Alias the Saint (12 page)

“But if Nigel had given up the shares without suspecting anything, and then they’d soared up as Teddy said they would—”

“What would that have mattered?”

“Nigel would have known.”

“Known what? Hallin would have said that he sold the shares for the best price he could get, and Nigel would never have thought that it might be a lie… . But now—do you remember how I said I wanted to make Hallin live?”

“Yes.”

“That was the test—before I knew any of this. I wanted to see what would happen to him if he put aside his joke. I wanted to know what he. would be like if he became an ordinary mortal man—a man to whom death might not be a terror:, but to whom death was still no joke. And now I know,”

With her chin on her hands, Patricia regarded him. Not as she had regarded him when he had spoken of Miles Hallin before; but with a seriousness that wore a smile.

“I shall never get to the end of your mind, lad,” she said; and the Saint grinned.

“At the moment,” he murmured, “I’m enjoying my brandy.”

And he actually did forget Miles Hallin for the rest of that afternoon and evening; for Simon Templar had the gift of taking life as it came—when once he knew from what quarter it might be coming.

His impatience disappeared. It seemed as if that talk over the coffee and brandy had cleared the air for him. He knew that trouble was coming; but that was nothing unusual. He could meet all the trouble in the world with a real enjoyment, now that he had purged his mind of the kind of puzzle that for him was gloom and groping and unalloyed Gehenna. Even the reflection that Miles Hallin had still failed to die did not depress him. He had not loosened that wheel in high hopes of a swift and catastrophic denouement, for he had known how slight was the chance that the wheel would elect to part company with the car at the very moment when Hallin was treading the accelerator flat down to the flooring; the thing had been done on the spur of the moment, more in mischief than anything else, just to pep up the party’s future. And it would certainly do that.

As for Teal, and Teal’s horrific warnings of what would happen if the Saint should again attract the attention of the law—those were the merest details. They simply made the practical problem more amusing….

So the Saint, over his brandy, swung over to a contentment as genuine and as illogical as his earlier impatience had been, and was happy for the rest of that day, and nearly died that night.

He had danced with Patricia at the May Fair, and he had thought that Patricia looked particularly beautiful; and so presently they strolled home arm in arm through the cool lamplit streets, talking intently and abstractedly about certain things that are nobody’s business. And the Saint was saying something or other, or it may have been Patricia who was saying something or other, as they crossed Berkeley Square, but whoever it was never finished the speech.

Some instinct made the Saint look round, and he saw the lights of a car behind them swerve suddenly. An ordinary sight enough, perhaps, on the face of it; but he knew by the same instinct that it was not ordinary. It may have been that he had not forgotten Miles Hallin so completely, after all.

He stopped in his stride, and stooped; and Patricia felt herself swept up in his arms. There was a lamp-post close behind them, and the Saint leaped for it. He heard the screech of brakes and tires before he dared to look round; even then he was in time to see the pillar that sheltered him bend like a reed before the impact of the car; and he moved again, this time to one side, like lightning, as the iron column snapped at the base and came crashing down to the pavement.

Then there was a shout somewhere, and a sound of running feet; and the mutter of the car stopped.

Quietly the Saint set Patricia down again.

“How very unfortunate,” he remarked. “Dearie, dearie me! … Mr. Miles Hallin, giving evidence, stated that his nerves had been badly shaken by his smash at Brooklands. His license was suspended for six months.”

A constable and half a dozen ordinary citizens were rapidly congregating around the wreckage; and an unholy glitter came into the Saint’s eyes.

“Pardon me one moment, old darling,” he murmured; and Patricia found herself standing alone.

But she reached the crowd in time to hear most of his contribution to the entertainment.

“Scandalous, I call it,” the Saint was saying, in a voice that trembled—possibly with righteous indignation. Or possibly not. “I shall write to the Times. A positive outrage… . Yes, of course you can have my name and address. I shall be delighted to give evidence… . The streets aren’t safe … murderous fools who ought to be in an asylum … Probably only just learned to drive … Disgraceful … disgusting … ought to be shot… mannerless hogs….

It was some time before the policeiman was able to sooth him; and he faded out of the picture still fuming vitriolically, to the accompaniment of a gobble of applause from the assembled populace.

And a few minutes later he was leaning helplessly against the door of his flat, his ribs aching and the tears streaming down his cheeks, while Patricia implored him wildly to open the door and take his hilarity into decent seclusion.

“Oh, but it was too beautiful, sweetheart!” he sobbed weakly, as at last he staggered into the sitting room. “If I’d missed that chance I could never have looked myself in the face again. Did you see Miles?”

“I did.”

“He couldn’t say a word, He didn’t dare to let on that he knew me. He just had to take it all. Pat, I ask you, can life hold any more?”

Half an hour later, when he was sprawled elegantly over an armchair, with a tankard of beer in one hand and the last cigarette of the evening in the other, she ventured to ask the obvious question.

“He was waiting for us, of course?” she asked; and the Saint nodded.

“My prophetic report of the police-court proceedings would still have been correct,” he drawled. “Miles Hallin has come to life.”

He did not add that he could have prophesied with equal assurance that Chief Inspector Teal would not again be invited to participate in the argument—not by Miles Hallin, anyway. But he knew quite well that either Miles Hallin or Simon Templar would have to die before the argument was settled; and it would have to be settled soon.

5

Nevertheless, teal did participate again; and it may be said that his next intrusion was entirely his own idea.

He arrived in Upper Berkeley Mews the very next evening; and the Saint, who had seen him pass the window, opened the door before Teal’s finger had reached the bell.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Simon murmured cordially, as he propelled the detective into the sitting room. “Still, you needn’t bother to tell me why you’ve come. A tram was stolen from Tooting last night, and you want to know if I did it. Six piebald therms are missing from the Gaslight & Coke Company’s stable, and you want to know if I’ve got them. A seventeen-horse-power saveloy entered for the St. Leger has been stricken with glanders, and you want to know—”

“I didn’t say so,” observed Mr. Teal—heatedly, for him.

Never mind,” said the Saint peaceably. ““We won’t press the point. But you must admit that we’re seeing a lot of you these days.” He inspected the detective’s waterline with a reflective eye. “I believe you’ve become a secret Glaxo drinker,” he said reproachfully.

Teal gravitated towards a chair.

“I heard about your show last night,” he said.

Simon smiled vaguely.

“You hear of everything, old dear,” he remarked; and Teal nodded seriously.

“It’s my business,” he said.

He put a finger in his mouth and hitched his chewing gum into a quiet backwater; and then he leaned forward, his pudgy hands resting on his knees, and his baby blue eyes unusually wide awake.

“Will you try not to stall. Templar—just for a few minutes?”

The Saint looked at him thoughtfully; Then took a cigarette and sat down in the chair opposite.

“Sure,” he said.

“I wonder if you’d even do something more that that?”

“Namely?”

“I wonder if you’d give me a straight line bout Miles Hallin—and no fooling.”

“I offered you one yesterday,” said the Saint, “and you wouldn’t listen.”

Teal nodded, shifting his feet.

“I know. But the situation wasn’t quite the same. Since then I’ve heard about that accident last night. And that mayn’t mean anything to anyone but you and me—but you’ve got to include me.”

“Have I?”

“I’m remembering things,” said the detective. “You may be a respectable member of society now, but you haven’t always been one. I can remember the time when I’d have given ten years’ salary for the pleasure of putting you away. Sometimes I get relapses of that feeling, even now.”

“So you do,” murmured the Saint,

“But this isn’t one of those times,” said Teal, “Just now I only want to remember another part of your record. And I know as well as anyone else that you never go after a man just because he’s got a wart on his nose. Usually, your reason’s fairly plain. This time it isn’t. And I’m curious.”

“Naturally.”

“Hallin’s right off your usual mark. He doesn’t belong to any shady bunch. If he did, I’d know it. He isn’t even a borderline case, like I knew Lemuel was.

“He isn’t.”

“And yet he tried to bump you off last night,”

The Saint inhaled deeply, and exhaled again through a Saintly smile.

“If you want to know why he did that,” he said, I’ll tell you. It was because he’s always been terribly afraid of death.”

“Do you mean he thought you ere going to kill him?”

“That’s not what I said. I certainly did say I was going to kill him; but whether he believed me or not is more than I can tell you at present.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Simon raised his eyebrows mournfully, but he checked the protest that was almost becoming a habit. After all, Teal was only a detective. One had to make allowances.

“Miles Hallin thought no one in the world knew the truth about him,” said the Saint. “And then he found that I knew. So he wanted me to die.”

Teal compressed his lips.

Then he said: “And what was this truth?”

“Simply that Miles Hallin is a coward.”

“Would he try to kill you for that?”

The Saint gazed at the ceiling,

“Did you take my tip about that Brooklands affair?” he asked.

“I made some inquiries,” Teal shrugged. “I’m afraid it wasn’t much use. I’m told no one could Improve anything.”

“And yet you’ve come back to see me.”

“After that business last night. On the level, Templar, I’d be glad of a tip. You know something that I don’t know, and just this once I want you to help me. If it had looked like one of your ordinary shows, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Where is the peculiar difference between this show and what you call my ‘ordinary shows’?”

“You know as well as I do—”

“I don’t!”

The Saint uncurled from his chair like a steel spring released, and his eyes were of the same steel. The detective realized that those eyes had been levelled unwinkingly at him for a long while; but he had not realized it before. Now he saw his mistake.

“I don’t know anything of the kind,” snapped the Saint, with those eyes of chilled steel; and the laziness had vanished altogether from his voice. “But I do know that I can’t swallow the joke of your coming to see me just because you want to take one of my feathers and put it in your own cap. I’ve got a darned good swallowing apparatus. Teal, I promise you but it simply won’t sink that one!”

Teal blinked.

“I only wanted to ask you—”

“Shucks!” said the Saint tersely. “You’ve told me what you wanted to ask me. My yell is that you haven’t told me the real reason. And that’s what I’m going to know before we take the palaver any further. You asked me not to stall; now I’m telling you not to stall. Shoot!”

For a space of seconds they eyed one another in silence; and then the detective nodded fractionally, though his round, red face had not changed its expression.

“All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll come clean—if you’ll do the same.”

The Saint stood tensely. But he hesitated only for a moment. He thought: “Something’s happened. Teal knows what it is. I’ve got to find out. It may or may not be important, but—”

The Saint said curtly: “That’s O.K. by me,”

“Then you start,” answered Teal.

Simon drew breath.

“Mine’s easy. I suspect that the story of Hallin’s luck in Australia is a lie. I know that Hallin’s crazy about the same girl that Nigel Perry’s in love with. I know that Hallin tried to push Perry out of the running by persuading him to put the little money he’d got into a mine that Hallin thought was a dud. I know that Teddy Everest told Hallin the mine was a dud, and later told him that it wasn’t a dud after all. I know Hallin faked that crash because Teddy might be dangerous. I know Hallin had planned some story to get those shares back from Perry; and I know Hallin tried to kill me, because I told Perry the truth—even if Perry didn’t believe me. That’s all there is to it. Your turn.”

Teal’s chair creaked as he moved; but his eyes were closed. He appeared to have fallen asleep. And then he spoke with a voice that was not at all sleepy.

“Moyna Stanford was kidnapped this afternoon,” he said; and the Saint swore softly

“The hell!

“That’s all I know.”

“Tell me about it.”

“There’s very little to tell. She’d been down to lunch with some friends at Windsor—she walked alone to the station—and she hasn’t been seen since.”

“But, burn it!—a grown girl can disappear for two or three hours without being kidnapped, can’t she?”

“Ordinarily, she can,” said Teal, “I’m just telling you what’s happened. She was due to have tea with some friends of her mother’s. They rang up her mother to ask why she hadn’t come. Her mother rang up Windsor to ask the same question. And as soon as her mother grasped the facts she went flying to the police. Of course, Mrs. Stanford didn’t get much satisfaction—we haven’t got time to attend to hysterical parents who get the wind up as quickly as that—but I heard about it, and it seemed to link up. Anyway—”