Follow the Saint (13 page)

“And
the orders in the packets of Miracle Tea which
numbers six, fourteen,
and twenty-seven are going to buy
tonight came from the same
machine.”

The Baron
moistened his lips.

“Let
us talk this over,” he said.

The Saint
said: “You talk.”

He picked
up the telephone and dialled ‘O’.

He said:
“I want to make a call to France—Radio Cal
vados.”

The Baron
swallowed.

“Wait
a minute,” he said desperately. “I——
”

“Incidentally,”
said the Saint, “there’ll be a record that
you had a call to
Radio Calvados this evening, and probably on lots of other evenings as well.
And I’m sure we shall find
that Henry Osbett moustache of yours somewhere
in the
house—not to mention the beard you wore when you were
dealing
with Red McGuire. I suppose you needed some
thug outside the
organization in case you wanted to deal
drastically with any
of the ordinary members, but you
picked the wrong man in Red. He doesn’t like
hot curling-
irons.”

Inescu’s
fists clenched until the knuckles were bleached.
His face had gone
pale under its light tan.

The Saint’s
call came through.

“Mr
Vernon, please,” he said.

He took out
his cigarette case, opening it, and lighted
a cigarette with the
hand that held his gun, all in some
astonishing manner that never allowed
the muzzle to wander
for an instant from its aim on the Baron’s shirt stud; and then
an unmistakable Oxford accent said:
“Hullo?”

“Vernon?”
said the Saint, and his voice was so exactly
like the voice affected by Mr Henry Osbett
that its originator could scarcely believe his ears. “I’ve got to make a
change in
that copy I just gave you. Make it
read like this: ‘They say there is safety in numbers. In that case, you can’t
go wrong with Miracle Tea. There are many numbers in our files, but
they
all praise Miracle Tea.
Every number has the same message.
Why should you be left out ?
All of you,
buy
Miracle Tea—
tonight!’ … Have you
got it?
…
Good. See that it goes in
without fail.”

Simon
pressed the spring bracket down with his thumb, still holding the microphone.

The Baron’s
stare was wide and stupefied.

“You’re
mad!” he said hoarsely. “You’re throwing away
a
fortune—”

Simon
laughed at him, and lifted the microphone to his
ear again. He dialled
the number of Scotland Yard.

“Give
me Chief Inspector Teal,” he said. “The Saint
calling.”

There was
some delay on the switchboard.

The Saint
looked at Baron Inescu and said: “There’s one
thing you forget,
Baron. I like money as much as anybody else, and I use more of it than most
people. But that’s a side
line. I also deliver justice. When you get to Dartmoor, you’ll
meet some other men that I’ve sent there. Ask them about it.
And then you in your turn will be able to tell
the same story.”

The voice
of Chief Inspector Teal blared short-windedly in
his ear.

“Yes
?”

“Oh,
Claud? How’s the old tum-tum getting——
…
All
right, if it’s a sore subject; but I wondered— .
. . Yes, of
course I have. Just a
minute. Did you get six, fourteen, and
twenty-seven
?” Simon listened, and the contentment ripened
on his face. “Well, didn’t I tell you ? And
now you can have
some more for the bag. At any time after nine o’clock
there’s
going to be a perfect stampede of
blokes asking for Miracle
Tea, so you
can send your squad back for more. They’d better take over the shop and grab
everyone who tries to
buy Miracle
Tea. And while they’re doing that I’ve got the
Big Shot waiting for you. Come and get him. The address is ——
Excuse me.”

The Saint
had the telephone in one hand and a gun in the other, and it seemed impossible
for him to have done it, but
a narrow-bladed ivory-hilted knife stuck
quivering in the
desk half an inch from the Baron’s fingers as they slid
towards
a
concealed bell. And the Saint went on talking as if nothing
had happened.

“Sixteen
North Ashley Street, Berkeley Square; and the name is Inescu… . Yes, isn’t
that a coincidence ? But there’s
all the evidence you’ll need to make you
happy, so I don’t
see why you should complain. Come along over and I’ll
show
you.”

“I’ll
send someone over,” Teal said stiffly. “And thanks
very
much.”

Simon
frowned a little.

“Why
send someone?” he objected. “I thought—”

“Because
I’m busy!” came a tortured howl that nearly
shattered the
receiver. “I can’t leave the office just now.
I—I’ll have to send
someone.”

The
Saint’s eyebrows slowly lifted.

“But
why
?” he persisted.

Eventually
Mr Teal told him.

XIII

S
IMON TEMPLAR
sat on
the desk in Chief Inspector Teal’s office a fortnight later. The police court
proceedings had
just
concluded after a remand, and Baron Inescu,
alias
Henry
Osbett, had been committed for trial in company
with some three dozen smaller cogs in his machine. The report was in the
evening paper which Simon had bought, and he pointed it out to Teal accusingly.

“At
least you could have rung me up and thanked me
again for making you
look like a great detective,” he said.

Mr Teal
stripteased a slice of chewing gum and fed it into
his mouth. “I’m
sorry,” he said. “I meant to do it, but there
was a lot of clearing-up work
to do on the case. Anyway, it’s
out of my
hands now, and the Public Prosecutor is pretty satisfied. It’s a pity there
wasn’t enough direct evidence to charge Inescu with the murder of Nancock, but
we haven’t
done badly.”

“You’re
looking pretty cheerful,” said the Saint.

This was
true. Mr Teal’s rosy face had a fresh pink glow,
and his cherubic blue
eyes were clear and bright under his
sleepily drooping lids.

“I’m
feeling better,” he said. “You know, that’s the thing
that
really beats me about this case. Inescu could have made
a fortune
out of Miracle Tea without ever going in for
espionage ——
”

The Saint’s
mouth fell open.

“You
don’t mean to say——
” he ejaculated, and couldn’t
go on. He
said: “But I thought you were ready to chew the
blood out of everyone
who had anything to do with Miracle
Tea, if you could only have got away
from——
”

“I
know it was rather drastic,” Teal said sheepishly. “But
it did the
trick. Do you know, I haven’t had a single attack
of indigestion since
I took that packet; and I even had roast
pork for dinner last
night!”

Simon
Templar drew a long deep breath and closed his
eyes. There were times when even he felt
that he was stand
ing on holy ground.

PART 2:
THE INVISIBLE
MILLIONAIRE

I

T
HE GIRL’S
eyes
caught Simon Templar as he entered the
room, ducking his
head instinctively to pass under the
low lintel of the door; and they followed him steadily
across
to the bar. They were blue eyes with
long lashes, and the face
to which
they belonged was pretty without any distinctive
feature, crowned with curly yellow hair. And besides anything else, the
eyes held an indefinable hint of strain.

Simon knew
all this without looking directly at her. But he had singled her out at once
from the double handful of riverside weekenders who crowded the small bar-room
as the most probable writer of the letter which he still carried in his
pocket—the letter which had brought him out to the
Bell that Sunday
evening on what anyone with a less incor
rigibly optimistic
flair for adventure would have branded
from the start as a
fool’s errand. She was the only girl in the
place who seemed to be
unattached; there was no positive reason why the writer of that letter should
have been un
attached, but it seemed likely that she would be. Also
she was
the best looker in a by no means repulsive crowd; and that was
simply no
clue at all except to Simon Templar’s own unshakeable
faith in his guardian
angel, who had never thrown any
other kind of damsel in distress into his
buccaneering path.

But she
was still looking at him. And even though he
couldn’t help knowing
that women often looked at him with more than ordinary interest, it was not
usually done quite so
fixedly. His hopes rose a notch, tentatively;
but it was her turn to make the next move. He had done all that had been
asked of
him when he walked in there punctually on the
stroke of eight.

He leaned
on the counter, with his wide shoulders seeming
to take up half the
length of the bar, and ordered a pint of beer for himself and a bottle of Vat
69 for Hoppy Uniatz,
who trailed up thirstily at his heels. With
the tankard in his hands, he waited for one of those inevitable moments when
all the
customers had paused for breath at the same time.

“Anyone
leave a message for me ?” he asked.

His voice
was quiet and casual, but just clear enough for
everyone in the room
to hear. Whoever had sent for him,
unless it was merely some pointless
practical joker, should
need no more confirmation than that…. He
hoped it would be the girl with the blue troubled eyes. He had a weakness
for girls with eyes of that
shade, the same colour as his own.

The barman
shook his head.

“No,
sir. I haven’t had any messages.”

Simon went on gazing
at
him reflectively, and the barman
misinterpreted
his expression. His mouth broadened and said:
“That’s all right,
sir, I’d know if there was anything for you.”

Simon’s
fine brows lifted puzzledly.

“I’ve
seen your picture often enough, sir. I suppose you
could call me one of
your fans. You’re the Saint, aren’t you ?”

The Saint smiled slowly.

“You
don’t look frightened.”

“I
never had the chance to be a rich racketeer, like the
people you’re always
getting after. Gosh, though, I’ve had a kick out of some of the things you’ve
done to ‘em! And the
way you’re always putting it over on the
police—I’ll bet
they’d give anything for an excuse to lock you up…
.”

Simon was
aware that the general buzz of conversation, after starting to pick up again,
had died a second time and
was staying dead. His spine itched with the
feel of stares
fastening on his back. And at the same time the barman
became feverishly conscious of
the audience which had been
captured by his
runaway enthusiasm. He began to stammer, turned red, and plunged confusedly
away to obliterate himself in some unnecessary fussing over the shelves of
bottles
behind him.

The Saint
grinned with his eyes only, and turned tranquilly
round to lean his
back against the bar and face the room.

The
collected stares hastily unpinned themselves and the voices got going again;
but Simon was as oblivious of those
events as he would have been if the
rubber-necking had
continued. At that moment his mind was capable of absorb
ing only
one fearful and calamitous realization. He had
turned to see whether
the girl with the fair curly hair and the
blue eyes had also
been listening, and whether she needed any
more encouragement to
announce herself. And the girl was gone.

She must
have got up and gone out even in the short time that the barman had been
talking. The Saint’s glance swept
on to identify the other faces in the
room—faces that he had
noted and automatically catalogued as he
came in. They were
all
the same, but her face was not one of them. There was an empty glass beside her
chair, and the chair itself was already
being
taken by a dark slender girl who had just entered.