The Saint Meets his Match (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  “Do you know how to get in touch with the Angels?”

  Slinky shook his head.

  “Never mind that,” said the Saint. “I guess they’ll hear about it, if you carry it round and talk a lot about how I gave it to you—without mentioning the five pounds. Tell the world how I beat you up and tried to make you howl on the Angels, and how you’re going to get even with me one day. The Angels don’t like me, and they’d be glad to find a man who hates me as much as you’re going to. If we’re lucky, you’ll find yourself enlisted in the gang in less than no time. Then you keep me posted.”

  “You mean,” said Slinky, “you want me to be your nose?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  Dyson sighed.

  “I’ve never been a nose,” he said solemnly. “No, Mr Templar, it can’t be done.”

  “You will be paid,” said the Saint deliberately, “twenty pounds cash for every genuine piece of news you send in about what the Angels are going to do next and how they’re going to do it.”

  Slinky closed his eyes sanctimoniously.

  “My conscience,” he said, “wouldn’t allow me to do a thing like that, Mr Templar.”

  “You’ll remember,” the Saint reminded him persuasively, “that I could get you sent down for six months hard right now.”

  Dyson blinked.

  “If it wasn’t for my principles,” he said sadly, “I’d be very happy to oblige you, Mr Templar.”

  Eventually, when he found that the Saint had no intention of raising his price, except in the matter of ten pounds instead of five for the black eye, he managed to choke down his conscience and accept. Simon arranged for him to be brought before the magistrate again, the next morning, when he would be released, and started back to Scotland Yard in a taxi. But on the way he had an idea.

  “The machine-gun,” he reflected, “was Pinky’s voluntary. Weald would have thought of the prussic acid in the milk. We’re still waiting for Jill’s contribution—and it might be very cunning to meet it half-way.”

  The inspiration, duly considered, appealed to him, and he gave fresh instructions to the driver.

  The door of the house on Belgrave Street was a long time opening in response to his peal on the bell. Perhaps to make up for this it was very quick in starting to shut again as soon as Frederick Wells had recognised the caller. But Simon Templar was more than ordinarily skilful at thrusting himself in where he was not wanted.

  “Not good enough, Freddie,” he drawled regretfully, and closed the door himself—from the inside.

  The butler glowered.

  “Miss Trelawney is out,” he said.

  “You lie, Ferdinand,” said the Saint pleasantly, and went on up the stairs.

  He really had no idea whether the butler was lying or not, but he gave him the benefit of the doubt. As it happened, this generous impulse was justified, for Jill Trelawney opened the door of the sitting-room just as Simon put his hand on the knob.

  “Hullo,” said the Saint amiably.

  His eyes flickered with an offensively secret mirth, and he caught the answering blaze from hers before she veiled them in a frozen inscrutability.

  “Lovely day, Jill,” remarked the Saint, very amiably.

  She relaxed wearily against the jamb.

  “My—sainted—aunt! Have you got away from your keeper again?”

  “Looks like it,” said the Saint apologetically. “Yes, I will stay to tea, thanks. Ring down to the kitchen and tell them not to mix arsenic with the sugar, because I don’t take sugar. And it’s no use putting strychnine in the milk, because I don’t take milk. Just tell ’em to shovel the whole bag of tricks in the teapot.”

  He walked calmly past her into the room, and sat down in the best chair. As an afterthought, he removed his hat.

  The girl followed him in.

  “Is your posse outside again?”

  “I wonder?” said the Saint. “Why don’t you go out and ask? You don’t know where you are just now, do you? One time I tell you I haven’t a posse, and I haven’t. Another time I tell you I have a posse and I haven’t. Now suppose I tell you I haven’t a posse you’ll know I have, won’t you?”

  She shrugged and took a cigarette from a silver box. Then she offered the box to him.

  “Have one?”

  “Not with you, darling.”

  “Did I hear you say ‘No, thanks’?”

  “Er—no, I don’t think so,” said the Saint seriously. “Did you?”

  With the smoke trickling through her lips the girl looked at him.

  “Have you come on business this time?” she inquired. “Or is this just another part of the official persecution?”

  “Partly on business, partly on pleasure,” said Simon, unabashed. “Which will you have first?”

  “The business, please.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” said the Saint accommodatingly. “I’ve come to do you a good turn, Jill.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that is so. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Ses you? Ses me. In fact, yes…I want to warn you. A dark man is going to cross your path. Beware of him. His name is Slinky Dyson.”

  The name roused no more response than a flicker of her eyelids.

  “What about him?”

  “He is a police spy,” said the Saint solemnly. “I have been able to buy him over. In return for a cash reward he is going to try to join your gang and give me all the information about you that he can get hold of. So whatever happens, don’t be taken in by him.”

  She read with glittering eyes the dancing devil of amusement behind his expressionlessness.

  “Is this another of your funny stories?”

  “It is.” The Saint sighed. “In fact, it’s one of my best. Do you know, Jill, I’m afraid you’re going to get in a devil of a muddle about me, aren’t you? First the business of the posse, then this. Now, do you think I’m telling you the truth in the hope that you will think I’m bluffing and fall into the trap, or do you think I’m inventing the yarn to keep you away from a man I don’t want you to have? I can’t help thinking that some of these questions are going to make life very difficult for you for the next few days.”

  She tapped her cigarette delicately on the edge of the ash-tray.

  “Is that all you came to say?” she asked patiently.

  “Not quite,” said the Saint, in that tone of gentle mockery that would have been like sandpaper rasped across the nerves of anyone less self-possessed. “I just wanted to ask one thing—about your father.”

  She faced him.

  “Haven’t I told you,” she said dangerously, “to leave my father out of this?”

  “I know,” said the Saint. “And I’ve told you that I shall bring anyone into it whom I choose to bring in. So we know where we are. And now listen to this. I’ve been making some inquiries about your father, and I’ve come on a name which interests me. It may mean something to you. The name is—Waldstein.”

  She stared at him narrowly.

  “Well?”

  The monosyllable dropped like a flake of hot metal.

  “I thought you might be after him,” said the Saint. “Do you mind telling me if I’m right?”

  Slowly she nodded.

  “You’re quite right—Templar!”

  The Saint beamed.

  “That’s one of the most sensible things I’ve heard you say,” he remarked. “In fact, if you concentrated your attention on Waldstein you’d be doing yourself and everyone else much more good than you’re doing at present. If your father was framed, Waldstein knows all about it. I’ll tell you that. But what good you expect to do by simply making yourself a nuisance to the police force in general is more than my logical mind can see.”

  She pointed to the table.

  “I suppose you’ve seen the papers?”

  “We have. All about the inefficiency of the police. Of course, everybody doesn’t know that I’m in charge of the situation. But does it give you the satisfaction you want?”

/>   “It gives me some satisfaction.”

  “We were also amused,” said Simon. “The chiefs of the CID meet together twice a day to roar with laughter over it…And I think that’s all for today. I’ll see you again soon. If you like, I’ll drop you a line to say when I’m coming, so that you can arrange to be out.”

  “Perhaps,” she said silkily, “you will not be in a position to come again. So you might save the stamp.”

  “That’s all right,” said the Saint easily. “I shouldn’t have stamped the letter.”

  He stood up and picked up his hat, which he brushed carefully with his sleeve. She made no move to delay him.

  At the door he turned for his parting shot.

  “Just for information,” he said, “is there going to be any trouble about my leaving this time?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “Not just now.”

  He smiled.

  “Something else arranged, I suppose. Not machine-guns, I hope. And no more poisoned milk. I don’t want you to let yourself down by repeating yourself too often, you know.”

  “You won’t be in suspense for long,” she said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said the Saint, with intense earnestness. “Well, bye-bye, old dear.”

  He strolled down the stairs humming a little tune.

  No one attempted to stop him. The hall was deserted. He let himself out, and sauntered down Belgrave Street swinging his stick.

  As a bluffing interview it had not borne the fruit he had hoped for. Since their first encounters, the girl had recovered a great deal of the poise and self-control that his studied impudence had at first been able to flurry her into losing. On that occasion she had given nothing away of importance—only that she had an interest in Waldstein. This was perhaps the one interest that Simon Templar shared with her wholeheartedly.

  CHAPTER THREE:

  HOW SIMON TEMPLAR MADE A SLIGHT ERROR AND PINKY BUDD MADE A BIG ONE

  1

  Two days later, Simon Templar went unostentatiously to a certain public-house in Aldgate. He was not noticed, for he had made some subtle alterations to his appearance and bearing. One man, however, recognised him, and they moved over to a quiet corner of the bar.

  “Have they been in touch with you again?” was the Saint’s immediate question.

  Mr Dyson nodded.

  His right eye was still disfigured by a swollen black-and-blue bruise. Mr Dyson, thinking it over subsequently, had decided that ten pounds was an inadequate compensation for the injury, but it was too late to reopen that discussion.

  “They sent for me yesterday,” he said. “I went at once, and they gave me a very good welcome.”

  “Did you drink it?” asked the Saint interestedly.

  “They’ve definitely taken me on.”

  “And the news?”

  “It was like this—”

  Simon listened to a long recital which told him nothing at all of any value, and departed a pound poorer than he had been when he came. It was the highest value he could place upon Mr Dyson’s first budget of information, and Slinky’s aggrieved pleading made no impression upon the Saint at all.

  He got back to the Yard to hear some real news.

  “Your Angels have been out again while you weren’t watching them,” said Cullis, as soon as the Saint had answered his summons. “Essenden was beaten up last night.”

  “Badly?”

  “Not very. The servants were still about, and Essenden was able to let off a yell which fetched them around in a bunch. The man got away. It seems that Essenden found him in his bedroom when he went upstairs about eleven o’clock. He tried to tackle the man and got the worst of the fight. The burglar was using a cosh.”

  “And who did the good work?”

  “Probably your friend Slinky. I’ve put a warrant out for him, anyway.”

  “Then take it back,” said the Saint. “Slinky never used a cosh in his life. Besides, I happen to know that he didn’t do it.”

  “I suppose he told you so?”

  “He didn’t—that’s why I believe him. Have you had the report from Records on the general features of the show?”

  “I’ve given them the details. The report should be through any minute now.”

  The report, as a matter of fact, was brought up a few minutes later. The Saint ran through the list of names submitted as possible authors of the crime, and selected one without much hesitation.

  “Harry Donnell’s the man.”

  “At Essenden’s?” interjected Cullis sceptically. “Harry Donnell works the Midlands. Besides, his gang don’t go in for ordinary burglary.”

  “Who said it was an ordinary burglary?” asked the Saint. “I tell you Harry Donnell’s the man on that list who’d be most pleased to take on an easy job of bashing like that. I could probably tell your Records Office a few things they didn’t know about Harry—you seem to forget that I used to know everything there was to know about the various birds in his line of business. I’m going to pull him in. Before I go I’m going to tell Jill Trelawney that I’m going to do it. I’ll go round and see her now. She’ll probably try to fix me for some sticky end this time. But that’s a minor detail. Having failed in that, she’ll try to get on the phone to Donnell and warn him—I expect he went back to Birmingham this morning. You’ll arrange for the Exchange to tell her that the line to Birmingham is out of order. Then, if I know anything about Jill Trelawney, she’ll set out to try to beat me to Birmingham herself. She’s got to keep up her reputation for rescues, especially when the man to be rescued is wanted for doing a job for her…”

  He outlined his plan in more detail.

  It was one which had come into his head on the spur of the moment, but the more he examined it the better it seemed to be. There was no evidence against Jill Trelawney on any of the scores which were at present held against her, and the Saint would have been bored stiff to spend his time sifting over ancient history in the hope of building up a live case out of dead material. Besides—which was far more important—that procedure wouldn’t have fitted in at all with the real ambition that the story of the Angels of Doom had brought into his young life. And to set Jill Trelawney racing into Birmingham to the rescue of Harry Donnell struck him as being a much more entertaining way of spending the day.

  In spite of the two attempts which had already been made on his life, he bore the girl no malice. Far from it. The Saint was used to that kind of thing. In fact, he had already found more amusement in the pursuit of Jill Trelawney than he had anticipated when he first set forth to make her acquaintance, and he was now preparing to find some more—but this, however, he did not confide to the Commissioner.

  They talked for a while longer, and the Saint left certain definite instructions to be passed on to the appropriate quarter. And then, as the Saint rose to go, the Commissioner was moved to revert to a thought suggested by the original subject of the interview.

  “Isn’t it curious,” said the Commissioner, “that only the other night you should have been asking whether there might be a reason for the Angels to have a feud with Essenden?”

  “Isn’t it a scream?” agreed the Saint.

  He set off for Belgrave Street in one of his moods of Saintly optimism.

  It struck him that he was spending a great deal of his time on Belgrave Street. This would be his third visit that week.

  He had no illusions about the possible outcome of it—the gun with which he had provided himself before leaving testified to that. A man cannot make himself as consistently unpopular as, for his own inscrutable reasons, it had in this case pleased the Saint to make himself, without there growing up, sooner or later, a state of tension in which something has to break. The thing broken should, of course, have been Simon Templar, but up to that time the thing broken had somehow failed to be Simon Templar. But this time…

  In the three days since his last visit life had been allowed to deal peacefully with him. He had used the milk from outside his f
ront door with a sublime confidence in its purity, and had not been disappointed. He had walked in and out of the house without any fear of being again enfiladed by machine-gun fire and in that again his judgment had proved to be right. On the other hand, he had treated letters and parcels delivered to him, and taxis which offered themselves for his hire, with considerable suspicion. He had as yet found no justification for this carefulness, but he realised that the calm could only be the herald of a storm. Possibly this third visit to Belgrave Street would precipitate the storm. He was prepared for it to do so.

  He was kept waiting outside for some time before his summons was answered. He did not stand at the top of the stairs, however, while he was waiting, in a position where sudden death might reach him through the letter-box, but placed himself on the pavement behind the shelter of one of the pillars of the portico. From behind this, with one eye looking round it, he was able to see the slight movement of a curtain in a ground-floor window as someone looked out to discover who the visitor was. Simon allowed his face to be seen, and then withdrew into cover until the door opened. Then he entered quickly.

  “Miss Trelawney is expecting you,” said Wells as he closed the door.

  The Saint glanced searchingly round the hall, and up the stairs as far as he could see. There was no one else about.

  He smiled seraphically.

  “You’re getting quite truthful in your old age, Freddie,” he remarked, and went up the stairs.

  The girl met him on the landing.

  “I got your message to say you were coming.”

  “I hope it gave you a thrill,” said the Saint earnestly.

  He looked past her into the sitting-room.

  “Are you staying to tea again?” she asked sweetly.

  “Before I’ve finished,” said Simon, “I expect you’ll be wanting me to stay the week.”

  “Come in.”

  “Thanks. I will. Aren’t we getting polite?”

  He went through.

  In the sitting-room he found Weald and Budd, as he had expected to find them, though they had not been exposed to the field of view which he had from the landing through the open door.

  “Hullo, Weald! And are you looking for Waldstein, too?”