Saint on Guard (29 page)

13 Simon Templar didn’t carve notches in the handle of his knife, because they would eventually have affected the balance, and he was used to it and he hoped it would last for a long time. He did worry about rust and the way it could dull a blade. He wiped the blade very carefully on Maris’s shirt before he put the knife back in its sheath.

“Let’s face it,” he said; “he did pour some of the lousiest drinks I ever paid for.”

Kinglake was reloading his Police Positive with the unconscious detachment of prehistorically rooted habit.

He said, almost awkwardly for him: “I just wanted to be in at the death.”

“You were,” Simon assured him, somewhat unnecessarily.

“Are there any more of ‘em?”

“Quite a lot—I hope. But not around here. And we don’t have to bother about them. Just turn that stuff on the desk over to the FBI. The rest will be their routine.”

“I’d sure like to know what happened to you.”

The Saint told him.

Kinglake scratched his head.

“I’ve seen plenty in my time, believe it or not,” he said. “But you’ve topped all of it.” He ended up with an admission. “I’ll have to think of a new story now, though; because I messed up the one you gave me,”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the Saint. “Whatever you said, you can tell ‘em you only said it for a stall, because you couldn’t give out with what you really knew. The true story is your story now. Only leaving me out. There’s plenty of evidence on that desk. Go on and grab yourself some glory.”

“But these are the three guys you named in the Times-Tribune.”

“So what? So I happened to know too much, and I was too smart for anybody’s good. You knew just as much if not more, but you were playing a cagey game. You say that by shooting my mouth off like that I told Maris and Co that they were hot, and nearly ruined all your well-laid plans. That’s why you were so hopping mad about me. In fact, you had to perform superhuman feats to salvage the situation after I balled it up. Say anything you like. I won’t contradict you. It suits me better that way. And there’s nobody else left who can call you a liar.”

The Lieutenant’s steely eyes flickered over the room. The truth of that last theorem was rather gruesomely irrefutable.

Then his glance went to Olga Ivanovitch.

She stood very quietly beside the Saint, her pale face composed and expressionless, her green eyes passing unemotionally over the raw stains and ungainly attitudes of violent death. You could tell nothing about what she thought or expected, if she expected anything. She waited, in an incurious calm that suddenly struck Simon as almost regal; she hadn’t asked anything or said anything.

“What about her?” Kinglake asked.

Simon’s pockets had been emptied completely. He bent over one of the bodies and relieved it of a packet of cigarettes that it wouldn’t be needing any more.

“I’m afraid I was holding out on you about her,” he answered deliberately. “She’s one of our people. Why the hell do you think she was tied up in the cellar with me? But I couldn’t tell you before.”

He was so easy and matter-of-fact with it that the Lieutenant only tried to look unstartled.

“But what story am I supposed to give out?”

“Like me—the less you say about her the better,” Simon told him. “She was just one of the hostesses at the Blue Goose, and Maris was making use of her through his role of bartender. He set her up in this house, so he had a key. But she wasn’t here tonight. When the setup began to look too sticky, she scrammed. You don’t think she’s worth fussing about.”

Simon hadn’t looked at the girl until then. He did now.

“By the way,” he said casually, “you’d better get a move on with this scramming act. Kinglake is going to have to call Headquarters in a few minutes. You can scram in my car—it won’t take me more than ten minutes to check out of the Alamo House. Go and put some things in a bag.”

“Yes,” she said, impassively and obediently; and went out of the room.

Simon smoked his inherited cigarette with unalloyed enjoyment.

Kinglake gathered the papers on the desk together ind frowned over them wisely.

The Saint made another search of the unlamented ungodly, and found his own automatic in Weinbach’s pocket. He nested it affectionately back in his clip holster.

The Lieutenant gazed yearningly at the telephone, tightened a spartan stopper on a reawakening ebullience of questions, and got out another of his miasmic cigars.

Olga Ivanovitch came in again.

She had changed into a simple gray suit with plain white trimmings. Her honey-colored hair was all in place again, and her face was cool and freshly sweetened. She looked younger than Simon had ever remembered her. She carried a pair of suitcases. King-lake really looked at her.

Simon hitched himself off the corner of the desk where he had perched.

“Well,” he said, “let’s be on our way.”

He shook hands with Kinglake for the last time, and picked up Olga’s bags and went out with her. They went down the crushed coral walk through a rambling profusion of poinsettias and bougainvillea that were only dark clusters under the moon. The Gulf waters rolled against the beach beyond the seawall with a hushed friendly roar. Simon Templar thought about Jean Lafitte again, and decided that in the line of piracy he could still look the old boy in the eye on his home ground.

They left the gate; and the girl’s step faltered beside him. He slowed with her, turning; and she stopped and faced him.

“Spassibo” she said, with an odd husky break in her voice. “Thank you, thank you, tovarich. … I don’t think it’s any use, but thank you.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think it’s any use?”

Light seeping from a window of the house behind them like a timid thief in a dimout touched her pale halo of hair and glistened on her wide steady eyes.

“Where can I go now?”

The Saint laughed.

“My God, you Russians! Look, darling. You played along with Maris for quite a while. Several of the ungodly must know it. But they’ll never know that Maris ever changed his mind about you. They’ll only know that you got out of Galveston one jump ahead of the barrage. So you’re all set to move in again somewhere else. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Well, I wasn’t kidding either. That’s what you’re going to do. Only next time you’ll do it legitimately—for the FBI or something like that. I’m taking you to Washington with me so you can meet a guy named Hamilton. I have to see him anyway… . Besides,” he added constructively, “it’s a dull trip, and we might make fun on the way.”

WATCH FOR THE SIGN

OF THE SAINT

HE WILL BE BACK!