Alias the Saint (4 page)

With that parting shot he left them, and as he closed the door softly behind him he began to whistle.

“Now I guess I’ve rubbed the menagerie right on the raw!” Simon Templar thought cheerfully. “If my after-breakfast speech doesn’t make those gay birds hop, I wonder what will?”

4

Simon spent the morning reading and drinking beer. The three men and the girl sat late over breakfast, and he guessed that his arrival had been the occasion for a council of war. When they came out of the dining room, however, they walked straight past him without speaking, and ignored his existence. They went upstairs, and none of them even looked back.

They did not appear again for the rest of the morning; but at about twelve o’clock Detective Duncarry was ushered upstairs by Basher Tope. He was there twenty minutes, and when he came down again he was peeling off his coat and generally conveying the impression of being here to stay. Simon shrewdly surmised that the congregation of the ungodly was now increased by one, but Basher Tope took no notice of the Saint, and led Duncarry round in the direction of the public bar without speaking a word. It must be recorded that Simon Templar took a notably philosophic view of this sudden passion for ignoring his existence.

He lunched early, and Basher Tope returned exclusively monosyllabic replies to the cheerfully aimless conversation with which Simon rewarded his ministrations. After about the fourth unprofitable attempt to secure the observation of the conversational amenities, the Saint sighed resignedly and gave it up as a bad job.

After lunch he put on his hat and went out for a brisk walk, for he had decided that there was nothing he could do in broad daylight as long as the whole gang were in the house. With characteristic optimism, he refused to consider what particular form of unpleasantness they might be preparing for his entertainment that night, and devoted himself whole-heartedly to the enjoyment of his exercise. He covered ten miles at a brisk pace, and ended up with a ravenous appetite at the only other ina which the village boasted.

The proprietor and his wife were clearly surprised by his demand for a meal, but after first being met with the information that they were not prepared to cater for visiting diners, he successfully contrived to blarney them into accommodating him. The Saint thought that that was only a sensible precaution to take, for by that time no one could tell what curious things might be happening to the food at the Beacon.

He ate simply and well, stood the obliging publican a couple of drinks, and went home about ten o’clock.

As he approached the Beacon he took particular note of the lighting in the upstairs windows. Lights showed in only two of them, and these were two of the three that had been lighted up on the night he arrived. There were few lights downstairs—since the change of management, the Beacon had become very unpopular. The Saint had gathered the essential reasons for this from his conversation with the villagers in the rival tavern. The new proprietor of the Beacon was clearly running the house not to make money but to amuse himself and entertain his friends, for visitors from outside had met with such an uncivil welcome that a few days had been sufficient to bring about a unanimous boycott, to the delight and enrichment of the proprietor of the George on the other side of the village.

The door was locked, as before, but the Saint hammered on it in his noisy way, and in a few moments it was opened.

“Evening, Basher,” said the Saint affably, walking through into the parlour. “I’m too late for dinner, I suppose, but you can bring me a pint of beer before I go to bed.”

Tope shuffled off, and returned in a few moments with a tankard.

“Your health. Basher,” said the Saint, and raised the tankard.

Then he sniffed at it, and set it carefully down again.

“Butyl chloride,” he remarked, “has an unmistakable odour, with which all cautious detectives make a point of familiarizing themselves very early in their careers. To vulgar people like yourself, Basher, it is known as the knockout drop, and one of the most important objections that I have to it is that it completely neutralizes the beneficial properties of good beer.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that beer,” growled Basher.

“Then you may have it,” said the Saint generously. “Bring me a bottle of whisky. A new one—and I’ll draw the cork myself.”

Basher Tope was away five minutes, and at the end of that time he came back and banged an unopened bottle of whisky and a corkscrew down on the table.

“Bring me two glasses,” said the Saint.

Basher Tope was back in time to witness the extraction of the cork; and Simon poured a measure of whisky into each glass and splashed water into it.

“Drink with me, Basher,” invited the Saint cordially, taking up one of the glasses.

Tope shook his head.

“I don’t drink.”

“You’re a liar, Basher,” said the Saint calmly. “You drink like a particularly thirsty fish. Look at your nose!”

“My nose is my business,” said Tope truculently.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Simon. “It must be, rotten for you. But I want to see you have a drink with me. Take that glass!”

“I don’t want it,” Tope retorted stubbornly.

Simon put his glass down again.

“I thought the lead cap looked as if it had been taken off very carefully, and put back again,” he said. “I just wanted to verify my suspicions. You can go. Oh, and take this stuff with you and pour it, down the sink.”

He left Basher Tope standing there and went straight upstairs. The fire ready-laid in his bedroom tempted him almost irresistibly, for he was a man who particularly valued the creature comforts, but he felt that it would be wiser to deny himself that luxury. Anything might happen in that place at night, and Simon decided that the light of a dying fire might not be solely to his own advantage.

He undressed, shivering, and jumped into bed. He had locked his door, but he considered that precaution of far less value than the tiny little super-sensitive silver bell which he had fixed into the woodwork of the door by means of a metal prong.

He had blown out the lamp, and he was just dozing when the first alarm came, for he heard the door rattle as someone tried the handle. There followed three soft taps which he had to strain to hear.

With a groan, Simon flung off the bedclothes, lighted the lamp, and pulled on his dressing gown. Then he opened the door.

The girl he had met that morning stood outside, and she pushed past him at once and closed the door behind her. The Saint seemed shocked.

“Don’t you know this is most irregular?” he demanded reprovingly.

“I haven’t come here to be funny,” she flashed back, in a low voice. “Listen to me–were you talking nothing but nonsense this morning?”

“Not altogether,” replied Simon cautiously. “Although I don’t mind admitting—”

“You’re a detective?”

“Er—occasionally,” said Simon modestly.

The girl bit her lip.

“Whom are you after?” she asked.

Simon’s eyebrows went up.

“I’m after one or two people,” he said. “Marring and Crantor, for instance, I hope to include in the bag. But the man I’m really sniping for is Bunnywugs.”

“You mean Professor Raxel?”

“That’s what he’s calling himself now, is it? I’ve heard him spoken of by a dozen different names, but he’s best known as the Professor. He has a certain reputation.”

The girl nodded.

“Well,” she said, “you gave the gang some pretty straight warnings at breakfast. Now I’m warning you. If the Professor’s got a reputation, you can take it from me he’s earned it. You’ve bitten off a lot more than you can chew, Smith, and if you go on playing the fool like this it’ll choke you!”

“Rameses is rather a mouthful, I grant you, so my friends usually call me Simon,” said the Saint wistfully.

The girl stamped her foot.

“You can be funny at breakfast to-morrow, if you live to eat it,” she shot back. “For God’s sake— can’t you see what danger you’re in?”

“Now I come to think of it,” murmured the Saint, “you must have a name, too.”

“Tregarth’s my name,” she told him impatiently.

“It must have been your father’s,” said the Saint, with conviction. “Tell me—what else do the family call you to distinguish you from him?”

“Betty Tregarth.

Simon held out his hand.

“Thanks, Betty,” he said seriously. “You’re rather a decent kid. I’m sorry you’re mixed up in this bunch of bums.”

“I’m not!” she began hotly, and then suddenly fell silent, her face going white, for she realized how impossible it would be to tell him the true circumstances.

And the realization cut her like a knife, for Simon Templar was smiling at her in a particularly nice way; and she knew at once that if there was one man in the whole world whom she might have trusted with such a story as hers, it was the smiling young man with the hell-for-leather blue eyes who stood before her arrayed in green pajamas and a staggering silk dressing gown that would have made Joseph’s coat look like a suit of deep mourning. And by the cussedness of Fate it had had to so happen that he was also one of the few men in the world in whom she could not possibly confide. She felt hot tears stinging her eyelids—tears that she longed to shed, and could not.

“Shake, Betty,” said the Saint gently, and she took his hand.

He looked down at her, still smiling in that particularly nice way.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “But it’s ho use, though—I’m staying here as long as the job takes. If you’ll adopt me as a sort of honorary uncle and take my advice, you’ll get out of this as quick as you can. Pack your bag to-night, and hike for the station first thing to-morrow morning. That’s a straight tip. And if you do decide to get out, and the other tumours cut up queer, just blow me the wink and I’ll see you through. That’s a promise.”

He opened the door for her, and he had to let go her hand to do it.

“Good-night,” said the Saint.

“Good-night,” she said, with quivering lips and an ache in her throat.

He closed the door on her, and she heard the key turn in the lock.

5

He rolled back into bed again, blew out the lamp, snuggled down, and was asleep in a few minutes, The prospect of being the object of the attentions of other nocturnal visitors not so kindly disposed towards him failed to disturb his slumbers for he knew exactly how far he could trust his powers of sleeping as lightly as he wished to.

His confidence was justified; for when, three hours later, the door began to swing open under the impulse of a stealthy hand, the almost inaudible ting! of the little bell he had attached to it was sufficient to rouse him, and in an instant he was wide awake

He pushed back the blankets and slid soundlessly out of bed, taking with him the electric torch and automatic pistol which were under his pillow.

The room was in pitchy darkness. The Saint waited a moment until he judged that the intruder was right inside the room, and then switched on his torch. It picked up the figure of Basher Tope, advancing cat-footed towards the bed, and in Basher Tope’s right hand was the instrument which had won him his nickname—a wicked-looking black-jack.

“Hullo, Basher!” said the Saint brightly. “Come to hear a bedtime story from Uncle Rameses?”

For answer Tope leaped, swinging his bludgeon, but the blinding beam of light that concentrated in his eyes was extinguished suddenly, and he struck empty air. He felt his way round cautiously, and found the bed empty. Then he heard a mocking laugh behind him, and spun round. The torch was switched on again, and focused him from the other side of the room.

“Blind man’s buff,” said the Saint’s cheery voiced, out of the darkness. “Isn’t it fun?”

Then Simon heard a sound from the door on his left, and whirled the beam round. The door had opened and closed again, and now Professor Bernhard Raxel stood with his back to it, and in his hand was an automatic pistol with a silencer screwed to the muzzle.

Raxel fired six times all round the light, and if was quite certain that in whatever contorted position Simon Templar had been holding that torch one of the bullets would have found its mark. But Templar was not holding the torch at all; and when Raxel’s automatic was empty Simon struck a match and revealed himself in the opposite corner of the room—revealed, also, the electric torch lying on its side on the table where he had put it down.

“That’s a new one on you, I’ll bet!” said the Saint.

He lighted the lamp, put on his dressing gown, and ostentatiously dropped his gun into a pocket. Tope looked inquiringly at the Professor, and Taxel shook his head.

“You can go, Basher.”

“You can go also, Raxel,” said the Saint “It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I want to get some sleep. Run away, and save up your little speech for breakfast,”

Raxel inclined his head.

“To-night was intended to be a warning to you,” he said. “It was purely on the spur of the moment that I resolved to turn the warning into a permanent prohibition. It was clever of you to think of leaving your torch on the table. It is even flattering to remember that you did me the honour of crediting me with having heard before of the time-honoured device of holding the torch at arm’s length away from you. But next time I may be a little cleverer than you.”

“There won’t be a next time” said the Saint. “You ought to know that it was a fool thing to do, to come to my room and try to put me out to-night, but it was no more than I expected. Now be sensible about it, sonny boy. I’ve got a little more to learn about you yet, and so you can carry on until I’ve learned it. But you can’t kill me, and you needn’t think I’m afraid of being killed. You made a bad break when you overlooked the railway ticket to Llancoed in Henley’s wallet. That makes you hop!”

“You’re talking in riddles,” said Raxel coldly.

“You know the answer to ‘em,” said Simon. “I could run you in now for attempted murder, but I’m not going to because I want you for something much bigger. I’m going to give you just enough rope to hang yourself. Meanwhile, you will leave me alone. Everyone at Scotland Yard knows that I’m here and you’re here, and if I happen to die suddenly, or do a mysterious disappearance, they’d have you in about two shakes of a sardine’s trailing edge. Now get out—and stay out.”