Enter the Saint (7 page)

He shifted a gaze to the four men ranged beside the door. They were a nondescript quartet, in his opinion-not at all the sort of men he had pictured in his hazy attempts to visualize Templar’s partners. Only one of them could have been under thirty, and the clothes of all of them had seen better days.

“These are the rest of the gang,” said the Saint. “I noticed that I was followed home from here last time I called, so I thought it’d save you a lot of sleuthing if I brought the other lads right along and introduced them.” He turned. “Squad-shun! Souls, this is dear Edgar, whom you’ve heard so much about. As I call your names, reading from left to right, you will each take one pace smartly to your front, bow snappily from the hips, keeping the eyebrows level and the thumb in line with seam of the trousers, and fall in again… . First, Edgar, meet Saint Winston Churchill. Raise your hat, Winny… . On his left, Saint George Robey. Eyebrows level, George… . Next, Saint Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, and no relation to the vacuum cleaner. Wave your handkerchief to the pretty gentleman, Herb! Last, but not least, Saint Hannen Swaffer. Keep smiling, Hannen-I won’t let anyone slap your face here … That’s the lot, Edgar, except for myself. Meet me!”

Hayn nodded. “That’s very considerate of you, Mr. Templar,” he said, and his voice was a little shaky, for an idea was being born inside him. “Is that all you came to do?”

“Not quite, Precious,” said the Saint, settling down on the edge of the desk. “I came to talk business.”

“Then you won’t want to be hurried,” said Hayn. “There are some other people waiting to see me. Will you excuse me while I go and tell them to call again later?”

The Saint smiled. “By all manner of means, sonny,” said he. “But I warn you it won’t be any use telling the Snake and his Boys to be ready to beat us up when we leave here, because a friend of ours is waiting a block away with a letter to our friend Inspector Teal-and that letter will be delivered if we don’t report safe and sound in ten minutes from now!”

“You needn’t worry,” said Hayn. “I haven’t underrated your intelligence!”

He went out. It was a mistake he was to regret later-never before had he left even his allies alone in that office, much less a confessed enemy. But the urgency of his inspiration had, for the moment, driven every other thought out of his head. The cleverest criminal must make a slip sooner or later, and it usually proves to be such a childish one that the onlooker is amazed that it should have been made at all. Hayn made his slip then, but it must be remembered that he was a very rattled man.

He found Snake Ganning, sitting at the bar with three picked Boys, and beckoned them out of earshot of the bartender. “The Saint and the rest of his band are in the office,” he said, and Canning let out a virulent exclamation. “No-there won’t be any rough business now. I want to have a chance to find out what his game is. But when the other four go, I want you to tail them and find out all you can about them. Report here at midnight, and I’ll give you your instructions about Templar himself.”

“When I get hold of that swine,” Ganning ground out vitriolically, “he’s going to-“

Hayn cut him short with an impatient sweep of his hand. “You’ll wait till I’ve finished with him,” he said. “You don’t want to charge in like a bull at a gate, before you know what’s on the other side of the gate. I’ll tell you when to start-you can bet your life on that!”

And in that short space of time the Saint, having shamelessly seized the opportunity provided by Hayn’s absence, had comprehensively ransacked the desk. There were four or five lOU’s with Stannard’s signature in an unlocked drawer, and these he pocketed. Hayn had been incredibly careless. And then the Saint’s eye was caught by an envelope on which the ink was still damp. The name “Chastel” stood out as if it had been spelt in letters of fire, so that Simon stiffened like a pointer… . His immobility lasted only an instant. Then, in a flash, he scribbled something on a blank sheet of notepaper and folded it into a blank envelope. With the original before him for a guide, he copied the address in a staggeringly lifelike imitation of Hayn’s handwriting. …

“I shall now be able to give you an hour, if you want it,” said Hayn, returning, and the Saint turned with a bland smile.

“I shan’t take nearly as long as that, my cabbage,” he replied. “But I don’t think the proceedings will interest the others, and they’ve got work to do. Now you’ve met them, do you mind if I dismiss the parade?”

“Not at all, Mr. Templar.”

There was a glitter of satisfaction in Hayn’s eyes; but if the Saint noticed it, he gave no sign. “Move to the right in column o’ route-etcetera,” he ordered briskly. “In English, hop it!”

The parade, after a second’s hesitation, shuffled out with expressionless faces. They had not spoken a word from the time of their entrance to the time of their exit. It may conveniently be recorded at this juncture that Snake Ganning and the Boys spent eleven laboriously profitless hours following a kerbstone vendor of bootlaces, a pavement artist, and a barrel-organ team of two ex-servicemen, whom the Saint had hired for ten shillings apiece for the occasion; and it may also be mentioned that the quartet, assembling at a near-by dairy to celebrate the windfall, were no less mystified than were the four painstaking bloodhounds who dogged their footsteps for the rest of the day.

It was the Saint’s idea of a joke-but then, the Saint’s sense of humour was remarkably good.

Chapter IX
“AND now let’s get down to business-as the bishop said to the actress,” murmured Simon, fishing out his cigarette-case, and tapping a gasper on his thumbnail. “I want to ask you a very important question.”

Hayn sat down. “Well, Mr. Templar?”

“What would you say,” asked the Saint tentatively, “if I told you I wanted ten thousand pounds?”

Hayn smiled. “I should sympathize with you,” he answered. “You’re not the only man who’d like to make ten thousand pounds as easily as that.”

“But just suppose,” said Simon persuasively- “just suppose I told you that if I didn’t get ten thousand pounds at once, a little dossier about you would travel right along to Inspector Teal to tell him the story of the upstairs rooms here and the inner secrets of the Maison Laserre? I could tell him enough to send you to penal servitude for five years.”

Hayn’s eye fell on the calendar hung on the wall, with a sliding red ring round the date. His brain was working very rapidly then. Suddenly, he felt unwontedly confident. He looked from the calendar to his watch, and smiled.

“I should write you a check at once,” he said. “And your current account would stand it?” “All my money is in a current account,” said Hayn. “As you will understand, it is essential for a man in my position to be able to realize his estate without notice.”

“Then please write,” murmured the Saint. Without a word, Hayn opened a drawer, took out his check book, and wrote. He passed the check to Templar, and the Saint’s eyes danced as he read it.

“You’re a good little boy, son,” said the Saint. “I’m so glad we haven’t had any sordid argument and haggling about this. It makes the whole thing so crude, I always think.”

Hayn shrugged. “You have your methods,” he said. “I have mine. I ask you to observe the time.” He showed his watch, tapping the dial with a stubby forefinger. “Half-past twelve of a Saturday afternoon. You cannot cash that check until ten o’clock Monday morning. Who knows what may have happened by then? I say you will never pay that check into your bank. I’m not afraid to tell you that. I know you won’t set the police on to me until Monday morning, because you think you’re going to win- because you think that at ten o’clock on Monday morning you’ll be sitting on the bank’s doorstep waiting for it to open. I know you won’t. Do you honestly believe I would let you blackmail me for a sum like that-nearly as much money as I have saved in five years?” The crisis that he had been expecting for so long had come. The cards were on the table, and the only thing left for Edgar Hayn to wonder was why the Saint had waited so many days before making his demand. Now the storm which had seemed to be hanging fire interminably had broken, and it found Edgar Hayn curiously unmoved.

Templar looked at Hayn sidelong, and the Saint also knew that the gloves were off. “You’re an odd cove,” he said. “Your trouble is that you’re too serious. You’ll lose this fight because you’ve no sense of humour-like all second-rate crooks. You can’t laugh.”

“I may enjoy the last laugh, Templar,” said Hayn.

The Saint turned away with a smile and picked up his hat. “You kid yourself,” he said gently. “You won’t, dear one.” He took up his stick and swung it delicately in his fingers. The light of battle glinted in his blue eyes. “I presume I may send your kind donation to the London Hospital anonymously, son?”

“We will decide that on Monday,” said Hayn.

The Saint nodded. “I wonder if you know what my game is?” he said soberly. “Perhaps you think I’m a kind of hijacker-a crook picking crooks pockets? Bad guess, dearie. I’m losing money over this. But I’m just a born-an’-bred fighting machine, and a quiet life on the moss-gathering lay is plain hell for this child. I’m not a dick, because I can’t be bothered with red tape, but I’m on the same side. I’m out to see that unpleasant insects like you are stamped on, which I grant you the dicks could do; but to justify my existence I’m going to see that the said insects contribute a large share of their ill-gotten gains to charity, which you’ve got to grant me the dicks can’t do. It’s always seemed a bit tough to me that microbes of your breed should be able to make a pile swindling, and then be free to enjoy it after they’ve done a month or two in stir-and I’m here to put that right. Out of the money I lifted off the Snake I paid Tommy Mitre back his rightful property, plus a bonus for damages; but the Snake’s a small bug, anyway. You’re big, and I’m going to see that your contribution is in proportion.”

“We shall see,” said Hayn.

The Saint looked at him steadily. “On Monday night you will sleep at Marlborough Street Police Station,” he said dispassionately. The next moment he was gone. Simon Templar had a knack of making his abrupt exits so smoothly that it was generally some minutes before the other party fully realized that he was no longer with him.

Hayn sat looking at the closed door without moving. Then he glanced down, and saw the envelope that lay on the blotter before him, addressed in his own hand to M. Henri Chastel. And Hayn sat fascinated, staring, for although the imitation of his hand might have deceived a dozen people who knew it, he had looked at it for just long enough to see that it was not the envelope he had addressed.

It was some time before he came out of his trance, and forced himself to slit open the envelope with fingers that trembled. He spread out the sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, and his brain went numb. As a man might have grasped a concrete fact through a murky haze of dope, Hayn realized that his back was to the last wall. Underneath the superficial veneer of flippancy, the Saint had shown for a few seconds the seriousness of his real quality and the intentness of his purpose, and Hayn had been allowed to appreciate the true mettle of the man who was fighting him.

He could remember the Saint’s last words. “On Monday night you will sleep at Marlborough Street Police Station.” He could hear the Saint saying it. The voice had been the voice of a judge pronouncing sentence, and the memory of it made Edgar Hayn’s face go grey with fear.

Chapter X
THE SAINT read Edgar Hayn’s letter in the cocktail bar of the Piccadilly, over a timely Martini, but his glass stood for a long time untasted before him, for he had not to read far before he learned that Edgar Hayn was bigger game than he had ever dreamed.

Then he smoked two cigarettes, very thoughtfully, and made certain plans with a meticulous attention to detail. In half an hour he had formulated his strategy, but he spent another quarter of an hour and another cigarette going over it again and again in search of anything that he might have overlooked.

He did not touch his drink until he had decided that his plans were as fool-proof as he could make them at such short notice.

The first move took him to Piccadilly Post Office, where he wrote out and despatched a lengthy telegram in code to one Norman Kent, who was at that time in Athens on the Saint’s business; and the Saint thanked his little gods of chance for the happy coincidence that had given him an agent on the spot. It augured well for the future.

Next, he shifted across from the counter to a telephone-box, and called a number. For ten minutes he spoke earnestly to a certain Roger Conway, and gave minute directions. He had these orders repeated over to him to make sure that they were perfectly memorized and understood, and presently he was satisfied.

“Hayn will have found out by now that I know about his connections with Chastel,” he concluded, “that is, unless he’s posted that letter without looking at it. We’ve got to act on the assumption that he has found out, and therefore the rule about having nothing to do with me except through the safest of safe channels is doubly in force. I estimate that within the next forty-four hours a number of very strenuous efforts will be made to bump me off, and it won’t be any good shutting your eyes to it. It won’t be dear Edgar’s fault if I haven’t qualified for Kensal Green by Monday morning.”

Conway protested, but the Saint dealt shortly with that. “You’re a heap more useful to me working unknown,” he said. “I can’t help it if your natural vanity makes you kick at having to hide your light under a bushel. There’s only need for one of us to prance about in the line of fire, and since they know me all round and upside down as it is I’ve bagged the job. You don’t have to worry, I’ve never played the corpse yet, and I don’t feel like starting now!”

He was in the highest of spirits. The imminent prospect of the violent and decisive action always got him that way. It made his blood tingle thrillingly through his veins, and set his eyes dancing recklessly, and made him bless the perfect training in which he had always kept his nerves and sinews. The fact that his life would be charged a five hundred per cent premium by any cautious insurance company failed to disturb his cheerfulness one iota. The Saint was made that way.