Featuring the Saint (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  The peón heard these whisperings, and laughingly ignored them. His manner lent more support, however, to either of the two former theories than to the third. He was tall for a peón, and a man of great strength, as was seen when he bought a whole keg of wine and lifted it in his hands to fill his goblet as if it had weighed nothing at all. His eyes were blue, which argued that he was of noble descent, for the true peón stock is so mixed with the native that the eyes of that sea-blue colour are rare. And again, the bandit theory was made more plausible by the man’s boisterous and reckless manner, as though he held life cheap and the intense enjoyment of the day the only thing of moment, and would as soon be fighting as drinking. He had, too, a repertoire of strange and barbarous songs which no one could understand.

  “Drink up, amigos!” he roared from time to time, “for this is the beginning of great days for Pasala!”

  But when they asked him what they might mean, he turned away their questions with a jest, and called for more wine.

  Few of his following had seen such a night for many years.

  From house to house he went, singing his strange songs, and bearing his keg of wine on his shoulder. One or two guardias would have barred his way, or, hearing the rumours which were gossiped about him, would have stopped and questioned him, but the peón poured them wine or flung them money, and they stood aside.

  Towards midnight, still singing, the man led his procession up the Calle del Palacio. The crowd followed, not sure where they were going, and not caring, for they had drunk much.

  Now, the Calle del Palacio forms the upright of the T which has been described, and half-way down it, as has been stated, is the palace from which it takes its name.

  In the street opposite the palace gates the peón halted, set down his keg, and mounted unsteadily upon it. He stood there, swaying slightly, and his following gathered round him. “Viva! Viva!” they shouted thickly.

  The peón raised his hands for silence.

  “Citizens!” he cried, “I have told you that this is the beginning of great days for Pasala, and now I will tell you why. It is because at last we are going to suffer no more under this Manuel Concepcion de Villega. May worms devour him alive, for he is a thief and a tyrant and the son of a dog! His taxes bear you down, and you receive nothing in return. The President is his servant, that strutting nincompoop, and they are both in the pay of the traitor Shannet, who is planning to betray you to Maduro. Now I say that we will end this, tonight.”

  “Viva!” responded a few doubtful voices.

  “Let us finish this slavery,” cried the peón again. “Let us storm this palace, which was built with money wrung from the poor, where your puppet of a President and this pig of a de Villega sleep in luxury for which you have been tortured! Let us tear them from their beds and slay them, and cast them back into the gutter from which they came!”

  This time there were no “Vivas!” The awfulness of the stranger’s blasphemy had sobered the mob as nothing else could have done. It was unprecedented—incredible. No one had ever dared to speak in such terms of the President and his Minister—or, if they had, it was reported by spies to the comisarios, and guardias came swiftly and took the blasphemers away to a place where their treason should not offend the ears of the faithful. Of course, the peón had spoken nothing but the truth. But to tear down the palace and kill the President! It was unheard of. It could not be done without much discussion.

  The stranger, after his first speech, had seen the sentries at the palace gates creep stealthily away, and now, over the heads of the awestruck crowd, he saw a little knot of guardias coming down the street at the double. Whistles shrilled, and the mob huddled together in sudden terror.

  “Amigos,” said the stranger urgently, in a lower voice, “the hour of liberation will not be long coming. Tonight you have heard me sing many strange songs, which are the songs of freedom. Now, when you hear those songs again, and you have thought upon the words I have said tonight, follow the man who sings such songs as I sang, for he will be sent to lead you to victory. But now go quickly, or you will be taken and punished.”

  The mob needed no encouragement for that. Even while the peón spoke many of them had sneaked away into the dark side-streets. As he spoke his last sentence, it was as if a cord had been snapped which held them, and they fled incontinently.

  The peón straightened up and shook his fists at their backs.

  “Fools!” he screamed. “Cowards! Curs! Is it thus that ye fight? Is it thus that ye overthrow tyrants?”

  But his audience was gone, and from either side the guardias were closing in on him with drawn sabres.

  “Guarro!” challenged one of them. “What is this raving?”

  “I speak for liberty!” bawled the peón, reeling drunkenly on his pedestal. “I speak against the President, who does not know the name of his father, and against the Minister for the Interior, Manuel Concepcion de Villega, whom I call Señor Jugo Procedente del Estercolero, the spawn of a dunghill—guarros, perruelos, hijos de la puts adiva…”

  He let loose a stream of the vilest profanity and abuse in the language, so that even the hardened guardias were horrified.

  They dragged him down and hustled him ungently to the police station, where they locked him up in a verminous cell for the night, but even then he cursed and raved against the President and the Minister for the Interior, mingling his maledictions with snatches of unintelligible songs, until the jailer threatened to beat him unless he held his tongue. Then he was silent, and presently went to sleep.

  In the morning they brought him before the magistrate. He was sober, but still rebellious. They asked him his name.

  “Don Fulano de Tal,” he replied, which is the Spanish equivalent of saying “Mr. So-and-So Such-and-Such.”

  “If you are impertinent,” said the magistrate, “I shall order you to receive a hundred lashes.”

  “My name is Sancho Quijote,” said the peón sullenly.

  He was charged, and the sentries from the palace testified to the treason of his speeches. So also did the guardias who had broken up his meeting. They admitted, in extenuation of his offence, that he had been very drunk.

  He was asked if he had anything to say.

  “I have nothing to say,” he answered, “except that, drunk or not, I shall spit upon the name of the President and the Minister for the Interior till the end of my days. As for you, Señor jeuz, you are no better than the guindillas who arrested me—you are all the miserable hirelings of the oppressors, paid to persecute those who dare speak for justice. But it will not be long before your pride is turned to humiliation.”

  “He is mad,” whispered one guardia to another.

  The peón was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment with hard labour, for there are no limits to the powers of summary jurisdiction in Pasala. He heard the verdict without emotion.

  “It does not matter,” he said. “I shall not stay in prison seven days. It will not be long before you know why.”

  When he reached the prison he asked to be allowed to send a message by telegraph to Ondia, the capital of Maduro.

  “I am of Maduro,” he confessed. “I should have returned to Ondia tomorrow, and I must tell my wife that I am detained.”

  He had money to pay for the telegram, but it was evening before permission was received for the message to be sent, for nothing is done hurriedly in Spanish America.

  Twenty-four hours later there came from Ondia a telegram addressed to Manuel Concepcion de Villega, and it was signed with the name and titles of the President of Maduro. A free translation would have read:

  I am informed that a citizen of Maduro, giving the name of Sancho Quijote, has been imprisoned in Santa Miranda. If he is not delivered to the frontier by Wednesday noon my armies will advance into Pasala.

  Shannet was closeted with de Villega when the message arrived, and for the moment he was no better able to account for it than was the Minister.

  “Who is this man Quijote?”
he asked. “It’s a ridiculous name. There is a book called Don Quijote, Quixote in English, and there is a man in it called Sancho Panza.”

  “I know that,” said Don Manuel, and sent for the judge.

  He heard the story of the peón’s crime and sentence and was not enlightened. But he had enough presence of mind to accuse the magistrate of inefficiency for not having suspected that the name Sancho Quijote was a false one.

  “It is impossible,” said de Villega helplessly, when the magistrate had been dismissed, “By Wednesday noon—that hardly gives us enough time to get him to the frontier even if we release him immediately. And who is this man? A labourer, a stranger, of whom nobody knows anything, who suddenly appears in Santa Miranda with more money than he could have ever come by honestly, and preaches a revolution to a mob that he has first made drunk. He deserves his punishment, and yet the President of Maduro, without any inquiry, demands his release. It means war…”

  “He knew this would happen,” said Shannet. “The judge told us—he boasted that he would not stay in prison seven days…”

  They both saw the light at the same instant. “An agent provocateur…”

  “A trap!” snarled de Villega. “And we have fallen into it. It is only an excuse that Maduro was seeking. They sent him here, with money, for no other purpose than to get himself arrested. And then this preposterous ultimatum, which they give us no time even to consider…”

  “But why make such an intrigue?” demanded Shannet. “This is a poor country. They are rich. They have nothing to gain.”

  Don Manuel tugged nervously at his moustachios.

  “And we cannot even buy them off,” he said. “Unless we appeal to the Estados Unidos…” Shannet sneered.

  “And before their help can arrive the war is over,” he said. “New Orleans is five days away. But they will charge a high price for burying the hatchet for us.”

  Don Manuel suddenly sat still. His shifty little dark eyes came to rest on Shannet.

  “I see it!” he exclaimed savagely. “It is the oil! You, and your accursed oil! I see it all! It is because of the oil that this country is always embroiled in a dozen wars and fears of wars. So far Pasala has escaped, but now we are like the rest. My Ministry will be overthrown. Who knows what Great Power has paid Maduro to attack us? Then the Great Power steps in and takes our oil from us. I shall be exiled. Just now it is England, through you, who has control of the oil. Perhaps it is now America who tries to capture it, or another English company. I am ruined!”

  “For God’s sake stop whining!” snapped Shannet. “If you’re ruined, so am I. We’ve got to see what can be done about it.”

  De Villega shook his head.

  “There is nothing to do. They are ten to one. We shall be beaten. But I have some money, and there is a steamer in two days. If we can hold off their armies so long I can escape.”

  It was some time before the more brutally vigorous Shannet could bring the Minister to reason. Shannet had the courage of the wild beast that he was. At bay, faced with the wrecking of his tainted fortunes, he had no other idea but to fight back with the desperate ferocity of a cornered animal.

  But even when Don Manuel’s moaning had been temporarily quietened they were little better off. It was useless to appeal to the President, for he was no more than a tool in de Villega’s hands. Likewise, the rest of the Council were nothing but figureheads, the mere instruments of de Villega’s policy, and appointed by himself for no other reason than their willingness, for a consideration, to oppose nothing that he put forward.

  “There is but one chance,” said Villega. “A radio-gram must be sent to New Orleans. America will send a warship to keep the peace. Then we will try to make out to Maduro that the warship is here to fight for us, and their armies will retire. To the Estados Unidos, then, we will say that we had made peace before their warship arrived; we are sorry to have troubled them, but there is nothing to do.”

  It seemed a flimsy suggestion to Shannet, but it was typical of de Villega’s crafty and tortuous statesmanship. Shannet doubted if America, having once been asked to intervene, would be so easily put off, but he had no more practical scheme to suggest himself, and he let it go.

  He could not support it with enthusiasm, for an American occupation would mean the coming of American justice, and Shannet had no wish for that while there were still tongues wagging with charges against himself. But he could see no way out. He was in a cleft stick.

  “Why not let this peón go?” he asked.

  “And will that help us?” demanded Don Manuel scornfully. “If we sent him away now he would hardly have time to reach the border by noon tomorrow, and they would certainly say that they had not received him. Is it not plain that they are determined to fight? When they have taken such pains to trump up an excuse, will they be so quickly appeased?”

  A purely selfish train of thought led to Shannet’s next question.

  “This man Sheridan and his friend—has nothing been heard of them yet? They have been at large two days.”

  “At a time like this, can I be bothered with such trifles?” replied de Villega shortly. “The squadron of Captain Tomare has been looking for them, but they are not found.”

  This was not surprising, for the searchers had worked outwards from Santa Miranda. Had they been inspired to work inwards they might have found Simon Templar, unwashed and unshaven, breaking stones in their own prison yard, chained by his ankles in a line of other unwashed and unshaven desperadoes, his identity lost in his official designation of Convicto Sancho Quijote, No. 475.

  It was the Saint’s first experience of imprisonment with hard labour, and he would have been enjoying the novel adventure if it had not been for various forms of microscopic animal life with which the prison abounded.

  6

  There came one morning to the London offices of Pasala Oil Products Ltd. (Managing Director, Hugo Campard) a cable in code. He decoded it himself, for it was not a code in general use, and his pink face went paler as the transliteration proceeded.

  By the time the complete translation had been written in between the lines Hugo Campard was a very frightened man. He read the message again and again, incredulous of the catastrophe it foreboded.

  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. Concession 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 scrip 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 sometimes, and Campard had made a slip which had brought him into the full publicity of a High Court action. He had wriggled out, b
y 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 because, 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.