Featuring the Saint s-5

by Leslie Charteris

  Maduro declared war Pasala on impossible ultimatum. Believe deliberately instigated America or rival combine. Pasala army hopelessly outnumbered. No chance. Villega appealed America. Help on way but will mean overthrow of government. Concessions probably endangered. Sell out before news reaches London and breaks market.

  Shannet.

  Campard's fat hands trembled as he clipped the end of a cigar.

  He was a big, florid man with a bald head and a sandy moustache. Once upon a time he had been a pinched and out-at-elbows clerk in a stockbroker's office, until his ingenuity had found incidental ways of augmenting his income. For a few years he had scraped and saved; then, with five hundred pounds capital, and an intimate knowledge of the share market, he had gone after bigger game.

  He had succeeded. He was clever, he knew the pitfalls to avoid, he was without pity or scruple, and luck had been with him. In fifteen years he had become a very rich man. Innumerable were the companies with which he had been associated, which had taken in much money and paid out none. He had been "exposed" half a dozen times, and every reputable broker knew his stock for what it was; but the script of the Campard companies was always most artistically engraved and their prospectuses couched in the most attractive terms, so that there was never a lack of small investors ready to pour their money into his bank account.

  It is said that there is a mug born every minute, and Campard had found this a sound working principle. Many others like him, steering narrowly clear of the law, have found no lack of victims, and Campard had perhaps found more suckers than most.

  But even the most triumphant career meets a check some times, and Campard had made a slip which had brought him into the full publicity of a High Court action. He had wriggled out, by the skin of his teeth and some expensive perjury, but the resultant outcry had told him that it would be wise to lie low for a while. And lying low did not suit Campard's book. He lived extravagantly, and for all the wealth that he possessed on paper there were many liabilities. And then, when his back was actually to the wall, had come the miracle-in the shape of the chance to buy the Pasala concession, offered him by a man named Shannet, whom he had employed many years ago.

  Pasala oil was good. In the few months that it had been worked, the quality and quantity of the output had been startling. Campard enlisted the help of a handful of his boon companions, and poured in all his resources. More plant was needed and more labour, more expert management. That was now to be supplied. The directors of Pasala Oil Products sat down to watch themselves become millionaires.

  And then, in a clear sky, the cloud.

  Hugo Campard, skimming through his newspaper on his way to the financial pages, had read of the early manifestations of the Saint, and had been mildly amused. In the days that followed he had read of other exploits of the Saint, and his amusement had changed gradually to grave anxiety. . . . And one day there had come to Hugo Campard, through the post, a card. . . .

  Each morning thereafter the familiar envelope had been beside his plate at breakfast; each morning, when he reached the offices of Pasala Oil Products, he had found another reminder of the Saint on his desk. There had been no message. Just the picture. But the newspapers were full of stories, and Hugo Campard was afraid. . . .

  Then, two days ago, the Saint had spoken.

  Campard could not have told why he opened the envelopes in which the Saint sent his mementoes. Perhaps it was be cause, each time, Campard hoped he would be given some indication of what the Saint meant to do. After days of suspense, that had painted the black hollows of sleeplessness under his eyes and brought him to a state of nerves that was sheer physical agony, he was told.

  On that day, underneath the crude outline, was pencilled a line of small writing: In a week's time you will be ruined.

  He had already had police protection-after the Lemuel incident there had been no difficulty in obtaining that, as soon as he showed the police the first cards. All night there had been a constable outside his house in St. John's Wood. All day a constable stood in the corridor outside his office. A plain-clothes detective rode in his car with him everywhere be went. Short of some unforeseeable masterpiece of strategy, or a recourse to the machine-gun fighting of the Chicago gangsters, it was impossible that the Saint could reach him as he had reached Lemuel.

  Now, at one stroke, the Saint brought all these preparations to naught, and broke invisibly through the cordon. Against such an attack the police could not help him.

  "In a week's time you will be ruined."

  An easy boast to make. A tremendous task to carry out.

  And yet, even while he had been racking his brains to find out how the Saint might carry out his threat, he had his answer.

  For a long time he stared blindly at the cablegram, until every letter of the message was burned into his brain as with a hot iron. When he roused himself it was to clutch at a straw.

  He telephoned to the telegraph company, and verified that the message had actually been received from Santa Miranda via Barbadoes and Pernarubuco. Even that left a loophole. He cabled to an agent in New York, directing him to obtain authentic information from Washington at any cost; and by the evening he received a reply confirming Shannet's statement. The U.S.S. Michigan was on its way to Santa Miranda in response to an appeal from the President.

  There was no catch in it. Shannet's code message was not a bluff, not even from an agent of the Saint in Santa Miranda. It was a grimly sober utterance of fact.

  But the gigantic thoroughness of it! The colossal impudence of the scheme! Campard felt as if all the strength and fight had ebbed out of him. Me was aghast at the revelation of the resources of the Saint. Against a man who apparently thought nothing of engineering a war to gain his ends, he felt as puny and helpless as a babe.

  His hand went out again to the telephone, but he checked the impulse. It was no use telling the police that. They could do nothing-and, far too soon as it was, the news would be published in the press. And then, with the name of Campard behind them, P.O.P shares would tumble down the market to barely the value of their weight in waste paper.

  Before he left the office that night he sent a return code in cable to Santa Miranda: Believe war organized by criminal known as Saint, who has threatened me. Obtain particulars of any strange Englishman in Pasala or Maduro. Give descriptions. Report developments.

  What the Saint had started, Campard argued, the Saint could stop. Campard might have a chance yet, if he could bargain. ...

  But the declaration of war was announced in the evening paper which he bought on his way home, and Hugo Campard knew then it was too late.

  He had no sleep that night, and by nine o'clock next morning he was at the office, and speaking on the telephone to his broker.

  "I want you to sell twenty thousand P.O.P.s for me," he said. "Take the best price you can get."

  "I wish I could hope to get a price at all," came the sardonic answer. "The market's full of rumours and everyone's scared to touch the things. You're too late with your selling- the bears were in before you."

  "What do you mean?" asked Campard in a strained voice.

  "There was a good deal of quiet selling yesterday and the day before," said the broker. "Somebody must have had information. They're covering to-day, and they must have made thousands."

  During the morning other backers of the company came through on the telephone and were accusing or whining according to temperament, and Campard dealt with them all in the same formula.

  "I can't help it," he said. "I'm hit twice as badly as any of you. It isn't my fault. The company was perfectly straight; you know that."

  The broker rang up after lunch to say that he had managed to get rid of six thousand shares at an average price of two shillings.

  "Two shillings for two-pound shares?" Campard almost sobbed. "You're mad!"

  "See if you can do any better yourself, Mr. Campard," replied the broker coldly. "The market won't take any more at present, but I might be able to g
et rid of another couple of thousand before we close at about a bob each-to people who want to keep them as curios. A firm of wall-paper manufacturers might make an offer for the rest--"

  Campard slammed down the receiver and buried his face in his hands.

  He was in the same position three hours later when his secretary knocked on the door and entered with a buff envelope.

  "Another cable, Mr. Campard."

  He extracted the flimsy and reached out a nerveless hand for the code book. He decoded: Maduro armies advancing into Pasala. Only chance now sell any price. Answer inquiry. Man arrived nearly four months ago-- With a sudden impatience, Campard tore the cablegram into a hundred pieces and dropped them into the waste-paper basket. There was no time now to get in touch with the Saint. The damage was done.

  A few minutes later came the anticipated message from the firm that he had induced to back him over Pasala Oil Products. Rich as he had become, he would never have been able to acquire his large holding in the company without assistance. How, with his reputation, he had got any firm to back him was a mystery. But he had been able to do it on the system known as "margins"-which, in this instance, meant roughly that he could be called upon immediately to produce fifty percent of the amount by which the shares had depreciated, in order to "keep up his margin."

  The demand, courteously but peremptorily worded, was delivered by special messenger; and his only surprise was that it had not come sooner. He scribbled a check, which there was no money in the bank to meet, and sent it back by the same boy.

  He sent for his car and left the office shortly afterwards. The paper which he bought outside told of the panic of P.O.P's, and he read the article with a kind of morbid interest.

  There was a letter, delivered by the afternoon post, waiting at his house when he got back.

  I sold P.O.P.s and covered to-day. The profits are nearly twelve thousand pounds.

  The expenses of this campaign have been unusually heavy; but, even then, after deducting these and my ten percent collecting fee, I hope to be able to forward nine thousand pounds to charity on your behalf.

  Received the above-named sum-with thanks.

  The Saint.

  Enclosed was a familiar card, and one Pasala Oil Products share certificate.

  Hugo Campard dined well that night, and, alone, accounted for a bottle of champagne. After that he smoked a cigar with relish, and drank a liqueur brandy with enjoyment.

  He had dressed. He felt the occasion deserved it. His mind was clear and untroubled, for in a flash he had seen the way out of the trap.

  When his cigar was finished, he exchanged his coat for a dressing gown, and passed into his study. He locked the door behind him, and for some time paced up and down the room in silence, but no one will ever know what he thought. At ten o'clock precisely the pacing stopped.

  The constable on guard outside heard the shot; but Hugo Campard did not hear it.

  7

  The men serving sentences of hard labour in the prison of Santa Miranda are allowed an afternoon siesta of three hours. This is not due to the humanity and loving-kindness of the authorities, but to the fact that nothing will induce the warders to forgo the afternoon nap which is the custom of the country, and no one has yet discovered a way of making the prisoners work without a wide-awake warder to watch them and pounce on the shirkers.

  The fetters are struck off the prisoners' ankles, and they are herded into their cells, a dozen in each, and there locked up to rest as well as they can in the stifling heat of a room ventilated only by one small barred window and thickly populated with flies. The warders retire to their quarters above the prison, and one jailer is left on guard, nodding in the passage outside the cells, with a rifle across his knees.

  It was so on the third day of the Saint's incarceration, and this was the second hour of the siesta, but the Saint had not slept.

  His cell mates were sprawled on the bunks or on the floor, snoring heavily. They were hardened to the flies. Outside, the jailer dozed, his sombrero on the back of his head and his coat unbuttoned. Through the window of the cell a shaft of burning sunlight cut across the moist gloom and splashed a square of light on the opposite wall.

  The Saint sat by the gates of the cell, watching that creeping square of light. Each afternoon he had .watched it, learning its habits, so that now he could tell the time by it. When the edge of the square touched a certain scar in the stone it was four o'clock. . . . That was the time he had decided upon. ...

  He scrambled softly to his feet.

  The jailer's head nodded lower and lower. Every afternoon, the Saint had noted, he set his chair at a certain point in the passage where a cool draught from a cross-corridor would fan him. Therefore, on that afternoon, the Saint had taken pains to get into the nearest cell to that point.

  He tore a button off his clothes, and threw it. It hit the jailer on the cheek, and the man stirred and grunted. The Saint threw another button. The man shook his head, snorted, and roused, stretching his arms with a prodigious yawn.

  "Senor!" hissed the Saint.

  The man turned his head.

  "Loathsome disease," he growled, "why dost thou disturb my meditations? Lie down and be silent, lest I come and beat thee."

  "I only wished to ask your honour if I might give your honour a present of fifty pesos," said the Saint humbly.

  He squatted down again by the bars of the gate and played with a piece of straw. Minutes passed. . . .

  He heard the jailer get to his feet, but did not look up. The man's footsteps grated on the floor and stopped by the cell door. In the cell the other convicts snored peacefully.

  "Eater of filth and decomposing fish," said the jailer's voice gruffly, "did I hear thy coarse lips speak to me of fifty pesos? How hast thou come by that money?"

  "Gifts break rocks," replied the peón, quoting the Spanish proverb. "I had rather my gifts broke them than I were compelled to break any more of them. I have fifty pesos, and I want to escape."

  "It is impossible. I searched thee--"

  "It was hidden. I will give it to your honour as a pledge. I know where to find much more money, if your honour would deign to release me and let me lead you to where it is hidden. Have you not heard how, when I was arrested, it was testified that in the town I spent, in one evening, enough to keep you for a year? That was nothing to me. I am rich."

  The jailer stroked his stubbly chin.

  "Verminous mongrel," he said, more amiably, "show me this fifty pesos and I will believe thee."

  The Saint ran his fingers through his tangled hair, and there fell out a note. The jailer recognized it, and his avaricious eyes gleamed.

  He reached a claw-like hand through the bars, but the Saint jerked the note out of his reach. The jailer's face darkened.

  "Abominable insect," he said, "thou hast no right to that. Thou art a convict, and thy goods are forfeit to the State. As the servant of the State I will confiscate that paper, that thy low-born hands may defile it no longer."

  He reached for his keys, but the Saint held up a warning hand.

  "If you try to do that, amigo," he said, "I shall cry out so loudly that the other warders will come down to see what has happened. Then I shall tell them, and they will make you divide the fifty pesos with them. And I shall refuse to tell you where I have hidden the rest of my money. Why not release me, and have it all for yourself?"

  "But how shall I know that thou dost not lie?"

  The Saint's hands went again to his hair, and a rain of fifty-peso notes fell to the floor. He picked them up and counted them before the jailer. There were thirty of them altogether.

  "See, I have them here!" he said. "Fifteen hundred pesos is a lot of money. Now open this door and I will give them to you."

  The jailer's eyes narrowed cunningly. Did this fool of a peón really believe that he would be given his liberty in exchange for such a paltry sum? Apparently.

  Not that the sum was so paltry, being equal to about two hundre
d pounds in English money; but if any prisoner escaped, the jailer would be blamed for it, and probably imprisoned himself. Yet this simpleton seemed to imagine that he had only to hand over his bribe and the jailer would risk punishment to earn it.

  Very well, let him have his childish belief. It would be easily settled. The door opened, the money paid over, a shot. . . . And then there would be no one to bear witness against him. The prisoner was known to be violent. He had attempted to escape, and was shot. It would be easy to invent a story to account for the opening of the cell door. . . .

  "Senor peón," said the jailer, "I see now that your honour should not be herded in with these cattle. I will set your honour free and your honour will give me the money, and I shall remember your honour in my prayers."

  He tiptoed back to his chair and picked up his rifle. Then, with elaborate precautions against noise, he unlocked the cell door, and the peón came out into the passage.

  The other prisoners still snored, and there was no sound but the droning of the flies to arouse them. The whole colloquy had been conducted in whispers, for it was imperative for the jailer as for the peón that there should be no premature alarm.

  "Now give me the money," said the jailer huskily.

  The Saint held out the handful of notes, and one broke loose and fluttered to the floor. As the jailer bent to pick it up, the Saint reached over him and slid the man's knife gently out of his belt. As the man straightened up the Saint's arm whipped round his neck, strangling his cry of fear before it could pass his throat. And the man felt the point of the knife prick his chest.

  "Put thy rifle down against the wall," breathed the Saint in his ear. "If it makes a sound thou wilt not speak again."

  No rifle could ever have been grounded more silently.

  The Saint withdrew the knife and picked the man off his feet. In an instant, and without a sound, he had him on the floor, holding him with his legs in a jiu-jitsu lock so that he could not move.

  "Be very quiet," urged the Saint, and let him feel the knife again.