“Good-bye, old fruit,” said the Saint pleasantly, without looking up.
“When Mr Vanney comes back,” drawled the imperturbable Mr Teal, “you might tell him, with my compliments, that if he makes any more childish attempts to kill me, I shall be seriously annoyed.”
He closed the door again and resumed his leisurely progress towards the stairs, humming gently to himself.
Mr Teal had never been able to overcome a weakness for playing the magazine detective.
3
Simon Templar put the finishing touches to the letter he was drafting. Then, settling himself back in his chair, he reached out a long arm to the neat row of bell-pushes which occupied one corner of his desk. Selecting one with a thoughtful air, he pressed it. The small brass plate beside the knob was engraved with the word “Secretary,” and the bell rang in the opposite corner of the same room, over Pamela Marlowe’s head. The outsider would have failed to see the point of this arrangement, but the Saint had not been in business long enough to get tired of playing with the mechanical gadgets provided in all up-to-date offices for the amusement of the staff.
Simon lighted a cigarette and gazed reflectively at the ceiling.
“Take a letter,” he said. “This is to Stanforth and Watson: ‘Dear Sirs,—With reference to our telephone conversation this morning. Stop.’ Something seems to be eating you.”
Pamela Marlowe looked up from her pad in surprise.
“Do you want me to put that down?” she asked.
“No,” replied the Saint, taking his eyes off the ceiling. “The remark was addressed to you.”
He was regarding her keenly, and after a few seconds’ silence she looked away.
“You may tell me all,” he remarked gently. “I am a Grand Master of the Order of Father Confessors.”
She met his eyes again, and the question with which she took advantage of his invitation did not come as a surprise to him.
“Who was that man who came in just now?”
“That,” said the Saint, “was the worthy Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, of the Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard. He has a prying disposition, and he isn’t anything like the fool he looks. I grant you that would be difficult.”
The girl hesitated, fidgeting with her pencil. But Simon, unruffling himself, made no attempt to fluster her.
“Mr Tombs,” she said at length, “I wasn’t trying to hear the conversation that went on after you sent me out of the room, but the partition wall is very thin.”
“It’s these jerry-building methods,” sighed the Saint. “I’ll dictate a letter to The Times about it in a moment.”
The girl’s lips tightened a little.
“I couldn’t help hearing what Mr Teal said.”
Simon said nothing.
He, who should by rights have been the one to show embarrassment, registered nothing of the kind.
“You didn’t deny his charges,” said the girl.
“Naturally not,” said the Saint. “George Washington was an ancestor of mine, and I cannot tell a lie.”
Pamela Marlowe had heard of the Saint—she would have been an amazing woman if she had not. The Saint realised exactly what was in her mind, but the thought failed to disturb him. He was mildly amused.
“What’s the worry?” he inquired.
“Are you really the Saint?”
“I am. Did you really think I went through life permanently attached by the ear to a name like Sebastian Tombs?”
“Well,” said the girl bluntly, “I shall hate doing it, but doesn’t it occur to you that it is my duty to say something to Mr Vanney about it? That is, if you can’t give me some sort of explanation.”
Simon smiled without mockery.
“Of course it is,” he agreed cheerfully. “And I should like to say that I appreciate the nobility of your impulse. I shall draw Mr Vanney’s attention to it. But as for the other matter, I’m afraid you won’t be able to tell him anything that he doesn’t know. The thought that I am immovably parked in this office is the bane of his life. Try it on him tomorrow morning, if you don’t believe me.”
He dictated a number of letters, waited while she typed them, and took them into Mr Vanney’s private office. He was back in a few moments with the sheaf duly signed.
“You can go as soon as you have addressed them,” he said. “George will take them down to the post.”
She ventured to be inquisitive.
“Why do we need a special porter for this office?” she asked.
“One should always,” said the Saint impressively, “surround oneself with all the evidences of prosperity that one can afford. It creates a good impression. George will have his nice new uniform with brass buttons tomorrow and I shall expect to see an immediate jump in our turnover.”
It was an invariable rule at Vanney’s that Mr “Tombs” was the last to leave the office. On that particular evening, however, Pamela Marlowe, with her hat and coat on, appeared to be uncertain whether she should take him at his word.
“I’ve told you you can go,” said the Saint, without looking up from the letter he was perusing.
She made a demur.
“Are you sure Mr Vanney won’t want me again?”
“Mr Vanney,” said the Saint carefully, “never wants you. You know that perfectly well.”
It was true. All instructions to the office staff were given by Mr “Tombs,” and he dictated all the letters that were sent out, and opened all that came in. The rest of the staff were never allowed to pass through the door marked “Private.”
“I’ve told you that I shall not want you anymore this evening,” said the Saint, “and you may take that as official. Mr Vanney has already left.”
She stared.
“He hasn’t come through for his hat and coat,” she objected.
“He left by his private entrance,” Simon answered shortly, “without a hat and coat. He has just joined the Ancient Order of Kangaroos, and one of their rules is that no member is allowed to take his hat and coat home with him on Friday.”
There was nothing for her but to leave without further argument, but the incident found its place in her memory beside a number of other extraordinary things which she had noticed during the few months that she had worked under Simon Templar.
Mr “Tombs” was in every way an ideal employer. His manner, without being brusque, was at all times irreproachably impersonal, but she had never been able to understand his mentality. Whenever she ventured to comment on any unusual happening, he was never at a loss for an explanation, but the reasons he gave so glibly would have been an insult to the intelligence of an imbecile.
There had been a time when she had wondered if he fancied himself as a wag and was expecting her to laugh, but he made the most outrageous statements without smiling, and if he showed any emotion at all it was one of concealed delight at her annoyed perplexity.
She found another enigma to interpret when she arrived at the office the following Monday, for the Saint, with his coat off, was supervising the finishing touches which were being put by two workmen to a curious erection which had appeared at the far end of the private corridor.
Simon greeted her in his usual affable manner, and invited her to admire it.
“This is George’s new home,” he said.
It was, in fact, no more than a partition which turned into a sort of cubicle at the blind end of the passage beyond the door that opened into Vanney’s private room. It would have been nothing but an ordinary janitor’s box but for an unusual feature in its design. The partition reached all the way to the ceiling, and there were only two small windows—one in the partition itself, and one in the door which the workmen were at that moment engaged in putting in position. Furthermore, each window was obscured by a row of steel bars set close together.
Coming closer, she made another surprising discovery.
“But why is it lined with steel?” she asked in amazement.
“Becaus
e,” said the Saint, “a half-inch deal board is not much protection against a bullet. We should hate to lose our one and only George.”
The girl was silent, but Simon was perfectly at his ease, “Observe, too, the strategic position,” he murmured, with the enthusiasm of an artist. “No one can reach George without having to cover the whole length of the suite, either through the offices or down the corridor. Consequently, it’ll be his own fault if he doesn’t hear them coming. Besides, we’ve got another little safety device. I’ll show you if you wait here a moment.”
He went down the corridor and as he got near the door a low, buzzing noise came to her ears. Staring blankly about her, she eventually located its source in a small metal box screwed to the wall inside the cubicle.
Simon passed on to the door, and the buzzing stopped. He turned, and it recommenced; then he came back down the corridor, and it stopped again. “What is it?” she asked. “A burglar alarm?”
“The very latest,” said the Saint. “Come and have a look.” He led her down the passage, and when they were within a yard of the door the low buzzing made itself heard again. She stopped and gazed around puzzledly, but she could see nothing.
“I have them all over my own home,” he explained. “It’s the best idea of its kind in the world. It’s worked by a ray that shines across the corridor on to a selenium cell. It’s invisible, but if you get in its path the buzzer gives tongue. It’s impossible to put it out of action until it’s too late, because only Sebastian Tombs”—the Saint shuddered involuntarily—“and the electrician who fitted it know exactly where it is.”
He was amused at her bewilderment.
“Don’t you think it’s rather neat?” he asked.
“It seems a lot of trouble to take over a porter.”
The Saint smiled.
“George,” he said virtuously, “is a member of Vanney’s just as much as you or I. Isn’t it the duty of the firm to see that he is thoroughly protected against the dangers of his position?”
In her astonishment she forgot the lesson which experience should have taught her.
“But why should George be in any danger?” she said, and Simon Templar’s face instantly assumed its grave expression.
“Haven’t you read about all these armed robberies?” he demanded severely. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Black Hand? And do you mean to say that I never told you that the Union of Porters, Commissionaires, Caretakers, Undertakers, and Glue Refiners have threatened to do George in for allowing us to put two more than the regulation number of buttons on his uniform?”
She turned away in despair, and went into the office.
The Saint followed her, and resumed his seat. Then he leaned back in his chair, put his feet on the desk, and pressed the bell marked “Secretary.”
“Take a letter to The Times,” he said. “To the Editor of The Times. ‘Sir,—The scamping of work at present practised by the building trade is a disgrace. Stop. In the house which I have recently taken, the walls are so thin that a nail which I drove into the wall last night, in order to hang a picture, was distinctly felt by the occupant of the next room. Stop. Consequently my wife has been compelled to take her meals off the mantelpiece ever since, with the result that our domestic arrangements have been seriously disorganised. Stop. I am, etcetera, Lieut. Colonel, Retired.’ And just remember, Miss Marlowe, that George is one of the most important people in this office, and if anybody happened to shoot at him successfully the firm would probably go into liquidation, and you and I would be looking for new jobs.”
4
The memory of Mr Teal’s visit had occupied a prominent part of Pamela Marlowe’s thoughts ever since the afternoon when the Saint had so shamefully acknowledged the truth of that lethargic detective’s accusations. But when Simon arrived one morning and told her that he had arranged for her to carry the tale to Vanney, she felt a paradoxical reluctance to go to her employer with a charge against his manager’s honesty, even while she welcomed the opportunity of testing the truth of his statement that Vanney knew the whole story of his misdeeds.
Simon Templar, however, appeared to have no doubts about what the outcome of the interview would be.
“Tell him everything you heard,” he encouraged, when the bell rang from Mr Vanney’s office to summon her. “He will be interested.”
She took the Saint at his word, but it was a profitless conversation.
Vanney listened attentively to her story, but when she had finished she could have sworn that he was smiling behind his beard. His voice, however, was quite serious.
“I appreciate your high sense of duty, Miss Marlowe,” he said, “but what…er…Mr Tombs told you is quite correct. I know everything about him, and in spite of that he has my complete confidence.”
He had a stiff manner of speaking, and appeared to think each sentence out carefully before he uttered it. He did not once look directly at her, but kept his eyes fixed on a point in space a foot or so away from her left shoulder.
“I didn’t wish to do Mr Tombs any harm,” she felt compelled to explain. “But I had to remember that you were the one who was employing me.”
“I quite understand,” said Vanney.
He continued to gaze past her in silence for some seconds, stroking his beard. Then he said, “Did you know that your late guardian’s last request to me was that, if anything happened to him, I should look after you?”
“But you were in Australia.”
“I know,” said Vanney, rather testily. “He wrote to me.”
The girl nodded.
“I see. But I never knew much about him, and I never heard him speak of any of his friends. My father knew him a long time ago—they were boys together, but they hadn’t met for over twenty years. Just before father died, he happened to meet Mr Stenning, quite by accident; and since I had no other relatives living, and father and Mr Stenning had been such close friends, before they lost touch with each other, it was fairly natural that he should appoint Mr Stenning my guardian. But I only saw Mr Stenning three times, and that was when I was quite young. He discharged all his duties through his solicitors.”
“He often mentioned your name to me when he wrote,” said Vanney. “I believe that, behind the scenes, he took a great interest in you.”
He began to fidget with a pencil on his desk, and she could not help noticing his hands. They were rough and ill-kept, and not at all the hands that one would have associated with a millionaire—for Vanney was reputed to be no less.
He appeared suddenly to become aware of their defects, for he dropped the pencil and hid his hands in his pockets.
“I had a very rough life in Australia before I made my fortune,” he volunteered. “And I fear that, as guardian, I should be of very little use to you. Now, of course, you are old enough not to need looking after. But if you would honour me with your company at dinner one evening, Miss Marlowe, I should appreciate the compliment.”
She hesitated.
“If you want me to—”
“You don’t seem very keen,” he said. She had to pause to think of a reply.
“I hardly go out at all,” she said at length, and was conscious of the flimsiness of the excuse as soon as she had uttered it.
But Vanney did not appear to be at all put out. He pulled a book towards him and began to turn the pages.
“Very well, Miss Marlowe,” he said, with a return to the gruffness of tone which had softened for a moment. “That will be all then. You may go back to your work.”
She returned to the outer room feeling vaguely uncomfortable. She knew that her refusal of Vanney’s invitation had not been an example of perfect tact, and the realisation was not a congenial one. There was no logical reason that she could see why she should have been so perverse, and she was annoyed with herself for having given way so readily to an unaccountable feeling of revulsion.
The Saint was drawing on his blotting-pad a portrait of his employer which would, if it had been published in a n
ewspaper, have provided more than sufficient grounds for a libel action.
“You are subdued,” he remarked, without taking his eyes off his work. “Therefore I deduce that you have been unwillingly forced to admit that I’m more truthful by nature than you believed.”
She smiled, but he was not looking at her.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “You warned me that I was making a fool of myself, but I refused to be convinced.”
“Your apology is accepted,” said the Saint amiably.
He picked up a two-colour pencil and added a roseate hue to Mr Vanney’s nose, while she transcribed a letter.
“But,” said the Saint, “if you’re thinking that one day I shall be revealed as the brilliant and noble detective who masquerades as a criminal, caring nothing for his own reputation and matrimonial prospects, in order to nab the crook of crooks, it is my duty to warn you that nothing so romantic will happen. I am a bold, bad man, and I love it. And the fact that you have one of the most adorable mouths I have ever seen will never alter that.”
He said this without the least change of tone, so that it was fully a minute before she realised the meaning of the words which closed his speech. When the point dawned upon her, she stopped tapping the typewriter and stared at him.
The Saint seemed blissfully unaware that he had in any way departed from his usual style of conversation. While she watched him in amazement, he drew a dissipated-looking wrinkle under Vanney’s left eye with the blue end of his pencil, and then laid it down and gazed at the ceiling with an air of furious concentration.
She did not know what to say, and so said nothing. This was not difficult, for he did not appear to be expecting her to make any comment. After a short period of scowling rumination, he picked up his pencil again and continued drawing.
Pamela gazed hopelessly at a blank sheet of paper. The situation was impossible, but the Saint gave no sign that he perceived any incongruity in it.
“You are still subdued, Pamela,” he murmured, pushing the blotter aside. “I can’t imagine that to hear my views on your mouth would affect you so deeply, so I am left to conclude that Vanney has asked you to meet him in a social sort of way.”
Alias the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 3
