“Yus—I seen ’im once.”
“You can ring him up and say what I tell you to.”
Enright looked at the telephone, and then at the Saint again.
“Yer wouldn’t fergit yer promise, would yer, guv’nor?—cross yer ’eart and ’ope to die?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” said the Saint gravely.
Mr Ronald Nilder was completing the packing of his third suitcase when the telephone bell rang in his bedroom. For a few minutes he thought of letting it ring unanswered, but cunning dictated the bolder course. He picked up the receiver.
“’Ullo,” said a voice. “Is that Nilder?”
“This is Mr Nilder speaking,” he replied primly.
“Goldman wants to know why yer ain’t come to see ’im like ’e told yer. ’E says yer to meet ’im at once outside Mark Lane Station. It’s very urgent.”
Nilder hesitated for a moment. Then:
“All right,” he said. “Who’s that speaking?”
“Enright ’ere,” said the voice. “Go on—’urry. If Goldman ain’t there yer to wait for ’im. G’bye.”
Nilder replaced the receiver, and paced up and down the room. He had planned to catch the eight-twenty train via Newhaven, and that gave him plenty of time to keep the appointment. After all, Goldman had no reason to suspect that he had given anything away. It was just his bad luck that the Saint had caught him—the same thing had happened to other men, and their integrity had not been questioned. He had the testimony of his engineer to support his story. He knew Enright’s name and recognised his voice after the name was given him—there was no trap about it. It would be quite safe to hear what Goldman had to say—it might even have a valuable bearing on his own getaway—whereas to evade it would immediately arouse suspicion. And already he was feeling a little ashamed of the panic that had made him draw all his money from the bank and pack up to leave London in such haste.
Thus Ronald Nilder worked it out, as the Saint had expected him to, and left his flat five minutes later. But just in case of accidents he removed the bulging wallet from his pocket and hid it behind a row of books—his pocket would have been well worth picking that afternoon.
He had a long wait at Mark Lane, but with that we are not yet concerned.
It was half-past four when Simon Templar arrived at Tex Goldman’s apartment by way of the fire escape and let himself in through the bathroom window. A call from the nearest telephone booth had ascertained that Goldman was not at home, and the Saint was not looking quite like his normal self. He had a suit of workman’s overalls over his clothes and a leather bag of tools in his hand, in which outfit he was not likely to arouse so much curiosity on fire escapes as he would have done in one of the light grey fresco suits of Anderson & Sheppard. But the gun which he had taken from Clem Enright was in his pocket, and it was fully loaded. Simon Templar was cleaning up. And he was making no mistakes.
Tex Goldman came in at five.
He had a girl with him—the girl who had partnered him at the night club. She was a rather beautiful child, with fair hair that was a little too brilliant to be natural, and big serious eyes. She hung on Tex Goldman’s arm. It was the visit to his apartment that he had worked for so long, and the way it had happened was one that he had not expected a week ago.
“It’s marvellous, Tex,” she said.
“It ain’t bad,” said Tex Goldman. “It just wanted one thing and she’s here now.”
She sat in the settee. He sat on the arm, looking down at her.
“Gee, baby,” he said, “if you told me a week ago I could do this, I’d’ve burst myself laughin’. Must be old age, I reckon.”
“I don’t care what it is.”
Goldman took out a bulky leather case. With the unconsciousness of habit, he nipped the end off a cigar and stuck it between his teeth.
“I guess you know all about me,” he said.
“I don’t mind.”
“It ain’t much to think about. All my life I been a hood. That’s the way I was raised. I came out of the gutter—but I came out. Back in St. Louis they call me tough. I killed plenty men, but that don’t seem to mean a thing. It’s the way you work in the racket—bump a guy before he bumps you. But I never double-crossed a pal, and I never carried a gun for vice. I ain’t pullin’ any reformation act. I guess I’ll go on the same way—till I get mine.”
She took a scented cigarette from a lacquer case, and stared straight ahead.
“I’m not such a schoolgirl myself,” she said quietly. “I’ve been around. I don’t like killing—any of those things you do. I don’t like knowing I’ll have to sit around and wait till someone does the same thing to you; I didn’t think I could ever face it. Now it seems different, somehow. I’ve got no choice. I just want you to be good to me.”
“I’m on the level, kid. I never been mushy in my life so I can’t say any of those pretty things you’d like to hear. But I’ll play square with you.”
“Always?”
“Say, if I ever give you the runaround, you can put me on the spot with my own gun.”
It was at that moment that Tex Goldman’s head was hit.
The blow didn’t stun him. It wasn’t intended to. But he felt the sickening sharp crash of a gun-butt at the base of his hair, and it seemed to rock the brain inside his skull so that for a second or two his sight was blotted out in a dizzy sea of blackness filled with whirling red sparks. He pitched forward, throwing out his hands and saved himself on the table. He heard the girl beside him cry out, and then a hand snatched at his hip pocket before his wits could struggle back to coherent functioning. When his own hand reached the pocket his gun was gone.
He turned slowly, and saw the weapon being juggled gently round the forefinger of a tall man in grey.
“Hullo, Tex.”
Goldman drew himself up rockily under the rake of the tall man’s smile.
“What the hell—”
“No bad language, Tex,” said the Saint. “I’m sorry I had to dot you a small one, but I thought it’d be safer. You’re the kind of guy who wouldn’t be stuck up very easily, and if you tried to shoot it out with me the birds in the other apartments might have heart failure.”
Goldman’s eyes creased up till only the pupils showed, gleaming like frozen chips of jet.
“Mr Simon Templar?”
“Yeah. And breaking up your racket. This country can get along without your kind of crime. Maybe America can show us lots of things, but you’ve come over with one kind of thing we don’t want to be shown. It upsets all the dear old ladies who make our laws.” The Saint was not smiling. “Too many men have been killed since you set up shop. I came here to kill you, Tex.”
The girl clutched at Tex Goldman’s hand, staring at the Saint with wide pitiful eyes.
“You can’t!” she sobbed. “You can’t! We were only married today—”
Not a muscle of the Saint’s face moved.
“I’m taking the girl, too,” he said. “For another reason. You get it together.”
She shrank against Tex Goldman’s shoulder with horror added to the tragedy of her eyes.
“Why d’you want to kill me?” she whispered. “I’ve done nothing, I’ve never killed anyone…But I don’t care! I don’t care! I love him! Go on, you coward—”
“Never mind that.” Tex Goldman’s voice cut very quietly and tremorlessly through hers. “Never mind what you think she’s done, Templar, I guess you’re wrong about her. She’s on the level. You can’t burn down a woman. You got me all right. Give me what’s coming to me. But let the kid get the hell out of here first. I can take it for both of us.”
He looked at the Saint without flinching. That was the racket. You took it when your turn came, without whining. You didn’t show yellow.
And then he saw that the Saint was smiling.
“Thanks, Tex,” said the Saint. “You’ve got the guts. I guess that lets you out.”
8
Goldman d
idn’t understand.
“I told you I came here to kill you,” said the Saint. “That’s about true—anyway, it’s one reason. Then I heard your conversation. I just wondered. The girl told me you were married today. I put up the rest of it just to prove to myself whether you were really on the level, and it seems as if you are. It breaks my heart but I suppose we’ll have to go home now without killing you. Even I can’t spoil a honeymoon…It’s rather a charming thought, Tex—that after all you may be a white-haired old daddy one day, sitting by the fire with a dozen kiddies perched on your knee, telling them fairy stories about the Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldmanlocks and The Three Bears, and Wicked Uncle Al.”
Goldman drew a deep breath, but he did not speak. The cold winds of death had blown too close to him, and when that clammy breath is still in a man’s throat he has very little to say.
“But the part about breaking up your racket has got to stand,” said the Saint, and his blue eyes were steady steel again as he spoke. “We don’t like it—it makes life just a little too strenuous. I’ve emptied your safe already this afternoon, and I expect you’ll find that rather discouraging.”
He indicated the open door of the bedroom through which he had come. Smiling momentarily, he dipped into a side pocket and dug out half a dozen large notes which he dropped on to the settee.
“I’ll give you these back as a wedding present. You wouldn’t want to arrive back in St. Louis broke.”
Goldman moistened his lips.
“Still hijacking, huh?”
“Still hijacking. All this is to be divided up among the poor devils who got shot in the course of your campaign, except what I keep myself. I take a rather larger share, because I was getting shot at all the time. You won’t see it back, Tex.” The Saint’s voice was grim and purposeful. “You won’t even get me bumped before you go, because you don’t know where I’m staying and you won’t have time to find me. You’re taking a train to France at eight-twenty and you can make your sailing arrangements from Cherbourg. You needn’t tell Ted Orping and all the boys, but that’s what you’re going to do. Because at ten o’clock tonight, whether I’m alive or dead, a message will go to Chief Inspector Teal at Scotland Yard and tell him all about the deportation order that still holds good against William Gold, alias Tex Goldman, cheap stick-up man of six years back. You won’t find it so easy to slip into the country again.”
Tex Goldman stared at him.
“How did you find out about that?”
“Comrade Nilder told me,” said the Saint easily. “He falls apart with a very little shaking.”
Goldman showed his teeth.
“I might have known it. That lousy, double-crossing little heel—”
“I should speak to him quite severely about it if I were you,” said the Saint, very softly. “Unless I’m mistaken, he’ll be calling in here before you go to tell you his troubles…And now I must leave you. Have a jolly honeymoon—and when you give my love to the boys in St. Louis, say it with ukuleles. Fare thee well, fair lady.”
He retreated smartly to the door and let himself out. In another moment he was flying down the stairs.
On the street corner he came up behind Mr Teal.
“Well, what is it?” demanded the detective. “I got your message and came straight along, but why all the mystery?”
“I don’t want to speak too soon,” said the Saint, “but I think we may see some fun. A certain gentleman is very annoyed.”
“Who do you mean?”
The Saint was smilingly uncommunicative. He took Teal’s arm and guided him into a convenient tea-shop, choosing a table near the window from which he could keep the entrance of Tex Goldman’s apartment block under observation.
They sat there for two hours, and Mr Teal grew restive.
“If you can’t show me any more than a plate of toasted scones,” he said, “I’ll have to be going. I’ve got work to do. What’s on your mind?”
“Don’t go yet, Claud,” said the Saint. “I’ve done more work today than you’ve done in the last week. I’ve been cleaning up. Things are happening now.”
This was just five minutes after he had seen Ted Orping pass in through the door he was watching.
Tex Goldman answered the bell.
“What is it, Ted?” he asked briefly.
He was impatient, but he did not want Orping to see it. In the bedroom, three suit-cases were packed and ready for his departure.
“That bus depot hold-up tonight, boss—”
“It’s postponed—indefinitely.”
Ted Orping’s eyebrows went up.
“What for, boss?”
“It’s poppycock—that’s why. It’s a waste of time. It’s a risk for nothing.” Goldman tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you why I’m passing it up, Ted. I’ve got on to something that’ll make you wonder why you ever wasted your time holding up a bank. It’s something so big, it’ll make your mouth water till you have to tie a bucket round your neck. And it’s fool-proof. One grand raid—and finish. There’ll be ten thousand pounds in it for every man who doesn’t go soft. Have a cigar.”
Orping’s eyes opened.
“What is it, boss?”
“I can’t tell you now.” Goldman glanced round him. He lowered his voice. “There’s a squealer somewhere—and I got a hunch I could lay my finger on him. Nothing’s safe while there’s squealers around.”
Orping’s mouth hardened. He bit off the end of a cigar, and spat it into the fireplace.
“Let me see him!”
The front door bell rang again. Goldman’s cold eyes bored into Ted’s like the eyes of a statue. He spoke out of the side of his mouth, viciously.
“Let him in.”
Orping went to the door.
It was Ronald Nilder—hatless, ashen grey of face, loose mouth quivering. A soiled scrap of paper was clutched in one trembling hand. He rushed half-way across the room towards Goldman and pulled up, his fists clenched and his pasty features jerking.
“What’s this mean?” he almost screamed. “Tell me what it means, damn you!”
“What does what mean?” asked Goldman coldly.
Nilder thrust out the scrap of paper. Unhurriedly Goldman flattened it out and read what was written on it.
See me before you take all your money abroad.
T. G.
“I took all my money out of the bank,” Nilder was babbling. “I put it in my wallet. When you telephoned for me to meet you at Mark Lane I hid it behind some books in my flat. I waited an hour for you. When I got back, the door had been broken in and my wallet was empty. That’s all there was in it. What d’you mean by taking my money, you—”
With three more unhurried movements Goldman tore the paper across, across, and across again, and trickled the pieces into his wastepaper basket. Then he looked at Nilder again, and there was such an inexorable malignity in his gaze that the other’s babbling died away into a strangled silence.
“I didn’t send for you to meet me at Mark Lane,” he said; “I didn’t write that note, and I don’t know anything about your money. Now tell me why you squealed to the Saint.”
Nilder’s mouth seemed to go whiter. He took breath in two quick frantic gasps. His mouth was sagging open in a horrible limpness of fear.
“You needn’t answer,” Goldman said, with that same slow frozen venom. “I can read it in your face. You squealed because you’re yellow. He slapped your wrist once, and you fell to pieces. That’s what a rat like you does. And then you come here with some lily-livered gold-bricking alibi, and hope I’ll eat it. What d’you think this is—a kindergarten? What do I do—fall on your neck and kiss you? You louse!”
“I didn’t!” Nilder gibbered throatily. “Don’t look at me like that, Goldman. I wouldn’t squeal on you. I wouldn’t give you away. I can explain everything, I tell you. Listen to me—”
“Get out!” rasped Goldman, in a sudden hiss of icy savagery. “Get out of my sight—before I smash that s
nivelling face of yours into jelly!”
Nilder backed away with a choking gulp. Never in his life had he seen such a bitter malevolence blazing at him out of a pair of human eyes.
“Don’t hit me!” he gabbled. “Don’t hit me. I didn’t tell anything. I wouldn’t double-cross you. Listen, Goldman—”
Ted Orping grasped him by the collar and hurled him back to the door.
“You heard what the boss said,” he snarled. “Scram!”
Mr Ronald Nilder had never done anything so undignified. He did not even know what the word meant, but the tone in which it was uttered was sufficient explanation. Shaking with a sick terror of what he had seen in Tex Goldman’s eyes, he scrammed.
Ted Orping listened to the front door closing. He looked at the man from St. Louis.
“Do I give him the works, boss?”
Tex Goldman lighted his cigar before replying. It was a long time since he had felt any satisfaction in pronouncing sentence of death. In the racket, death was meted out simply as an operation of expediency—without hate, often even with regret. But for this time at least he felt a vindictive sense of justice.
“Yeah,” he said. ‘Put him out.”
Simon Templar saw Nilder walking blindly away from the block, and stood up, plunking a half-crown down on his bill. Teal followed him. As they reached the pavement, Ted Orping came out and slipped into the footsteps of the Cosmolite Vaudeville Agent.
“What’s happening?” asked Teal.
“Something good and fast,” answered the Saint, “or I’m no psychologist.”
He led Teal on to join the procession of two. Suddenly Nilder stopped and hailed a taxi that came crawling past. Orping spun round and gazed into a shop window just quickly enough to escape notice. As soon as Nilder had climbed in, Orping dashed across the road and entered another cab. Simon pulled his hat down over his eyes and sprinted for the nearest rank, dragging the detective after him. They sank on to the cushions breathlessly.
“This is a game of follow-my-leader,” said the Saint, almost merrily.
The three taxis speeded in procession along the Marylebone Road, worked down to Portland Place, crossed Oxford Street, and went down Regent Street. One tour of the Piccadilly Circus merry-go-round, and they cut down into Jermyn Street.
The Saint and Mr. Teal (The Saint Series) Page 15
