The Saint Meets his Match (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  A gentle knock on the door almost made Essenden jump out of his skin.

  “Would there be anything else tonight, my lord?” inquired the footman, tactfully.

  “A large brandy and soda, Falcon.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  In a few moments the tray was brought in.

  “Thank you, Falcon.”

  “I have cut some sandwiches for you, my lord.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is there nothing else, my lord?”

  Essenden picked up his glass and looked at it under the light.

  “Have there been any callers today?”

  “No, my lord. But the young man you sent down from London to inspect your typewriter came about six o’clock.”

  Essenden nodded slowly.

  He dismissed the servant, and when the door had closed again, he went to another book-case and extracted a couple of dusty volumes. Reaching into the cavity behind the other books, he brought out an automatic pistol and a box of cartridges. The books he replaced. Carrying the gun over to the table, he first carefully tested the action and then loaded the magazine, bringing the first cartridge into the chamber and then thumbing in the safety-catch.

  With the gun in his pocket, he experienced a slight feeling of relief.

  But for hours afterwards he sat in the study, staring at the embers of the dying fire, sipping brandy and smoking cigarette after cigarette, till the fire died altogether, and he began to shiver as the room grew colder. And thus, alone, through those hours, he pondered plan after plan, until at last he had shaped an idea with which his weary brain could at the moment find no fault.

  It was a wild and desperate scheme, the kind of scheme which a man only forms after a sleepless night fortified with too many cigarettes and too much strong drink taken alone and in fear, but it was the only answer he could find to his problem. He was quite calm and decided about that. When at last he dragged himself to bed, he was more calm and cold and decided than he had ever been before in all his life, was Lord Essenden, that fussy peevish little man.

  2

  Simon Templar picked up the sheet of paper on which he had been working spasmodically during the return from Paris, and cleared his throat.

  “We understand,” he said, “that the following lines have been awarded the Dumbbell Prize for Literature”:

  “The King sits in the silent town,

  Sipping his China tea:

  ‘And where shall I find a fearless knight

  To bear a sword for me?

  The beasts are leagued about my gates,

  The vultures seek the slain,

  Till a perfect knight shall rise and ride

  To find the Grail again.’

  Then up and spake a Minister,

  Sat at the King’s right knee:

  ‘Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil

  Has a splendid pedigree.

  His brother is Baron de Bathmat Boil,

  Who owns the Daily Squeal,

  And everybody knows he is

  Impeccably genteel.’

  ‘Has he been with my men-at-arms,

  Has he borne scars for me,

  That I should take this Basil Boil

  Among my chivalry?’

  ‘Sire, in a war some years ago

  You called him to the fray,

  And he would have served you loyally,

  But his conscience bade him nay.

  And they took him before the judges,

  Because he did rebel,

  And he lay a year in prison

  To save his soul from hell.’

  ‘Then what have I for a portent,

  What bring you me for a sign,

  That I should take this coistril

  To be a knight of mine?’

  ‘Sire, we are bringing in a bill

  Which the Daily Squeal could foil,

  And it might be wise to wheedle

  Baron de Bathmat Boil.’

  Then the King rose up in anger

  And seared them with his gaze:

  ‘You have taken the wine and the laughter

  The pride and the grace of days;

  The last fair woman is faded,

  And the last man dead for shame,

  But a dog from the gutter shall serve me

  Before this man you name.’

  They heard, and did not answer;

  They heard, and did not bend;

  And he saw their frozen stillness

  And knew it was the end.

  Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil

  They brought upon a day,

  And the King gave him the accolade

  And turned his face away,

  And saw beyond his windows

  The tattered flags unfurled;

  And on his brow was a crown of iron

  And the weariness of the world.”

  “What’s that supposed to be?” asked the girl blankly.

  “If you don’t recognise poetry when you hear it,” said the Saint severely, “you are beyond salvation. But I’ll admit it’s rather an amorphous product—my feelings got too strong for gentle satire as I went along. If you saw a paper the other day, you’ll notice that a sometime pacifist has recently received a knighthood. A violent atheist will probably be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and a confirmed teetotaller is going to be the chairman of the next Liquor Commission. After which I shall put my head in a gas-oven.”

  Jill Trelawney selected two lumps of sugar from a silver bowl.

  “Something seems to have upset you,” she remarked.

  “The bleary organisation of this wall-eyed world is always upsetting me. It would upset anyone who hadn’t been spavined from birth.”

  “But apart from that?”

  “Apart from that,” said Simon Templar luxuriously, “I feel that life is very good just now. I have about a hundred thousand francs in my pocket, waiting to be translated into English as soon as the banks open in the morning. I have had a drive in the country. I have discovered that, if all else fails, I can always earn an honest living as an inspector of typewriters. I have bathed, changed, and refreshed myself from my toils and travels with a trio of truly superb kippers cooked with a dexterity that might have made me famous as a chef. My latest poetic masterpiece gives me great satisfaction. And finally, I have your charming company. What more could any man ask?”

  He sat at ease in the comfortable little flat near Sloane Square, which he had established long ago as a reserve base against the day when a hue and cry might make his home in Upper Berkeley Mews too hot to hold him. A cup of coffee stood in front of him and a cigarette was between his fingers, and, across the table, he looked into the golden eyes of Jill Trelawney, and made his speech.

  “But, Jill,” he protested, “there is a far-away look about you. Is it indigestion or love?”

  She smiled abstractedly.

  “I’m thinking about Essenden,” she said.

  “So it’s love,” said the Saint.

  “I’m wondering—”

  “Seriously, why? In the last twenty-four hours we’ve devoted ourselves entirely to Essenden. Personally, I’m ready to give the subject a rest. We’ve done our stuff, for the moment. The egg, so to speak, is on hatch. The worm is on the hook. All we can do now, for a while, is to sit tight and wait.”

  “Do you think he’ll rise?”

  “I’ve told you,” said the Saint extravagantly, “he’ll rise like a loaf overloaded with young and vigorous yeast. He’ll rise so high that pheasants and red herrings won’t be in the same street with him. When he’s finished rising, he’ll have such an altitude that he’ll have to climb a ladder to take his shoes off. That’s what I say. Take it from me, Jill.”

  The girl stirred her coffee reflectively.

  “All the same,” she said, “like all fishing, it’s a gamble.”

  “Not with that fish and that bait, it isn’t,” answered the Saint. “It’s a cinch. Look here. We put the wind up his lordship
. We fan into his pants a vertical draught strong enough to lift him through his hat. There’s no error about that. So what can he do? He must either (a) sit tight and get ready to face the music, (b) go out and get run over by a bus, or (c) prepare a counter-attack. Well, he’s not likely to do (a). If he does (b), we’re saved a lot of trouble and hard work. If he does (c)—”

  “Yes,” said the girl. “If he does (c)—”

  “He plays right into our hand. He comes out of balk. And once he’s in play, we can make our break. Burn it—!”

  Simon put out his cigarette and leaned forward.

  “This isn’t like you, Jill,” he said. “It isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard about you, and it certainly isn’t a bit like the form you were showing this time last week. Don’t tell me your nerve’s going soft in the small of the back, because I shan’t believe you.”

  “But what’s he likely to do?”

  Simon shrugged.

  “Heaven knows,” he said. “I tell you, our job is just to stand around the landscape and wait. And who cares?”

  Jill Trelawney lighted a cigarette and smiled.

  “You’re right, Simon Templar,” she said. “I’m getting morbid. I’m starting to get the idea that things have been just a bit too easy for me—all along. You know how much I’ve got away with already, and you ought to know that nobody ever gets away with the whole works for ever.”

  “I do,” said the Saint cheerfully.

  She nodded absently. For a moment the tawny eyes looked right through him. It was extraordinarily humiliating, and at the same time provocative, that feeling which the eyes gave him for an instant—that, for a moment, he was not there at all, or she was not there at all. Although she heard him, she was quite alone with what she was thinking.

  And then she saw him again.

  “Do you know, you’re the last partner I ever thought I should have,” she said, and the Saint inhaled gently.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “And yet…you remember when you reminded me of that boy of mine back in the States?” The golden eyes absorbed his smile. “That was a mean crack…I suppose I deserved it.”

  “You did.”

  “It made a difference.”

  Simon raised his eyebrows, but the mockery was without malice.

  “After which,” he murmured, “you shot Stephen Weald.”

  “Wouldn’t you have done the same?”

  “I should. Exactly the same. And that’s the point. You might have left it to me, but I stood aside because I figured he was your onion…Which was half-witted, if you come to think of it, because if we’d kept him we could have made him squeal. But who am I to spoil sport?”

  “I know.”

  “But we go on with the good work, so why worry?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Yes, we go on. Maybe it won’t be long now.”

  “And that boy of yours?”

  “He thinks I’m travelling around improving my mind.” She laughed. “I suppose I am, if you look at it that way…”

  And there was a silence.

  And in that simple silence began an understanding that needed no explanations. For the Saint always knew exactly what to leave unsaid…And when, presently, he reached out a long arm to crush his cigarette into an ash-tray, glanced at the clock, and stood up, the movement fitted spontaneously into the comfortable quiet which had settled down upon the evening.

  “Do you realise,” he said easily, “that it’s nearly midnight, and we’ve had a busy day?”

  Her smile thanked him, and he remembered it after she had left the room and he sat by the fire smoking a final cigarette and meditating the events of the last twenty-four hours.

  Adventures to the adventurous. Simon Templar called himself an adventurer. What other people called him is nobody’s business. Certainly he had had what he wanted, in more ways than one and the standard of enterprise and achievement which he had set himself from the very beginning of his career showed no signs of slacking off. It was only recently that he had started to realise that there was more for him to do in life than he had ever known…And yet, just then, he was quite contented. Simon Templar’s philosophical outlook on life was his strong suit. It kept him young. As long as something interesting was happening he was quite happy. He was quite happy that night.

  For complete contentment he required well-balanced alternations of excitement and peaceful self-satisfaction. At the beginning of his cigarette he was enjoying the peaceful self-satisfaction. Half-way through the cigarette, the front-door bell rang curtly and crisply, and the Saint came slowly to his feet with a speculative little frown.

  He was not expecting to receive callers at that address, apart from tradesmen, because it had never been registered in his own name. And in any case, when he came back to London this time there had been no notices in the newspapers to say that Mr Simon Templar had returned to town and would be delighted to hear from any friends and/or acquaintances who cared to look him up. For obvious reasons. The Saint had never been notorious for hiding his light under any unnecessary bushels, but he always knew precisely when to remain discreetly in the background. He had learnt the art in his cradle, and this was one of the periods when he applied it energetically. It was therefore a practical certainty that the visitor would be unwelcome, but Simon opened the door with a bland smile, for he was always interested to meet any trouble that happened to be coming his way.

  “Why, if it isn’t Claud Eustace!” he exclaimed, and stood aside to allow the caller to enter.

  “Yes, it’s me,” said Mr Teal heavily.

  He came in, and oozed through the miniature hall into the sitting-room. Simon Templar followed him in.

  “What can I do for you? Do you want a tip for the Two Thousand, or have you come to borrow money?”

  Inspector Teal carefully unwrapped a wafer of chewing gum and posted it in his red face.

  “Saint,” said Teal drowsily, “I hear you’ve been a naughty boy again.”

  “Not me,” said the Saint, “You must be thinking of someone else. I’ll admit I’ve been to Paris, but—”

  Teal’s lower jaw ruminated rhythmically.

  “Yes,” he said, “some of it was in Paris.”

  Simon leaned against the mantelpiece with a little twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

  “Well?”

  “In Paris,” said Teal, “you doped Lord Essenden and took a couple of hundred thousand francs off him. Before that, while acting as a police officer, you abandoned your duty and connived at the escape of a woman who’s wanted for murder. You can’t go on doing that sort of thing, Saint. I’m afraid I shall have to bother you again.”

  “Well?”

  The detective’s shoulders moved in a ponderous shrug.

  “The best thing about you, Templar,” he said, “is that you always come quietly.”

  Simon fingered his chin.

  “What d’you mean—‘come quietly?’ ” he asked, with child-like innocence.

  “Come for a walk,” said Teal. “Or if you like, we’ll take a taxi. I’m sorry to have to pull you in at this hour, but you were out when I called earlier, and if I left it till tomorrow morning you might have gone away again.”

  “And where are we going to take this walk—or this taxi drive?”

  Mr Teal blinked. He seemed to find it a tremendous effort to keep awake.

  “Rochester Row Police Station.”

  “In Pimlico?” protested the Saint. “Not that. I’m only taken to West End police stations.”

  “Not Pimlico,” said Teal. “Westminster.”

  “Worse still,” said the Saint. “Members of Parliament get taken there.”

  Mr Teal settled his hat, which, like the traditional detective, he had not removed when he had entered the flat.

  “Coming?” he inquired lethargically.

  “Can’t,” said the Saint “Sorry, old dear.”

  “Simon Templar,” said Teal, “I arrest you on
a charge of—”

  “Let’s see it on the warrant.”

  “Which warrant?”

  The Saint grinned.

  “The warrant for my arrest,” he said.

  “I haven’t got a warrant.”

  “I guessed that. And how are you going to arrest me without a warrant?”

  “I can take you into custody—”

  “You can’t,” said the Saint pleasantly. “I’m behaving myself. I’m in my own flat, just about to go to bed like any respectable citizen. There’s nothing you can accuse me of. What you’re doing, Teal, is to put up a very thin bluff, and I’m calling the bluff. Laugh that off.”

  Teal closed his eyes.

  “In Paris—”

  “In Paris,” said Simon calmly, “I stole two hundred thousand francs from Lord Essenden. I admit it. If you like, I’ll put it in writing, and you can take it home with you to show the Chief Commissioner. But you can’t do anything about it. The hideous crime was committed on French soil and it’s a matter for the French police alone. I’m in England. An Englishman cannot be extradited from England. Sorry to disappoint you, I’m sure, but you shouldn’t try to put things like that over on me.”

  “In Birmingham—”

  “In Birmingham,” said the Saint, in the same equable manner, “a man known lately as Stephen Weald, and formerly as Waldstein, was shot by Jill Trelawney. Whether it was in self-defence or not is a matter for the jury which may or may not try her—I suppose you had some sort of a story from Donnell. However, I did my duty and arrested her. I thought I had disarmed her, but in the taxi she produced another gun and stuck me up. I was forced to get into a train with her. Not far north of London, she forced me to jump out. I don’t know what happened after that. I lay stunned beside the track for several hours—”

  “What kind of a gag,” demanded Teal, “are you trying to put over?”