The Saint in Action (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  He went to the instrument, held his light steadily on it, and dialled Scotland Yard. As soon as the switchboard operator answered he spoke in a deep voice with a forced foreign inflection.

  “Take this down garefully,” he said distinctly. “Simon Templar, alias the Saint, alias the Z-Man, is at this moment gidnabbing Beatrice Avery, the film star, from her apartment in Barkside Gourt. That’s all.”

  He hung up before the operator could answer.

  “’Ere, wot abaht me?” demanded Tyler frantically. “You got a ruddy nerve, usin’ my phone for that job. They can trace that call. Think I want the cops round ’ere arskin’ questions?”

  “You know nothing about it,” said Raddon calmly. “You left the garage unlocked, and somebody used your phone. What does it matter, you fool? They can’t pin anything on you. I had to get through to the Yard at once. If they pull Templar in he’ll spend the next two weeks trying to explain his movements. The Yard’s been trying to get him for years, and if they catch him red-handed snatching the Avery girl they’ll send him up for a ten-year stretch.”

  He turned to the instrument again and flashed his light on the dial. Placing his body between the telephone and the other two men, so that they could not watch the movements of his finger, he quickly dialled another number and waited. He listened to the steady “burr-burr” for a few moments, and then a voice answered.

  “Raddon here,” he said in a rapid, subdued voice. “Something has gone wrong. Can’t do anything more this evening. Better turn our attention to the next proposition…” He broke off and listened. “All right. Usual place tomorrow, as early as possible.”

  He hung up at once, and found Welmont looking curiously at him out of his ferret eyes. “Was that Z?” Welmont asked.

  “It was Gandhi,” answered Raddon curtly. “If you’re ready we’ll go. There’s nothing more for tonight. Too dangerous to move until we know more about Templar.”

  They departed—none too soon for Tyler, who was jumpy and worried—leaving one of the big double doors slightly ajar.

  Simon Templar stroked the cog of his lighter and inhaled deeply and luxuriously from a much-needed cigarette. He heard the three men walking over the cobbles outside, and then silence. With the lithe ease of a panther he lowered himself from the overhead beam on which he had been lying at full length, dropped to the roof of the taxi, and thence descended to the ground.

  There was a smile on his lips as he dusted himself down. That beam, so easily reached from the roof of the taxi, had positively asked him to make its acquaintance when he had first glanced up at it. Patricia, he knew, could handle her end of the job with smooth efficiency; he had had a couple of minutes’ earnest talk with her before they parted. For Simon Templar, even before he left the cellar, had put in some of that characteristic quick thinking which was the everlasting despair of the law and the ungodly alike. His restless brain, working at supercharged pressure, had looked into the immediate future with a clarity that was little short of clairvoyant; he had formulated a plan of action out of a situation that had not even acquired a definite geography. But that power of thinking ahead, into the most remote possibilities, was the gift which had so often left his enemies breathless in the background, hopelessly outpaced by the hurricane speed of the Saint’s imagination…

  Which satisfactorily explains why he was still in Mr Tyler’s garage, dusting the well-creased knees of his impeccable Anderson & Sheppard trousers, and by no means dissatisfied with the results of his roosting. He grinned helplessly as he realised how easily the departed trio could have seen him if they had only looked up into the dusty rafters. Not that it would have mattered much: he was armed, and they weren’t. However, it was just as well that he had remained undiscovered. His ears hadn’t told him much more than he knew already, but his eyes had served him well.

  Raddon’s phone call to Scotland Yard had given him nothing to worry about. If he knew anything of Patricia, she would be through with Beatrice Avery long before the padded shoulders of the law could darken the portals of Parkside Court.

  His eyes had served him on the second phone call. Lying along the overhead beam, he had looked straight down upon the telephone…He chuckled as he thought of Raddon’s precautions. Raddon would never have used the Instrument at all for his second call if it had been one of the old-fashioned non-dialling type. He couldn’t have given his number to the exchange without giving it to Welmont and Tyler at the same time. Dialling was different: he had only to obtrude his body between his companions and the telephone, and they couldn’t possibly know what number he had called.

  But the Saint, with a perfect bird’s-eye view, had watched every movement of Raddon’s fingers on the dial; his super-sensitive ears had listened to every click of the returning disc; he had memorised the number and rucked it securely away in a corner of his retentive brain. Raddon’s finger had first jabbed into the PRS hole; then into the ABC; then into the PRS again. This could only mean one exchange—PAR, otherwise PARliament. The numbers were easy. Raddon had called PARliament 5577.

  The Z-Man’s telephone number. Or, at least, a number he was in the practice of using. There were ways and means of discovering to whom that number had been allocated.

  Searching through the London Telephone Directory was one of them, but the Saint had never been able to rave about that particularly tedious occupation. There were easier methods. One of them he tried at once. He dialled PARliament 5577 himself, and blew smoke-rings at the mouthpiece while he waited. His connection came quickly, and a thick voice said,

  “Vell?”

  “The same to you, comrade,” said the Saint fraternally. “Kindly put me through to Mr Thistlethwaite—”

  “Vot? Der iss nobody named that,” said the thick voice.

  “You’ll pardon me, but there’s a very large somebody named that,” said the Saint firmly. “Senior partner of the firm of Thistlethwaite and Abernethy—”

  “This iss not the firm you say.”

  “No? Then who is it?” asked the Saint obstinately. “What’s the idea of using Thistlethwaite and Abernethy’s telephone number? Aren’t you Parliament 5577?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don’t be silly. You’re Thistlethwaite. Or are you Abernethy?”

  “Ve are not dose names,” shouted the thick voice. The line became dead, but Simon Templar was not discouraged. He had not expected to click at the first attempt. He dialled the number a second time and waited.

  “Vell?”

  “Oh, it’s you again, is it?” said the Saint cheerfully. “Vell—I mean, well, that proves that you must be Thistlethwaite. Or else you’re Abernethy. I damn well know I dialled the right number.”

  “Ve are not Thistle-votyousay und somebody,” roared the thick voice, its owner clearly under the impression that he was dealing with a genial half-wit. “You got the wrong number again, you fool!”

  “If you’re Parliament 5577 you’re Thistlethwaite and Abernethy,” insisted the Saint. “Think I don’t know?”

  “Ve are Zeidelmann und Co.,” bellowed the angry voice, “und ve know nothing of the peoples you say.”

  “Well I’m damned!” said Simon, in surprise. “Then am I the bloke who’s been making the mistake? A thousand apologies, dear old frankfurter. And the same to Co.”

  He hung up, and with his cigarette slanting dangerously out of the corner of his mouth he turned over the last few pages of Vol. II of the London Telephone Directory, which lay on a shelf. There was only one Zeidelmann & Co., and the address was Bryerby House, Victoria.

  The Saint paused for a moment to remove the potato from the taxicab’s exhaust pipe, and as he strode silently down a long narrow yard, with high walls on either side, he reflected on the absurdity of a mere humble potato rendering impotent one of man’s greatest mechanical wonders. And at the same time he reflected on his own remarkable good fortune. Beyond any shadow of doubt, his guardian angel was having a busy day…

  6

  He
was somewhere in the Cricklewood district, and he found his great cream and red Hirondel parked where he had left it. His opportune arrival in the garage cellar a little earlier had been no coincidence. He had allowed Patricia Holm to go to Parkside Court alone, but he had hovered cautiously in the offing himself, and it had been a simple matter to follow the taxi which had started off with such suspicious abruptness.

  “The Z-Man—Zeidelmann & Co.,” he said to himself, as he drove swiftly towards Victoria. “Significant—and yet rather too easy. There’s a catch in it somewhere.”

  Bryerby House stood in a quiet road off Victoria Street. Simon parked his car nearby and walked to the office building. He had formulated no plan of action, but doubtless something would occur to him when it was necessary. Direct action, the straightforward and devastatingly simple approach which had always appealed to him, continued to offer tempting possibilities. It looked as if Zeidelmann & Co. had something to do with the Z-Man. Therefore he wanted to feast his eyes on Zeidelmann & Co. The logic of the proposition seemed incontrovertible, and as for its consequences, Simon was cheerfully prepared to let the Lord provide.

  There was a wicked glimmer of anticipation in his eyes as he inspected the grubby board in the hall on which was painted a list of the occupants and their various callings. Zeidelmann & Co. apparently did nothing for a living, for beyond stating that their office was situated on the ground floor, the board was completely dumb. The Saint wandered down a shabby, bare-boarded passage, scanning the names on the doors as he passed them. He met nobody, for Bryerby House was one of those janitor-less office buildings in which one could wander unhindered and unchallenged at any hour of the day, and although the evening was still quite young it was still old enough for most business men to have paddled off to the discomfort of their suburban homes. The passage took a turn at the end, and Simon Templar found himself facing a glass-topped door. There was a light within, and painted on the glass were the illuminating words:

  ZEIDELMANN & CO.

  Curios

  Simon cocked his hat at the sign.

  “And indeed they are,” he drawled, and knocked on the door. “Vell?” came a familiar thick voice.

  “So our old pal Mr Vell is here,” murmured the Saint, turning the door handle and entering. “Good evening, Z-Man,” he added affably, as he closed the door and lounged elegantly against it. “This is the Saint calling. And how’s the trade in old pots and pans?”

  One hand rested carelessly in his pocket, and the other flicked a cigarette into his mouth and then snapped a match head into flame. His languidly mocking eyes had missed nothing in the first quick survey of the room. The office was small and barren. It contained nothing but a shabby flat-topped desk, a couple of chairs, a table-lamp, and a telephone. At the desk sat a big, shadowy man—the Saint could only see him indistinctly, for the lampshade was tilted over so that the light shone towards the door and left the man at the desk in semi-gloom. It seemed to be a popular lighting system among the clan.

  “Himmel! You are the crazy fool who telephoned, yes?”

  “Well, I did telephone,” Simon admitted. “But I don’t know if I’d answer to the rest of it.” His gaze swept coolly over the room again. “You must do a thriving business here,” he drawled. “I see your stock’s pretty well sold out. Or do you mostly keep it in old cellars?”

  “Vot you vant mit me?” demanded the other. “Vot iss tiss ‘Saint’ nonsense? I am Mr Otto Zeidelmann und you I do not know.”

  “That’s a condition which will be remedied from now onwards, brother,” said the Saint pleasantly. “You’ll get to know me better every minute. I dropped in this evening to have a look at you, and I must say you’re not very obliging. That lamp-shade—excuse me.”

  Thud!

  Something like a streak of silver lightning hissed across the desk and buried its point in the arm of the chair a fraction of an inch from Mr Zeidelmann’s hand, which had been edging towards the centre drawer of the desk.

  “I’m getting out of practice,” said the Saint regretfully. “I meant that knife to pin your sleeve to the chair.”

  Mr Zeidelmann looked down at the still quivering ivory hilt and sat as still as a mummified corpse.

  “God!” he muttered shakily. “Are you a lunatic?”

  “No,” said the Saint mildly. “But I’m afraid you’ll look like one if you waste any time denying that you’re the Z-Man. By the way, did you notice that in your perturbation you said ‘God’ just now instead of ‘Gott’? You want to watch little details like that when you disguise yourself. Respectable manufacturers’ agents don’t keep guns in their desk drawers, either—or any other kind of drawers, if it comes to that. Besides, I heard Mr Gump—Mr Raddon to you—talking to you over the phone. He made an appointment for tomorrow. That’s why I’m here this evening.”

  The Z-Man stared at him without speaking, rolling a pencil monotonously between his fingers. The sudden shattering discovery that the notorious Saint knew so much must have hit him like a blow in the stomach. Recovery was not easy. Meanwhile, Simon had leisure to inspect his victim with greater care. His sight had accommodated itself to the unequal lighting, and he was able to form a fair picture of Mr Zeidelmann’s appearance.

  He had to acknowledge that if he had set out to feast his eyes, he was doomed to be disappointed again. Mr Zeidelmann was no feast, except in sheer quantity. He was grossly fat, with a great swelling belly which occupied all the space between his chair and the desk. A thick woollen muffler was bundled round his neck, and above it the Saint could catch only a glimpse of the dark beard which camouflaged the shape of his chin. Big horn-rimmed spectacles with clumsily thick rims covered his eyes, and a wide-brimmed soft hat was pulled well down over his forehead.

  “You know, brother, if you’re one of the curios, I wouldn’t want you on my mantelpiece,” observed the Saint critically. “You remind me of a great fat, overgrown slug. Only in appearance, of course; for slugs are highly moral and inoffensive creatures, and their only crime is to sneak up on your lettuces at night and test their succulency. By the way, I wonder if you leave a visible trail of slime behind you wherever you go?”

  “You make the mistake!” Zeidelmann said gutturally. “I nodding vot you say understand. I am not this man you say. You come here, und you insult me—”

  “And call you a slug—”

  “Und say I am a Z-Man, votever that iss,” proceeded Mr Zeidelmann wrathfully. “I tell you, you make the mistake. You are one pig fool.”

  “You can’t get away with it, Agriolimax Agrestis—which, believe it or not, is what Mamma Slug calls Papa Slug when she wants to cut a dash,” said the Saint imperturbably. “You didn’t know I was such a walking encyclopedia, did you? There’s no mystery about it really. You see, Slug, I always make a point of knowing everything there is to be known about obnoxious vermin and pernicious germ life.”

  “Vill you go avay?” thundered Mr Zeidelmann.

  “In a way,” said the Saint, “you puzzle me. You’re not particularly good, and I’m wondering where you got your Frankenstein reputation. I’m beginning to think that you’re just an amateur. Blackmailers often are. But your racket isn’t exactly common-or-garden black, is it? You seem to mix it with kidnapping on the side. You’ve hit a new angle of the game, and you’ve got me guessing.”

  “Me, too,” fumed the big man in the chair. “I, too, guess! Vot you mean I do not know.”

  “Oh, yes you do, and you’d better know what I mean when I tell you that Beatrice Avery is now out of your reptilian reach,” said the Saint coldly. “She’s safely hidden away—and so are your other intended victims.”

  “You are crazy mad. I haf no victims.”

  “You also have a large sackful of boodle tucked away somewhere, Mr Vell, and when the right time comes I’m going to dig my shovel into it.” The Saint was missing none of the Z-Man’s many reactions. He watched his victim’s hands, his heaving stomach, and his dark, vicious eyes, just visible behind
the big lenses. “As far as I can see you’ve been running your show too long, so I’m going to close it down.” He pulled himself off the door and shifted closer towards the desk. “And now, if you don’t mind, we’re going to have a much more intimate look at you, as the bishop said to the actress. Take off the fur and the windows and give your face an airing.”

  He made a suggestive move of the hand which still rested in his pocket, and then his ears caught a faint whisper of sound behind him. He started to turn, but he was a shade too late. The door behind him was already open, and something round and hard jabbed accurately into his spine. The toneless voice of Mr Raddon spoke behind him.

  “Take your hand out of your pocket and keep still.” The Saint kept still.

  “This is a dirty trick, Andy,” he complained. “I distinctly heard you tell Comrade Vell that you’d meet him tomorrow at the usual place. Why can’t you keep your word instead of butting in like this and spoiling everything?”

  He continued to keep studiously still, but he did not move his hand from his pocket. The bantering serenity of his voice had not changed in the slightest degree, and the smile on his lips was unaltered. The Z-Man, who had struggled cumbersomely to his feet, did not know that behind that blandly unruffled smile the Saint’s brain was turning over like a high-speed turbine.

  “Shut the door, Raddon,” he said tensely. “Your gun in his back keep, and if he a muscle moves, shoot.”

  “Well done, Slug,” approved the Saint. “You sound exactly like Dennis the Dachshund.”

  “So, Mr Saint, your cleverness iss not so hot, yes?” Zeidelmann’s voice came in a throaty purr. “There are things that even you do not know—you who know so much about slugs. You do not know that I haf a code with Raddon, for use on the telephone. ‘Tomorrow’ means ‘today,’ und ‘today’ means ‘tomorrow.’ ‘Yes’ means ‘no,’ und ‘no’ means ‘yes.’ Ve are careful, yes?”

  “No,” said the Saint. “Or should that be ‘yes?’ It sounds like a silly game to me. Don’t you ever get muddled?”