18 The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

by Leslie Charteris

  He saw the quick pressure of white teeth on her lip.

  "Talk to Graner?" she gasped. "You can't do that --"

  "Can't I?" said the Saint grimly. "He's expecting me!"

  2 Her eyes widened.

  "You?"

  "Yours sincerely. We got off the boat late, and then they didn't have any proper tackle to land the car. Every time they rigged up some gimcrack contraption the ropes broke, and then they all stood around waving their arms about and telling each other why it didn't work. When we did get off, I had to hang around for the other half of the day trying to get the carnet stamped. Tenerife again. After that was all over we came and fixed ourselves up here, and what with one thing and another we seemed to need a few drinks and a spot of food before we plunged into any more excite­ment. So we had them. Eventually we did make some enquiries about Graner, and after six people had given us sixteen different directions, we were on our way to try and find him when we met you." The Saint smiled. "But Reuben is expecting me all right!"

  "Why?"

  Simon looked at his watch.

  "Do you know that it's just about midnight?" he said. "I think there are a few other things to be done before we talk any more. Joris needs some rest, if no­body else does." He took another quick turn up and down the room, and came back. "What's more, I don't think we'd better make any noise about having him here-the first thing Graner's crowd will do is to beat around the hotels. Hoppy brought him in as a drunk, and the night man doesn't know who's staying here and who isn't. So Hoppy had better keep him for to­night without any advertisement, and maybe tomor­row we'll think of something else to do with him. Is that okay with you, Hoppy? You can sleep on the floor or put yourself in the bath or something."

  "Sure, boss," said Mr Uniatz obligingly. "Anyt'ing is jake wit' me."

  "Good." Simon smiled at the girl again. "In that case, I'll just toddle down and organize a room for you."

  He left the room and ran briskly downstairs. After Waking more noise than half-a-dozen inexperienced burglars trying to enter the hotel by knocking the front door down with a battering-ram, he finally suc­ceeded in rousing the night porter from his slumbers and explained his requirement.

  The man looked at him woodenly.

  "Mańana," he said, with native resourcefulness. "Tomorrow, when there is someone who knows about rooms, you will be able to arrange it."

  "Tomorrow," said the Saint, "the Teide may start to erupt, and the inhabitants of this God-forsaken place may move quickly for the first time in their lives. I want a room tonight. What about going to the office and looking at the books?"

  " 'Stá cerrao," said the other pessimistically. "It is shut."

  The Saint sighed.

  "It is for a lady," he explained, attempting an appeal to the well-known Spanish spirit of romance.

  The man continued to gape at him foggily. If it was a seńorita, he appeared to be thinking, why should there be so much fuss about getting her a room?

  "You have a room," he pointed out.

  "I know," said the Saint patiently. "I've seen it. Now I want another. Haven't you got a list of the rooms occupied, so that you know how many people you have to check in before you lock up?"

  "There is the list," admitted the porter cautiously.

  "Well, where is it?"

  The man rummaged behind his desk and finally pro­duced a soiled sheet of paper. Simon looked at it.

  "Now," he said, "does it occur to you that the rooms which are not on this list will be empty?"

  "No," said the porter, "because they do not always put all the numbers on the list."

  Simon drew a deep breath.

  "Are you waiting for anybody else to come in?"

  "Only number fifty-one," said the man, who apparently had his own clairvoyant method of checking the homing guests.

  "Then the other keys in those boxes belong to empty rooms," persisted the Saint, whose association with Hoppy Uniatz had made him more than ordinarily skilful at making his points with pellucid clarity.

  The porter sullenly acknowledged that this was probably true.

  "Then I'll have one of them," said the Saint.

  He reached over and helped himself to the key which hung in the box numbered forty-nine, which was the next number to his own. Then he opened the doors of the automatic elevator and got in. He pressed the button for the top floor. Nothing happened.

  "No funciona," said the porter, with a certain morose satisfaction; and Simon heard him snoring again before he had climbed the first flight of stairs.

  He recovered his good humour on the way back, partly because his mind was too taken up with other things to brood for long over the deficiencies of the Canary Island character. He had more things to think about than he really wanted, and already he began to feel the beginnings of a curious dread of the time which must come when certain questions could no longer be postponed. . . .

  "You ought to stay here and settle down, Hoppy," he remarked, as he re-entered the bedroom. "Compared with the natives, you'd look such a genius that they'd probably make you mayor. All the same, I got a room,"

  He went over to the bed and felt Vanlinden's pulse again.

  "Do you think you could walk a little way?" he said.

  "I'll try."

  Simon helped him up and kept an arm round him.

  "Give me five minutes to get him undressed and into bed," he said to Christine, "and then Hoppy can bring you along."

  Hoppy's room was two doors along the passage, with the room Simon had taken for Christine in between. Nearly all Vanlinden's emaciated weight hung on the Saint's strong arm.

  "Don't you think I could look after myself?" he said when they got there; and the Saint dubiously let him go for a moment.

  The old man started to take off his coat. He got one arm out of its sleeve; and then he stood still, and a queerly childish perplexity crinkled over his face, "Perhaps I'm not very well," he said huskily, and sat down suddenly on the bed.

  Simon undressed him. Stripped naked, the old man was not much more than skin and bones. Where the skin was not raw or starting to turn black and blue, it was very white and almost transparent, with characteristic soft creases round the neck and shoulders that told their own story. Simon examined him again and treated his more obvious injuries with deft and amaz­ingly gentle fingers. Then he wrapped him up in a suit of Mr Uniatz' eye-paralysing silk pajamas, and had just tucked him up when Hoppy and Christine ar­rived. Simon went back to his own room then returned to the bedside with a couple of tiny white tablets and a glass of water.

  "Will you take these?" he said. "They'll help you to rest."

  He supported the old man's head while he drank the water, and laid him gently back. Vanlinden looked up at him.

  "You've been kind," he said. "And I am tired."

  "Tomorrow you'll be crowing like a fighting cock," said the Saint.

  He took Hoppy by the arm and drew him out of the room; but as soon as he turned away from the bed, the cheerfulness went out of his face. There was no doubt that Joris Vanlinden was an old man, old not only in body but also in mind; and Simon knew that, in that subtle process which is called growing old, the hopelessness of the last four years must have played more than their full part. What would be the effect of that night's beating on the old man's ebbing vitality? And how much more would the crowning blow of the stolen ticket drain from his failing strength?

  Simon sat on the rail of the veranda and smoked down half an inch of his cigarette, quietly considering the questions. They were still unanswered when he forced his mind away from them. He pointed to the room.

  "When you go back in there, Hoppy," he said, "lock the door and put the key in your pocket and keep it there. Don't let anybody in or out till I come round in the morning-not even yourself, unless you have to call me during the night."

  "Okay, boss."

  Mr Uniatz struck a match and relighted as much of his cigar as he had not yet eaten. He looked at the Saint with an expression
which in anyone else might have been called reflective.

  "Dis lottery ticket," he said. "It must be woit plenty."

  "It is, Hoppy. It's worth two million dollars."

  "Chees, boss --" Mr Uniatz counted on his fingers. "What I couldn't do wit' five hundred grand!"

  Simon frowned at him.

  "What do you mean-five hundred grand?"

  "I t'ought ya might make dat my end, boss. De last time, ya cut me in two bits on de buck. Half a million for me an' one an' a half for you. Or is dat too much?" said Hoppy wistfully.

  "Let's work it out when we get it," said the Saint shortly; and then the door opened and Christine came out.

  She nodded in answer to his question.

  "He's asleep already," she said. And then: "I don't see why I should turn your friend out of his bed. I can sleep in a chair and keep an eye on Joris quite easily."

  "Good Lord, no," said the Saint breezily. "Hoppy can sleep anywhere. He sleeps on his feet most of the day. You can't even tell the difference until you get used to him. If Joris wants anything, Hoppy will fix it; and if Hoppy can't fix it he'll call me; and if it's anything serious I'll call you. But you need all the rest you can get, the same as Joris."

  He pushed Hoppy gently but firmly away towards his vigil and unlocked the other room with the key he had taken from downstairs. He switched on the lights and followed her in, locking the door after him and taking the key out to give to her.

  "Keep it like that-just in case of accidents. It's not so much for tonight as for tomorrow, in case Graner and company get up early. You can lock the communicating door on your side."

  He unlocked it and went through into his own room to rake a dressing gown out of his suitcase. When he turned round she had followed him. He hung the robe over her arm.

  "It's the best I can do," he said. "I'm afraid my pajamas would be a bit loose on you, but you can have some if you like. Can you think of anything else ?"

  "Have you got a spare cigarette?"

  He took a packet off the dressing table and gave it to her.

  "So if that's all we can do for you --"

  She didn't make a move to go. She stood there with her hands in the pockets of her light coat and the dress­ing gown looped over her arm, looking at him with dried eyes that he suddenly realised might be impish. The light picked the burnished copper out of the curls on her russet head. Her coat was belted at the waist, and thrown open under the belt; under it the thin dress she wore flowed over slender curves that would have been disturbing to watch too closely.

  "You didn't tell me why Graner's expecting you," she said.

  He sank on to the end of the bed.

  "That's easy. You see, I answered his telegram."

  "You did?"

  "Naturally. I knew Felson and Holby were jewel thieves. I recognised the name of Joris as ... Well, frankly, it was associated with a rather famous job of jewel borrowing. And an unknown Mr Graner seemed to be tied up with the whole party. So I figured that Comrade Graner would be worth looking at. I wired him 'Know very man. Have phoned him. Says he will leave immediately'-and signed it 'Felson.'"

  "You mean you were going to work for him?"

  "I never cut a diamond in my life, darling. And I don't work with anybody. I just thought it might pay a dividend if I got to know Reuben a little better. Reuben would pay the dividend-but not for services rendered."

  "I see." There was a quirk of humour in her straightforward brown eyes. "You thought you could blackmail him."

  His fine brows slanted up at her in a line of gay, unscrupulous mockery.

  "I shouldn't put it like that myself. It probably wouldn't even be literally true. I'm an idealist. You could call me an adjuster of unjust differences. Why should Graner have such a lot of diamonds when I haven't any? If he's anything like what he sounds like from the way you talk about him, it's almost a sacred duty to adjust him. Hence my telegram."

  "But suppose Rodney wired him something different?"

  The Saint smiled.

  "I don't think either Rodney or George is sending any wires just now," he said carefully. "After I picked up the telegram I followed them out of Chicote's to keep an eye on them. As soon as they got outside, a couple of birds in plain clothes flashed badges at them, and then they all got into a taxi and drove away. From the smug expressions of the badge merchants and the worried looks of Rodney and George, I gathered that whatever they were doing in Madrid must have sprung a leak. Anyway, it was good enough to take a chance on."

  "But the others 'll recognise you."

  "I doubt it. It was pretty dark on the road. I wouldn't be too sure of recognising them, apart from the identification marks I left on them-and I had a hat pulled down over my eyes. That's good enough to take a chance on too."

  He put out his cigarette and stood up. The move­ment brought them face to face; and he put his hands on her shoulders.

  "Don't worry any more tonight, Christine," he said. "I know it's pretty hard to take your mind off it, but you've got to try. In the morning we'll do some more work on it."

  "Joris said it," she answered; "you've been very kind."

  "For only doing half a job?" Simon asked flip­pantly.

  "For being so confident and practical. I needed pull­ing together. It seems quite different now, with you helping us. It must be something about you. . . ."

  Her face was turned up to his, and she was So close that he could almost feel the warmth of her body. His pulses beat faster, irresistibly, but his mind was cool. He smiled at her; and suddenly she turned away and went out of the room without looking back.

  The Saint took another cigarette and lighted it with elaborately unhurried precision. For quite half a min­ute he stood still where she had left him, before he strolled over to the wardrobe mirror and examined himself with dispassionate interest.

  "You're being seduced," he said.

  Then he remembered that the Hirondel was still parked outside the hotel. It couldn't stay there all night; and a faint frown touched his forehead at the thought that perhaps it had stood out there too long already. But that couldn't be helped, he had had too many other things to think of before. Fortunately he had located a garage during the afternoon. He opened the door of his room very quietly and went downstairs again.

  Already the square was almost deserted-Santa Cruz goes to bed early, for the convincing reason that there is nothing else to do. Simon got into the car and drove up the Calle Castillo. He drove slowly, feeling the effortless purr of the powerful engine soothing and smoothing out his mind, a cigarette slanting be­tween his lips and his finger tips lightly caressing the wheel. The deep hum of the machine distilled itself into his senses, taking possession of him until it was as if the car led him on without any direction of his will. He had had no such thoughts when he left the hotel to put the car away. . . . But there was a turn­ing on the right which he should have taken to go to the garage. . . . He passed it without a glance. The Hirondel droned on, up on to the La Laguna road- towards the house of Reuben Graner.

  3 Simon Templar began to sing, a faint fragment of almost inaudible melody that harmonised with the soft undertones of the engine. The cool night air was refreshing on his face. He was smiling.

  Possibly he was quite mad. If so, he always had been, and it was too late in life to worry about it. But it was his creed that adventure waited for no timetables, and everything he had ever done or ever would do was built up on that reckless faith. He was bound to visit Reuben Graner sometime. At the moment he felt as fresh and wide awake as if he had just got out of a cold bath; and the brief but breezy episode by the roadside a couple of hours before had only whet­ted his appetite. Why should he wait for some Spanish mańana to carry on with the good work?

  Not that he had a single plan of campaign in his head. His mind was a clean slate on which impulse or circumstance or destiny might write anything that happened to amuse them. The Saint was broadmindedly prepared to co-operate in the business of being amused. .
. .

  A gleam of reminiscent humour touched his eyes as he recognised the spot where Joris Vanlinden had introduced himself so appropriately into the general course of events; and then he trod suddenly on the brakes in time to save the lives of a pareja, or brace, of guardias de asalto who stepped out into the path of his headlights and waved to him to stop. Looking around him he discovered that the road was littered with guardias of all shapes and sizes. He saw the sheen of the black oilcloth napoleonic hats of guardias civiles and the dull glint of carbines. There are various species of guardias in Spain, intended between them to perform the various functions of police work; and it is popularity believed that the word has no singular, since they are only seen in parejas, or braces, as inevitably as grouse. Even allowing for that, it seemed an unusual concentration; and the Saint's gaze narrowed slightly as the pareja which had stopped him closed in on either side of the car. A torch flashed in his face.

  "Where are you going?" asked half the brace curtly, in Spanish; and Simon answered in the same language: "To visit a friend. He's expecting me."

  "Baje usted."

  Simon got out. The other guardia came round the car and attached himself again to his comrade. It was like a reunion of Siamese twins. Half the brace kept him covered while the other half searched him rapidly.

  The Saint remembered that since he had left the hotel with no nefarious intent he had not even troubled to take a gun. He had only one weapon-the slim razor-edged throwing knife strapped to his left forearm under his sleeve which he would not have exchanged for all the firearms in the world-but the search was not thorough enough to discover that.

  "ż Su documentación?"

  Simon produced his passport. It was examined and returned to him.

  "żTurista?"