The pressure on his spine increased.
“You talk too much,” Raddon said curtly. “Take your gun out of your pocket and put it on the desk.”
The Saint’s eyes were twinkling blue icicles.
“Talking about guns, where did you get this one from?” he inquired. “I took one rod from you and I’ve got it in my pocket at this very moment. Guns aren’t so easy to pick up in London. I believe you’re bluffing, Andy.”
“You drivelling fool!” grated Raddon. “Do as I tell you.”
There was more than impatience and exasperation in his voice. It was just a little too sharp to be convincing. Simon Templar laughed almost inaudibly, and took the chance that he had to take.
“You haven’t got a gun, brother,” he said softly. “Have you?”
Without warning, his right heel swung back in a kick that any mule in the full bloom of robust health would have boasted about for weeks. Mr Raddon collected it on his shin, and as he reeled back with a shriek of agony the Saint spun round like a human flywheel, his arm slamming vimfully into the other’s wrist. His precaution was unnecessary, for the object which clattered to the floor from Raddon’s hand was a harmless piece of iron piping.
“Your ideas are too juvenile,” said the Saint sadly. “I read detective stories myself. Instead of fooling about with that chunk of gas barrel you ought to have whacked me on the back of the head with it.”
Several other things happened immediately afterwards, one of them quite unrehearsed and unexpected. As Raddon bumped into the wall and clawed wildly at it to keep his balance, his hand dragged over the electric light switch, to which the standard lamp was connected. Instantly the room was plunged into inky darkness, for there was no light out in the passage near enough to penetrate the glass top of the door. The Saint leaped towards the switch, his gun now snug in his fist, and as he did so a splintering crash of glass came from the other side of the room, and he looked round and saw an uneven patch of grey light in the blackness. He knew just what had happened. The Z-Man, fearing that the tables were to be turned again, had left his lieutenant to his fate and charged desperately into the window, taking blind and glass and broken frame with him. Mr Zeidelmann was nothing if not thorough.
The Saint dashed for the window, and one of his feet got caught in the flex of the table-lamp and almost tripped him. It was only a brief delay, but that was all the Z-Man needed. When Simon dived through the window into the narrow alley which ran along the rear of the building, he caught a glimpse of a bulky, lumbering figure streaking away beneath a solitary lamp at the far corner. Considering Mr Zeidelmann’s load of superfluous flesh, he certainly knew how to sprint. The Saint ran to the end of the alley and found himself in a dingy side street. A little way from this was a main road, with buses and other heavy traffic. The Z-Man had vanished into the anonymity of London’s millions.
Simon was not surprised to find Mr Otto Zeidelmann’s office empty when he got back. Nobody seemed to have noticed the crash of glass, if there was anyone left in the building to notice it, and Mr Raddon had clearly wasted no time in taking advantage of his opportunity. The Saint was not disturbed about that—he had already had all that he wanted from Comrade Raddon in a business way, and an extension of their acquaintance along social lines was something that the Saint could hardly see as a pleasure without which life would be merely a succession of empty hours.
He retrieved his knife from the arm of the chair, and made a quick search of the office. As he had anticipated, every drawer of the desk was empty except the middle one, which contained a loaded revolver of ancient design. It was obvious that the Z-Man used the office only for a base of communications when his assistants were on the job. He was too clever to have any hand in the actual operations, but he could be reached by telephone if necessary. And after this, Simon reflected ruefully, he would certainly find himself a new address and telephone number…The visit hadn’t been anything like as profitable as he hoped it would be, but it had been fun while it lasted. And at least, in spite of disguises, he would have some slight chance of recognising Mr Zeidelmann when they met again. The Saint’s mind always turned optimistically towards the boundless possibilities of the future. He wondered how Patricia was getting on with her share of the campaign.
7
Patricia Holm had had little or no difficulty in inducing Beatrice Avery to leave her apartment and go down to the big limousine with Hoppy Uniatz at the wheel which waited outside. With that calm realism which was peculiarly her own, she had described her recent adventure, and the film actress had come to the obvious conclusion that Parkside Court was the unhealthiest spot in London. Perhaps she had been close to that conclusion even before that, for since Patricia’s last visit she had had time to reconsider the Saint’s offer.
“I asked for it, in a way,” said Patricia, as the car raced towards Piccadilly. “I took advantage of my superficial resemblance to you to gain admission to your flat, and when the Z-Man’s agents saw me come out, they made the same mistake as your bodyguard.”
“Supposing it had really been me?” said Beatrice Avery with a shudder. “I shouldn’t have had the Saint to help me.”
“Well, you’ve got him now,” said Patricia. “So you can stop worrying. The Saint’s after the Z-Man, and that means that the Z-Man will have so much on his mind that he won’t have time to think about you.”
“But why are we going to Scotland?”
“We’re not going to Scotland.”
“When we were on our way out you said you always preferred to motor to Scotland at night because the roads were clearer—”
“That was just for the benefit of the commissionaire,” Patricia explained.
The car stopped outside a handsome new apartment house in Berkeley Square. Patricia went up to Irene Cromwell’s extravagant flat. The exotic star of Pyramid Pictures was not in.
“I think she had better be,” said Patricia to the scared-looking maid who had answered the door. “Tell her that Miss Holm, of the Special Branch, Scotland Yard, wishes to see her on a matter which affects her personal safety.”
The maid, duly impressed, discovered that her mistress was in after all. She left Patricia in the little hall for only a minute, and then ushered her into a gorgeous boudoir which only a £500-a-week film star could dream of maintaining. Irene Cromwell looked surprisingly frail and timid, wrapped in a trailing feather-trimmed chiffon negligée.
“You are from Scotland Yard?” she asked, her eyes round and big.
“I don’t want to beat about the bush,” replied Patricia, her manner brisk and efficient. “It has come to our knowledge at Scotland Yard that the Z-Man is active again…”
“The Z-Man!” breathed the other girl, turning deathly pale.
“Oh yes, we know all about him, and we think it would be wise to transfer you to a place of safety,” continued Patricia imperturbably. “I have an official car waiting outside. Miss Beatrice Avery, whom you probably know, is in the car already. You will also be accompanied, I hope, by Miss Sheila Ireland.”
The startled actress opened her eyes even wider.
“But where are we going? I’ve got a dinner engagement—”
“Ireland,” answered Patricia, without batting an eyelid. “We have everything arranged with the Free State authorities. Ireland is within a comparatively few hours, and yet sufficiently remote for our purpose. You see, Miss Cromwell, it is of vital importance that Scotland Yard should be left with a clear field. While this organisation is being cleaned up you are in grave danger.”
Irene Cromwell took less than a minute to make up her mind. In fact, she regarded Patricia’s suggestion as a police order, and so thoroughly had the urgency of the matter impressed itself on her mind that she was ready, with two packed suitcases, within the incredible space of twenty minutes.
Beatrice Avery had been given her cue, and she kept up the deception as the limousine rolled smoothly off towards Kensington. But very little was said. Irene Cromwel
l sat back in her corner, huddled in her furs, apparently fascinated by the very official-looking cap which reposed on the unprepossessing head of Mr Uniatz.
Exactly the same procedure was followed in Sheila Ireland’s dainty home—and again Patricia got away with it. The blonde Venus of Summit Pictures was successfully lured out into the waiting car, and any doubts she might have entertained were dispelled when she saw Beatrice Avery and Irene Cromwell. An impression was left behind that Miss Ireland was bound for a remote spot in the Welsh mountains.
At Patricia’s request, further discussion of the subject that was uppermost in all their minds was tacitly postponed. The limousine now started off in real earnest, leaving London behind and speeding through the night in the direction of Kingston. Their actual destination was Weybridge, less than twenty miles to the south-west.
Simon Templar’s house on St. George’s Hill was not easily found at night, but Hoppy Uniatz knew every inch of that aristocratic neighbourhood, with its nameless roads and its discreetly hidden residences which were far too exclusive to be demeaned by ordinary numbers. The passengers in the car caught vague glimpses of pine trees and silver birches which rose from rolling banks of rhododendrons and bracken.
There were bright lights in the windows as the limousine came to a standstill outside the front door, and a man with a loose walrus moustache and a curious strutting limp came out on the step.
“Here we are, Orace,” said Patricia, as she got out.
“Yer lyte,” replied Orace unemotionally.
He took charge of the suitcases, and showed no surprise at seeing three of the prettiest girls in England follow Patricia out of the car. If they had been three performing kangaroos he wouldn’t even have blinked. Years of employment in Simon Templar’s service had deprived him of any quality of surprise he might have once possessed.
“Dinner narf a minnit,” he said, when they were in the hall, and stumped off to his own quarters.
“He means it, too,” smiled Patricia. “But for once Orace and the dinner must be kept waiting.”
She led them into the living-room, and looked from Irene Cromwell to Sheila Ireland with quiet calmness. Mr Uniatz, who had helped to carry the bags in, licked his lips and gazed longingly at the cocktail cabinet, where liquor was always to be found in plenty and in great variety. But he caught Patricia’s warning eye, and he knew that the time for refreshment had not yet come. His impersonation of a police officer was no longer important, but Patricia Holm felt that the sudden shock of Mr Uniatz’s speech would be lessened if she explained certain other things to her guests beforehand.
“You’ll forgive me, I hope, for practising a small deception,” she said in her forthright way. “Miss Avery knows that I’m not really connected with Scotland Yard: I am Patricia Holm, and this house belongs to Simon Templar.”
“You mean—the Saint?” asked Irene, with a little quiver of excitement and incredulity.
“The Saint is out to get the Z-Man, and before he could let himself go he had to be sure that he wouldn’t be placing any of you in danger,” Patricia went on. “I took the risk of lying to you in London because it was too urgent to go into explanations. But before we go any further I want to tell you that you’re free to go whenever you please. This very minute, if you like. Any one of you, or all three of you, can go if you want to. You haven’t been kidnapped. The car is ready to take you back to London. But if you’re wise you’ll stay here. I’ll tell you why.”
Irene and Sheila, bewildered at first, began to understand as she went on, and Beatrice Avery contributed some heartfelt persuasions of her own. And while they talked, the subtle atmosphere of peace and security with which the Saint had invested the house began to add its charm to the other arguments. The girls looked at each other, and then at the less comforting dark outside…
“Well, you’ve been very frank about it, Miss Holm,” said Irene Cromwell at length. “I’m willing to stay if you think it would help. But the studio—”
“You can phone them in the morning and say you’ve been taken ill.”
“But why are we safer here than in London?” asked Sheila.
Patricia smiled.
“With Orace and Hoppy Uniatz to look after us, we can make faces at a dozen Z-Men,” she replied confidently. “Also, nobody except yourselves knows where you are. And this house isn’t quite as innocent as it looks. It has all sorts of surprises for people who try to crash the gate. Now suppose we have a cocktail.”
Mr Uniatz drew a deep breath.
“Say, ain’t dat an idea?” he asked of the assembled company, with the enthusiasm of an alchemist who has just heard of the elixir of life. “Dat’ll make everyt’ing okay.”
Orace was serving the second course of dinner when he cocked his head on one side and listened. Patricia, too, had heard the familiar drone of the Hirondel.
“It’s ’im,” remarked Orace ominously. “And abaht time, too. ’E’ll get some cold soup.”
8
Chief Inspector Teal was out of his office when Raddon’s telephone call came through to Scotland Yard. Consequently, another officer went to Parkside Court, purely as a matter of routine, to make a few discreet inquiries. All he learned was that Beatrice Avery had left for Scotland, and she had been accompanied by her sister. It seemed, therefore, that the telephone call was true to type—in other words, merely another of those pointless practical jokes which regularly add to the tribulations of the C.I.D.
Mr Teal, when he heard about it, was not so sure.
It is a matter of record that he set off to Parkside Court without a minute’s delay to make some inquiries of his own, and they were not so discreet. He cross-examined the hall porter and the commissionaire and the elevator boy until they were in momentary expectation of being dumped into a Black Maria and shot off to the cells. Mr Teal was definitely suspicious because when he interviewed Beatrice Avery that afternoon she had definitely assured him that she had no intention of leaving London. And now, apparently, she had gone off to Scotland.
“Why Scotland?” demanded Mr Teal, turning his baby blue eyes smoulderingly on the commissionaire.
“She didn’t tell me she was going to Scotland,” said the man. “But I heard her sister saying that they’d have a nice clear run—”
“How do you know it was her sister?”
“That private detective chap who was here told me so,” said the commissionaire. “As soon as they’d gone, he went off duty. Miss Avery’s maid went home, too. The flat’s empty.”
From the description supplied by the commissionaire and the elevator boy, Mr Teal had no difficulty in recognising Patricia Holm. His worst suspicions were strengthened when the commissionaire proffered the additional information that the limousine which had waited outside had been driven by a large man with a face which had the appearance of having once been run over by a traction engine, and afterwards left in the hands of an amateur face-lifter.
“The Holm girl and Uniatz!” raged Mr Teal, champing viciously on his flavourless spearmint. “It’s as clear as daylight! They came here as openly as a couple of innocent schoolchildren and got her away with some fairy tale. I’ll bet it was the Saint himself who rang up the Yard—just to get my goat!”
These remarks he addressed to himself as he paced up and down the luxuriously carpeted foyer. The monumental conviction was growing within him, and rapidly assuming the size of the Arc de Triomphe, that the Saint had made every variety of fool of him in the early afternoon.
Simon Templar was the Z-Man. Mr Teal’s grey matter was flowing like molten lava. The Saint had spotted Sergeant Barrow at the Dorchester, and on the off-chance that Barrow had spotted him, he had thought it advisable to shoot back the package of money to Beatrice Avery, so that he could clear himself. Whatever hold he had on her had been enough to force her to lie on the telephone. Then, to keep her quiet, he had kidnapped her…It was like the Saint’s devilish sense of humour to ring up…There wasn’t any real proof…But if he c
ould find Beatrice Avery in the Saint’s hands, there would be enough evidence to put him away for keeps, the detective told himself, to the accompaniment of an imaginary fanfare of triumphal trumpets. It would be the last time that the Saint would pull a long nose at the majesty of the law…“
Seething and sizzling like a firework about to go off, Mr Teal realised that he was wasting time at Parkside Court. He plunged into the police car which had brought him, and was driven to Cornwall House. He guessed that this would be a further waste of time, but the visit had to be made. He was right. Not only did Sam Outrell coldly inform him that the Saint was away, but he used a pass key to show him the empty flat. Fuming, and expectorating a devitalised lump of chicle on to the sidewalk for the unwary to step on, he climbed into his car again and this time told the driver to go to Abbot’s Yard, in Chelsea. It was well known that the Saint owned a studio in this modernised slum.
“We might as well try it,” Teal said grimly. “Ten to one they’ve taken the girl out of London, but it would be just like the Saint’s blasted nerve to hold her here, right under our very noses.”
Again his fears were confirmed. Twenty-six Abbot’s Yard was in the same condition as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, and inquiries among the near-artist neighbours elicited the information that the Saint had not been seen for weeks.
Mr Teal was so exasperated that he nearly inserted the next slice of spearmint into his mouth without removing the pink wrapper, but on the intellectual side his grey matter was not quite so white hot now, and therefore was slightly more efficient. He was certain of one thing: the Saint had not taken Beatrice Avery to Scotland. After years of experience of Simon Templar’s methods, Mr Teal easily guessed that Patricia Holm’s reference to Scotland had very much the fishy smell of a red herring.
“Not much good looking for him, is it, sir?” asked the driver of the police car depressingly.
The Saint in Action (The Saint Series) Page 21
