"I've offered you police protection."
"I've had police protection, and one of your men was on guard outside my house the night I found a man breaking open my desk. That's all your police protection is worth!"
Cullis tugged at his moustache.
"Still," he said, "there's nothing to connect the Saint with that burglary, any more than there's anything to connect either him or Trelawney with your—er—accident in Paris."
Essenden fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk beneath Cullis's eyes.
"What about that?" he asked.
Cullis looked at a little drawing that was already familiar to him—a childish sketch of a little skeleton man with a symbolical halo woven round his head. But beside this figure there was another such as neither Cullis nor Teal had ever seen before in that context—a figure that wore a skirt and had no halo. And under these drawings were three words: "April the First."
"What about that?" asked Essenden again.
Teal raised his sleepy eyes to the calendar on the wall.
"A week next Friday," he said. "Are you superstitious?"
Essenden was pardonably annoyed.
"If you're supposed to be in charge of this case, Mr. Teal," he said testily, "I don't think much of the way you do your job. Is this the way you train your men to work, Cullis?"
"I didn't train him," said Cullis patiently. "April the first is All Fool's Day, isn't it?"
"I don't see the joke."
"It may be explained to you," said Cullis.
He stood up with a businesslike air, meaning that, so far as he was concerned, the interview had served its purpose. As a matter of fact, this story was a mere variation on a theme which Cullis was already finding wearisome. He had heard too much in a similar strain of late to be impressed by this repetition, although he was far from underestimating its significance. But he could not discuss that with Essenden, for there was something about Lord Essenden which sometimes made Cullis think seriously of murder.
"Let me know any developments," he said with curt finality.
Lord Essenden, it should be understood, though important enough to be able to secure interviews with the assistant commissioner, was not important enough to be able to dictate the course which any interview should take, and this fact was always a thorn in Essenden's vanity.
"You treat it all very lightly," he complained weakly. "I do think you might make some sort of effort, Cullis."
"Every policeman in England is looking for Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney," said the assistant commissioner. "If and when we find them they will be arrested and tried. We can't do more than that. Write down your story and give it to Sergeant Berryman downstairs on your way out, and we'll see that it's added to the dossier. Good-evening."
"I tell you, Cullis, I'm scared——"
Cullis nodded.
"They certainly seem to have it in for you," he said. "I wonder why? Good-evening!"
Essenden felt his hand vigorously shaken, and then he found himself in the stone corridor outside, blinking at a closed door.
He went downstairs and wrote out his formal report, as he had been directed, but with a querulous lack of restraint which spoilt the product as a literary effort. Then he drove to his club and dined and wined himself well before he returned to his waiting car and directed a cold and sleepy chauffeur to take him home.
"Home" was on the borders of Oxfordshire, for Essen-den preferred to live away from the social life of London. Lady Essenden had objections to this misanthropy, of which Lord Essenden took no notice. In his way, he was almost as retiring a character as Mr. Cullis.
Through all that drive home, Lord Essenden sat uncomfortably upright in one corner of his car, sucking the knob of his umbrella and pondering unpleasant thoughts.
It was after midnight when he arrived, and the footman who opened the door informed him that Lady Essenden had gone to bed with a headache two hours earlier.
Essenden nodded and handed over his hat and coat. In exchange, he received one solitary letter, and the handwriting on the envelope was so familiar that he carried it to his study to open behind a locked door. The letter contained in the envelope was not so surprising to him as it would have been a month before:
Have a look at the safe behind the dummy row in your bookcase.
And underneath were the replicas of the two drawings that he had seen before.
Essenden struck a match and watched the paper curl and blacken in an ashtray. Then, with a perfectly impassive fatalism, he went to the bookcase and slid back the panel which on one shelf replaced a row of books. He had no anxiety about any of the papers there, for since the first burglary he had transferred every important document in his house to a safer place.
He opened the safe and looked at the notebook he had lost in Paris.
Thoughtfully he flicked through the pages.
Every entry had been decoded, and the interpretation written neatly in between the lines.
Essenden studied the book for some minutes; and then he dropped it into his pocket and began to pace the room with short bustling strides.
The notebook had not been in the safe when he arrived back from Paris that afternoon. He knew that, for he had deposited some correspondence there before he left again to interview the commissioner. And yet, to be delivered that night, the letter which told him to look in the safe must have been posted early that morning. And early that morning Jill Trelawney and the Saint were in Paris—and the letter was post-marked in London. There was something terrifying about the ruthless assurance which emerged from the linking of those two facts.
A gentle knock on the door almost made Essenden jump out of his skin.
"Would there be anything else to-night, my lord?" inquired the footman, tactfully.
"A large brandy and soda, Falcon."
"Very good, my lord."
In a few moments the tray was brought in.
"Thank you, Falcon."
"I have cut some sandwiches for you, my lord."
"Thank you."
"Is there nothing else, my lord?"
Essenden picked up his glass and looked at it under the light.
"Have there been any callers to-day?"
"No, my lord. But the young man you sent down from London to inspect your typewriter came about six o'clock."
Essenden nodded slowly.
He dismissed the servant, and when the door had closed again, he went to another bookcase and extracted a couple of dusty volumes. Reaching into the cavity behind the other books, he brought out an automatic pistol and a box of cartridges. The books he replaced. Carrying the gun over to the table, he first carefully tested the action and then loaded the magazine, bringing the first cartridge into the chamber and then thumbing in the safety catch.
With the gun in his pocket he experienced a slight feeling of relief.
But for hours afterwards he sat in the study, staring at the embers of the dying fire, sipping brandy and smoking cigarette after cigarette, till the fire died altogether, and he began to shiver as the room grew colder. And thus, alone, through those hours, he pondered fact upon fact, and formed and reviewed and discarded plan after plan, until at last he had shaped an idea with which his weary brain could at the moment find no fault.
It was a wild and desperate scheme, the kind of scheme which a man only forms after a sleepless night fortified with too many cigarettes and too much strong drink taken alone and in fear; but it was the only answer he could find to his problem. He was quite calm and decided about that. When at last he dragged himself to bed, he was more calm and cold and decided than he had ever been before in all his life, was Lord Essenden, that fussy and peevish little man.
2
Simon Templar picked up the sheet of paper on which he had been working spasmodically during the return from Paris, and cleared his throat.
"We understand," he said, "that the following lines have been awarded the Dumbbell Prize for Literature:
Sipping his China tea:
'And where shall I find a fearless knight
To bear a sword for me?
'The beasts are leagued about my gates,
The vultures seek the slain,
Till a perfect knight shall rise and ride
To find the Grail again.'
Then up and spake a Minister,
Sat at the King's right knee:
'Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil
Has a splendid pedigree.
'His brother is Baron de Bathmat Boil,
Who owns the Daily Squeal,
And everybody knows he is
Impeccably genteel.'
'Has he been with my men-at-arms,
Has he borne scars for me,
That I should take this Basil Boil
Among my chivalry?'
'Sire, in a war some years ago
You called him to the fray,
And he would have served you loyally,
But his conscience bade him nay.
'And they took him before the judges,
Because he did rebel,
And he lay a year in prison
To save his soul from hell.'
'Then what have I for a portent,
What bring you me for a sign,
That I should take this coistril
To be a knight of mine?'
'Sire, we are bringing in a bill
Which the Daily Squeal could foil,
And it might be wise to wheedle
Baron de Bathmat Boil.'
Then the King rose up in anger
And seared them with his gaze:
'You have taken the wine and the laughter,
The pride and the grace of days;
'The last fair woman is faded,
And the last man dead for shame,
But a dog from the gutter shall serve me
Before this man you name.'
They heard, and did not answer;
They heard, and did not bend;
And he saw their frozen stillness
And knew it was the end.
Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil
They brought upon a day,
And the King gave him the accolade
And turned his face away.
And saw beyond his windows
The tattered flags unfurled;
And on his brow was a crown of iron
And the weariness of the world."
"What's that supposed to be?" asked the girl blankly.
"If you don't recognize poetry when you hear it," said the Saint severely, "you are beyond salvation. But I'll admit it's rather an amorphous product—my feelings got too strong for gentle satire as I went along. If you saw a -paper the other day, you'll notice that a sometime pacifist has recently received a knighthood. A violent atheist will probably be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and a confirmed teetotaller is going to be the chairman of the next Liquor Commission. After which I shall put my head in a gas oven."
Jill Trelawney selected two lumps of sugar from a silver bowl.
"Something seems to have upset you," she remarked.
"The bleary organization of this wall-eyed world is always upsetting me. It would upset anyone who hadn't been spavined from birth."
"But apart from that?"
"Apart from that," said Simon Templar luxuriously, "I feel that life is very good just now. I have about a hundred thousand francs in my pocket, waiting to be translated into English as soon as the banks open in the morning. I have had a drive in the country. I have discovered that, if all else fails, I can always earn an honest living as an inspector of typewriters. I have bathed, changed, and refreshed myself from my toils and travels with a trio of truly superb kippers cooked with a dexterity that might have made me famous as a chef. My latest poetic masterpiece gives me great satisfaction. And finally, I have your charming company. What more could any man ask?"
He sat at ease in the comfortable little flat near Sloane Square, which he had established long ago as a reserve base against the day when a hue and cry might make his home in Upper Berkeley Mews too hot to hold him. A cup of coffee stood in front of him and a cigarette was between his fingers; and, across the table, he looked into the golden eyes of Jill Trelawney, and made his speech.
"But, Jill," he protested, "there is a far-away look about you. Is it indigestion or love?"
She smiled abstractedly.
"I'm thinking about Essenden," she said.
"So it's love," said the Saint.
"I'm wondering——"
"Seriously, why? In the last twenty-four hours we've devoted ourselves entirely to Essenden. Personally, I'm ready to give the subject a rest. We've done our stuff, for the moment. The egg, so to speak, is on hatch. The worm is on the hook. All we can do now, for a while, is to sit tight and wait."
"Do you think he'll rise?"
"I've told you," said the Saint extravagantly, "he'll rise like a loaf overloaded with young and vigorous yeast. He'll rise so high that pheasants and red herrings won't be in the same street with him. When he's finished rising, he'll have such an altitude that he'll have to climb a ladder to take his shoes off. That's what I say. Take it from me, Jill."
The girl stirred her coffee reflectively.
"All the same," she said, "like all fishing, it's a gamble."
"Not with that fish and that bait, it isn't," answered the Saint. "It's a cinch. Look here. We put the wind up his lordship. We fan into his pants a vertical draught strong enough to lift him through his hat. There's no error about that. So what can he do? He must either (a) sit tight and get ready to face the music, (b) go out and get run over by a bus, or (c) prepare a counter-attack. Well, he's not likely to do (a). If he does (b), we're saved a lot of trouble and hard work. If he does (c) ——"
"Yes," said the girl. "If he does (c) ——"
"He plays right into our hands. He comes out of balk. And once he's in play, we can make our break. Burn it——!"
Simon put out his cigarette and leaned forward.
"This isn't like you, Jill," he said. "It isn't like anything I've ever heard about you; and it certainly isn't a bit like the form you were showing this time last week. Don't tell me your nerve's going soft in the small of the back, because I shan't believe you."
"But what's he likely to do?"
Simon shrugged.
"Heaven knows," he said. "I tell you, our job is just to stand around the landscape and wait. And who cares?"
Jill Trelawney lighted a cigarette and smiled.
"You're right, Simon Templar," she said. "I'm getting morbid. I'm starting to get the idea that things have been just a bit too easy for me—all along. You know how much I've got away with already, and you ought to know that nobody ever gets away with the whole works for ever."
"I do," said the Saint cheerfully.
She nodded absently. For a moment the tawny eyes looked right through him. It was extraordinarily humiliating, and at the same time provocative, that feeling which, the eyes gave him for an instant—that, for a moment, he was not there at all, or she was not there at all. Although she heard him, she was quite alone with what she was thinking.
And then she saw him again.
"Do you know, you're the last partner I ever thought I should have," she said; and the Saint inhaled gently.
"I shouldn't be surprised."
"And yet . . . you remember when you reminded me of that boy of mine back in the States?" The golden eyes absorbed his smile. "That was a mean crack ... I suppose I deserved it."
"You did."
"It made a difference."
Simon raised his eyebrows; but the mockery was without malice.
"After which," he murmured, "you shot Stephen Weald."
"Wouldn't you have done the same?"
"I should. Exactly the same. And that's the point. You might have left it to me, but I stood aside because I figured he was your onion. . .
. Which was half-witted, if you come to think of it, because if we'd kept him we could have made him squeal. But who am I to spoil sport."
"I know."
"But we go on with the good work, so why worry?"
She nodded slowly.
"Yes, we go on. Maybe it won't be long now."
"And that boy of yours?"
"He thinks I'm travelling around improving my mind." She laughed. "I suppose I am, if you look at it that way. . . ."
And there was a silence.
And in that simple silence began an understanding that needed no explanations. For the Saint always knew exactly what to leave unsaid. . . . And when, presently, he reached out a long arm to crush his last cigarette into an ashtray, glanced at the clock, and stood up, the movement fitted spontaneously into the comfortable quiet which had settled down upon the evening.
"Do you realize," he said easily, "that's it's nearly midnight, and we've had a busy day?"
Her smile thanked him, and he remembered it after she had left the room and he sat by the fire smoking a final cigarette and meditating the events of the last twenty-four hours.
Adventures to the adventurous. Simon Templar called himself an adventurer. What other people called him is nobody's business. Certainly he had had what he wanted, in more ways than one, and the standard of enterprise and achievement which he had set himself from the very beginning of his career showed no signs of slacking off. It was only recently that he had started to realize that there was more for him to do in life than he had ever known. . . . And yet, just then, he was quite contented. Simon Templar's philosophical outlook on life was his strong suit. It kept him young. As long as something interesting was happening he was quite happy. He was quite happy that night.
For complete contentment he required well-balanced alternations of excitement and peaceful self-satisfaction. At the beginning of his cigarette he was enjoying the peaceful self-satisfaction. Halfway through the cigarette, the front door bell rang curtly and crisply, and the Saint came slowly to his feet with a speculative little frown.
The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady) Page 9
