down. You ain’t staying long.”

  He had blue-black hair and a blue chin, and his suit was cut just about the way you would expect a suit behind a gun to be cut. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but Simon couldn’t place it for the moment.

  “That’s one way to bring an invitation, anyhow,” said the Saint. “Where is this party we’re going to?”

  “You’ll find out when we get there,” said the man. “Just wait till I fix the girl friend so she don’t make a fuss about losing you.”

  He took a roll of adhesive tape from his pocket.

  “I think I’m going to faint,” said Patricia.

  She slumped back against the wall by the door, exactly where the light switch was. As her knees buckled she caught one arm on the switch and the lights clicked out.

  The gunman started to move to one side, peering blindly into the dark. He bumped into a standard lamp and set it rattling.

  That was the only sound he heard before an arm slid around his neck from behind and a row of steel fingers clamped on his right hand and bent it inwards to within a millimeter of breaking his wrist. His hand opened involuntarily and the gun dropped on the carpet. Simon located it with his toe and put his foot on it.

  “Okay, Pat,” he said. “I’ve got him.”

  The lights went on again.

  “Nice work,” said the Saint. “You read all the right stories.”

  He released his pressure on the gunman’s larynx before suffocation had seriously set in, pushed the man away, and picked up the gun.

  “Now, chum,” he said, “where did you say we were going?”

  The man rubbed his wrists tenderly and glanced at him without answering.

  The first vague impression of familiarity that Simon had felt began to come into focus.

  “On second thoughts, you needn’t bother,” said the Saint. “I know where I’ve seen you before. At the Blue Paradise. You’re one of Rick Lansing’s boys.”

  “I ain’t talking,” said the man.

  “Then we’re going to find your company rather dull,” said the Saint. “Why don’t you beat it before you bore the hell out of us?”

  The gunman seemed to have difficulty co-ordinating his ideas and his ears.

  “Scram, bum,” said the Saint.

  The man gulped, opened the door, and departed hastily.

  “Nice work yourself,” said Patricia. “Why on earth did you let him go?”

  “I didn’t feel excited about having him live with us,” Simon told her. “I might have killed him, but the management wouldn’t like us to keep his body in the room, and if we threw it out of the window it might have hurt somebody.”

  “But aren’t you a bit curious about what he was doing here?”

  “I already know, darling. He was sent here to fetch me to Rick the Barber, that was obvious as soon as I placed him.”

  “But what does Rick Lansing want with you?”

  “That,” said the Saint, “is a question that Rick will have to answer himself.”

  Patricia picked up her wraps.

  “Wait till I powder my nose,” she said.

  “Oh no,” said the Saint. “From the type of escort Rick sent with the invitation, I’m afraid he may not be on his strictly Emily Post behavior, and even if he has hitched his wagon to a Broadway star he doesn’t seem to have sworn off his old business methods. You stay here with the Old Curio and don’t open the door to any strange men.”

  He kissed her lightly and closed the door on her argument.

  The Blue Paradise was one of the gaudier cabarets in the Loop. It was not a rendezvous for the social-register set, but it did a roaring and frequently even howling trade in tourists and tired businessmen, both local and traveling. The specialty dancers specialized mainly in undressing to slow music, and the drinks were thoughtfully diluted just enough to allow the patrons to get an adequate lift without becoming unconscious before they had spent a great deal of money. Simon knew that it was one of Rick Lansing’s operations, and also that there was an office in the back which was the headquarters for Lansing’s other business interests, which were many and various.

  Rick the Barber might have left his original vocation far behind, but he was still one of its best customers. He had dark wavy hair that glistened with oil and brushing. The skin over his tough square features was smooth and glowing from many facials. His hands were shinily manicured. He looked far more like a toughened chorus boy than what he was.

  He sat behind his desk and listened impassively to the alibi of his ambassador.

  “I tell ya, Rick, I couldn’t do anything about it. The Saint musta been tipped off. He had four guys with him, and they was all heeled.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Lansing said contemptuously. “But even if it’s the truth, what did you come straight back here for? How do you know one of ’em didn’t tail you?”

  “Honest, Rick, I shook ’em clean.”

  This was when Simon Templar quietly opened the door and stepped into the room.

  “That’s right, Rick,” he corroborated gravely. “He shook all of ’em except me…Just don’t do anything reckless, boys, and I won’t hurt you either.”

  The position of his left hand in the side pocket of his coat made his proposition especially persuasive.

  Lansing kept his hands on top of the desk and considered the situation without a change of expression.

  “Good evening, Mr Templar,” he said at length.

  “Good evening, Rick,” said the Saint amiably. “I believe you wanted to see me. So here I am. You didn’t need to make a production of it. I’m only too anxious to hear what’s on your mind. Shall we talk it over in private, or does Sonny Boy here make you feel safer?”

  Lansing sat still for a moment, and then made a slight movement of his hand.

  “Beat it, Joe.”

  “That’s better,” said the Saint. “Now he can collect the rest of the mob outside the door, which will make you feel really comfortable, but they know I’ve got you here, so I haven’t a thing to worry about. We can let our hair down and enjoy it.”

  Lansing suddenly smiled, displaying a wide row of perfect white teeth.

  “And I thought you were supposed to be smart,” he said. “You’re wasting yourself, Saint. Listen, with your talents you’re just the guy I need for a partner. Petty blackmail isn’t big enough for you. And what if you do tell the D.A. that Jake Hardy didn’t commit suicide? You couldn’t prove a thing.”

  A slight frown touched the Saint’s brow.

  “Jake Hardy?” he repeated. “You mean your last partner?”

  “Go on—kid me.”

  The Saint’s memory, which missed very little of the underworld news that reached the papers or circulated through the grapevine, responded again. Jake Hardy, for reasons unknown, had plunged from a penthouse window to his death several months before, leaving Rick Lansing in sole control of a cartel which, while it was no
t rated by Dun & Bradstreet and had little standing with the Better Business Bureau, was one of the richest enterprises of the Windy City.

  “Let me make a guess,” said the Saint slowly. “Do I gather that someone claiming to be me is trying to shake you down for a certain amount of moola on account of they know that Jake’s high dive wasn’t Jake’s own idea?”

  “Look,” Lansing said impatiently. “The comedy belongs outside with the floor show. Why, even if you hadn’t given your name on the phone, I can recognize your voice.”

  “My voice?”

  “Yes, your voice.”

  “And that’s why you sent Sonny Boy to bring me in?”

  Lansing made a clipped gesture.

  “I was upset. So now I’m sorry. No hard feelings, Saint. Believe me, a partnership with me will pay you a lot more than the lousy ten grand you’re asking for hush money. It wouldn’t be just this joint. I could give you a cut in everything, all over town—sports areas, bookies, numbers—the works.”

  Simon fished out a cigarette with his right hand and arched an eyebrow over his lighter.

  “Even in the Shakespearean drama too?”

  The other man blinked.

  “Huh? Oh—that.” He smiled again, deprecatingly, with the corners of his mouth turned down. “Just a present for my wife. If she wants to play Shakespeare she can play Shakespeare. I can afford it. It might even make money. There aren’t many things I can’t afford, and most of ’em make money sometime. I can afford you, and make money for both of us. The two of us together could really clean up.”

  “I appreciate the compliment,” said the Saint. “But there’s one hitch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I wasn’t the guy who tried to blackmail you.”

  A slight scowl settled over Lansing’s black eyes.

  “I told you before—the comedy belongs outside.”

  “I don’t doubt the show could use it,” said the Saint. “Only whether you like it or not, the comedy is right here. Because I give you my word that I’ve never spoken to you on the phone in my life, and I don’t have the least idea how to start proving that Jake was helped out of his window.”

  Lansing stared at him for several seconds.

  “Is that on the level?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then who is this guy who’s pretending to be you?”

  “That,” said the Saint, “is what I’d like to know. I’ll have to try and find out.” He took the hand out of his left side pocket. “Now that we understand each other, I guess you won’t mind if I leave.”

  Rick the Barber stood up and came around the desk. He opened the door.

  The first gunman, reinforced by two others, stood watchfully in the corridor outside.

  “It’s okay,” Lansing said. “The Saint is okay.”

  Simon strolled through the goon squad, and Lansing followed him out to the bar.

  “Will you let me know if you find out anything, Saint?”

  “I will if you will,” Simon agreed. “By the way, how was this dough to be paid?”

  “In an envelope addressed to Cleve Wentz at the Canal Street Post Office, general delivery. I can have the boys keep an eye on the window.”

  “It might take a long time,” said the Saint. “And it still wouldn’t be easy to spot the pickup. But there’s no harm trying…I’ll be seeing you, Rick. Give my regards to Lady Macbeth.”

  Nevertheless, he had no more brilliant ideas himself, and even the nest morning found him without inspiration. The problem of locating an anonymous impersonator who had just spoken to somebody once on the telephone made the proverbial needle in the haystack look simple.

  He was brooding over the impasse after a late breakfast when there was a knock on the door, and when he opened it he was confronted by a pair of rather prominent eyes in a lean dyspeptic face which he recognized instantly. Taken in conjunction with the recent trend of his thoughts, the recognition gave him a premonitory qualm which no one could have guessed from the cordiality with which he renewed an old acquaintance.

  “Why, Alvin!” he exclaimed. “This is a pleasant surprise. Come in and tell me about your latest triumphs.”

  Lieutenant Alvin Kearney came in without a responding smile, but there was a certain amount of smugness in the lines of his normally unhappy countenance.

  “I don’t know what sort of a triumph you’d call it,” he said. “But this time I’ve really got the goods on you, my friend.”

  The Saint looked puzzled.

  “The goods, Alvin?”

  “Yeah,” Kearney said grimly. “Although frankly I never thought I’d get you for common blackmail.”

  Simon realized that he had been unduly despondent. He didn’t think for a moment that Rick the Barber would have gone to the police, but what he had overlooked was that the impostor was not likely to stop with one victim.

  “A lot of people seem to be going nuts these days,” he remarked almost cheerfully. “Who says I’m blackmailing him now?”

  “Vincent Maxted.”

  “The meat packer?”

  “You ought to know,” Kearney said. “You claim to be able to prove that he made a nice piece of change during the war out of black-market steaks.”

  Simon lighted a cigarette.

  “I keep being amazed by the things I know,” he said. “It’s a little startling to be credited with clairvoyance all of a sudden. The embarrassing thing is that I don’t really deserve it. I assure you, Alvin, this is the first I’ve heard about Maxted’s illegal butchery.”

  “Is that so?” Kearney was unimpressed. “Then I guess you’d figured he’d just be scared enough to pay up rather than go through an investigation. It doesn’t make any difference. You made the threat anyhow, and he’ll be able to identify your voice.”

  “My voice? On the telephone?” Simon scoffed.

  “That’s for your lawyer to fight about. It’s good enough for me to hold you. Let’s go, Saint. I’ve got a nice cozy room reserved for you at headquarters.”

  Simon thought for a few moments.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “If you want to stick your neck out I suppose I can’t stop you. Do you mind if I throw a few things in a bag?”

  “Make it snappy,” Kearney said.

  He followed Simon into the bedroom. The Saint pulled out a suitcase and opened it. He took out a crumpled piece of paper, glanced at it, and gave a guilty start. Rather clumsily, he tried to get rid of it under the bed. “What’s that?” Kearney snapped.

  “Nothing,” said the Saint unconvincingly. “Just an old bill.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Simon hesitated, without moving.

  Kearney came around the bed, pushed the Saint aside, and went down on his knees to grope underneath.

  Simon stepped out of the bedroom, closed the door, and turned the key in the lock, in one fluid sweep of co-ordinated movements. He was out of the suite so quickly that he did not even hear the detective’s roar of rage.

  By day, the Blue Paradise had an uninviting drabness which contrasted significantly with its neon-lighted nocturnal glitter. The doors were inhospitably closed and locked, but Simon found a bell to ring, and after a while a beady eye peered out through a two-inch opening and was sufficiently satisfied to let him in.

  “Greetings, Sonny Boy,” said the Saint. “Is Rick around yet?”

  “I guess he’ll see you,” conceded the gunsel gloomily, and Simon went through the dim deserted bar and down the back corridor to Lansing’s office.

  “I’ve got news for you, Rick,” he said. “You’re in good company.”

  Lansing looked up from the accounts he was studying. “What does that mean?”

  “Someone else I don’t have anything on is being blackmailed by the Saint.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Simon skipped the question for a moment. “Did you buy any black-market meat during the war?”

  “Maybe you really want a job in the floor show,�
�� Lansing said. “I’ll buy the gag. So I had to stay in business. So what?”

  “Did you get anything through Vincent Maxted?”

  Lansing’s eyelids flickered. “What about him?”

  “Only this,” said the Saint. “The first job of blackmail that we met over referred to something which only you or someone very close to you should have known. Maybe the same can be said about this new job. I’ve got an idea it can. And if that’s true, we may be getting somewhere. We don’t want to miss something that might be right under our nose.”

  Lansing’s eyes were flat and hard like jet. “I can only think of one guy who might be liable to know as much as I know myself, including about what happened to Jake,” he said. “But don’t ask me how he’d know. I just say I could believe it because I know the kind of guy he is. This guy always seems to know too much about everything that goes on.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “Some people call him the Saint.” Simon smiled.

  “You give me too much credit, Rick. As a matter of fact, I never suspected anything about Jake Hardy until you practically told me yourself. I’d never even given it a thought. From what I hear, he was no great loss to the community, so why should I worry about how he was moved on? I couldn’t have cared less if it had been the other way around, and when somebody does get you one of these days, as they probably will, it still won’t bother me.”

  “Then what are you wasting your time here for?”

  “Because I hate people taking my name in vain, and because I’m beginning to think it’s someone quite close to you. Someone who knows much more about your affairs than I do,” said the Saint thoughtfully. He went to the door. “Think it over, chum.”

  There was a drugstore on the corner of the block, and he stopped there to phone Patricia.

  “No doubt you’ve seen Kearney,” he said.