The Saint Sees It Through (19 page)

“I didn’t lead them to you. I wasn’t
followed.”

“May I ask just how you know that? In
your present condi
tion you wouldn’t see an elephant following you.”
Dr. Zellermann
picked up his phone, and dialed a number. “Bring
two
of your boys with you immediately.”

“What—what are you going to do?”
Prather asked. He
repeated the question three times.

Dr. Zellermann made a triangle with the thumb
and fore
fingers of his two white hands, and rested his chin upon
the
apex. He looked at James Prather as if he were a subject being
discussed
by a class in zoology.

“One of the principal aims of this
particular organization, as
you know, is to take care of our own. You,
inadvertently, have placed us in a position where you are in danger—physically,
morally, and legally. We believe that it is to the interests of
the
organization to protect you. That was the purpose of my
call.”

“You mean then you’re not——”

“Going to——
”

“Well—uh——
”

“Liquidate you? My dear Mr. Prather,
please! As I said
before our prime motivation in these present
circumstances
is to take care of our own. While we are waiting, I want
you
to tell me exactly what you told the Government men.”

James Prather’s mind was a roil of emotions.
Uppermost, of
course, was the instinct of self-preservation. He not only
had
no desire to die, but his every thought was directed strictly
towards
keeping himself alive. He cast into his mind for
motives, inferences,
and implications in Dr. Zellermann’s atti
tude which might be
at odds with that inherent drive which
is born into every man.

“I didn’t tell them anything. They seemed
to know more
than you could possibly expect them to. When their questions
reached a certain point I did what I had to do, and that was
to clam
up.”

“What exactly did they seem to know
about?”

“They mentioned Jeffries and Hyman. They
knew that they’d
visited me and brought me something from Shanghai. And
they asked
me if I knew 903 Bubbling Well Road.”

“Which of course you denied.”

“Naturally. But how would they know
about Jeffries and
Hyman?”

Zellermann spread his hands.

“Who can tell? Seamen with money get
drunk, sometimes
they get into trouble. There are all kinds of situations
in which
they might talk. Luckily, however, they have nothing to
talk
about—except yourself. And you would never be indiscreet.”

Prather swallowed.

“Of course not. I know I’m worried. But
if you don’t let me
down——
”

Dr. Zellermann nodded.

“I knew we could depend upon you, Mr.
Prather.”

And then silence fell. Dr. Zellermann seemed
to have said
all that he wished to say and James Prather was afraid to
say
anything more. They sat quietly, not meeting each other’s eye. They sat
like this for an undeterminable time, and their tableau
was
disturbed by Dr. Zellermann’s blond secretary, with the
sleeked-back
hair, who stuck her head into the office and said:

“Mr. Carpenter to see you with two
friends.”

“Show them in.”

The trio who entered the office were large
hard-eyed men,
pushing middle-age. They had one characteristic in common:
they were ready to take orders and carry them out.

“Mr. Carpenter, Mr. Prather.”
        

The two men shook hands. Prather was nervous,
Carpenter matter of fact.

“Mr. Prather,” Dr. Zellermann
continued, “has unfortunately
attracted some undesirable attention.
It’s up to us to see that he comes to no harm in the hands of the authorities.
Mr.
Carpenter, you know what to do.”

Prather stood up.

“Dr. Zellermann, I can’t thank you
enough. I——
”

Dr. Zellermann waved away his protestations
of good will.

“Nonsense. One looks out for one’s
own.”

James Prather twiddled his thumbs nervously
as the long black car wound through traffic for an hour or more and left
behind the
city limits of New York. At long intervals farm
houses appeared on
each side, and it may be presumed that birds
sang in the trees
nearby. Prather had no ear for our feathered friends and no eyes for rustic
architecture. He sat rigidly in the back seat between the two nameless
companions of Mr. Car
penter, while that gentleman drove expertly
and swiftly to their unrevealed destination. The others initiated no trivial
conversa
tion, and Mr. Prather was in no mood to start any himself.

When they had travelled another hour,
Carpenter swung
down a narrow sideroad, whose pavement gave way presently
to a sandy
surface. Another turning brought them into a lane
which was distinguished by car tracks and overhanging maples.
After a half-mile’s travel along this road,
Carpenter stopped the
car. He got
out.

“This way,” he said.

Prather, not without inner misgivings, followed the big man
through a barbed-wire fence, across a pasture,
and deep into a
green orchard of
apple trees.

“Where are you taking me?” Prather
asked in a small voice.

Carpenter turned to face him.
 
.

“No place,” he said. “You’re
here.”

He took an automatic from under his left arm
and pointed
it at Prather’s chest. The first shot would have been
enough;
but Carpenter, a conscientious man, gave him a second bullet to make
certain.

2

The man who went down the back stairs of the
Algonquin
Hotel and slipped quickly and inconspicuously through the
lobby from the service door could never have been mistaken
for the
debonair and immaculate Mr, Templar who had lately
become accepted as
one of the brighter landmarks of that pos
sessive caravanserai.
He wore heavy black shoes that were
cracked and stained and down at heel,
heavy black wool socks
drooping untidily over his ankles, dark blue
trousers with
baggy knees and a shiny seat, a soiled white shirt with a
dark
tie knotted and twisted like an old rope, a dark blue reefer
jacket
that was wrinkled across the shoulders, patched in one
elbow, and threadbare
at the cuffs, and a vaguely nautical
peaked cap without insignia that
looked as if it was used to combining the functions of head-gear and brass
polisher. His
shoulders sagged and his chest slouched, so that he didn’t
seem very tall. His complexion was ruddy and weather-beaten. What
could be
seen of his hair was a drab gray that matched his bushy
eyebrows
and straggly moustache and the close-cropped fringe
of beard around his
chin.

He was out of the hotel so quickly that nobody
really noticed
him, but he was not bothered about being seen. If any leg
men
of the Ungodly were watching for him in the lobby, he was
quite sure
that they would patiently continue to sit and watch.
The man who had
become Tom Simons right down to his
grimy fingernails was prepared to
submit his creation to any
ocular inspection—including that of the
doorkeeper at Cookie’s
Canteen.

The doorkeeper, who was a woman with dyed red
hair and
a face like a dyspeptic camel, examined his
identification papers
and gave him a stock smile which displayed
many large teeth
tastefully mounted in gold.

“Glad to have you with us, Mr.
Simons,” she said. “Go right in and make yourself at home.”

The Saint went in.

He found himself in a big barren room which
had probably
once been a restaurant, for one side of it was still
broken up
into upholstered booths. The rest of the furnishings were
less
ornamental, consisting of plain bare wooden tables and chairs,
all of
them scarred from much service. On the side opposite
the booths there was
a low dais with little more than enough
room for the grand
piano that stood on it. The walls were
plastered with posters
of female nubility and cartoons from
Esquire.
Near the
entrance there was a rack of tattered popular
magazines. At the back
of the room there was a service bar from
behind which two very
wavy-haired young men in their shirt
sleeves were dispensing sandwiches and
bottles of non-alcoholic
throat irrigation. A juke box blared
inexorably through the hi
t parade.

The room was crowded with men of all ages,
some in
ordinary civilian clothes, some in costumes that tried nebulously
to look
like a sort of seafaring uniform. Some of the parties
at the tables were
engrossed in games of cards or checkers. Other men danced with the hostesses in
a clear space in front
of the piano, clumsily or stiffly or flashily
according to type.
The hostesses were mostly young and pert and passably
good-
looking. They wore aprons with star-dotted borders and
Cookie’s
Canteen
embroidered across them. A few other smooth-
skinned
young men in identical aprons moved among the tables
picking up empty
bottles and dirty plates.

Aside from the rather noticeably sleek
fragility of the male helpers, the place was fairly typical of the numerous
oases that
had mushroomed across the country during the war to offer
chaste and sheltered recreation
to men of the services, in line
with the
current concept of tea and parlor games as the great spiritual need of a
warrior between battles. But whereas prac
tically all the prototypical estaminets were sponsored and pro
tected by public organisations, Cookie’s Canteen
was a strictly
freelance and
unofficial and unendorsed post-war benevolence.
And in all of that there were questions to which the Saint
wanted many answers… .

He edged his way through the tables to the service bar and
asked for a coke. With the bottle in his hand, he
turned back towards the room, scanning the crowd through the thick fog of smoke
that hung under the low ceiling and wondering what his move should be.

A girl in an apron stopped in front of him.

“Hello,” she said. “You got
everything you want?” ‘

“Yus, thank yer, miss.”

“Gee, you must be English.”

“That’s right, miss.” The Saint’s
voice was hoarse and inno
cent. “Strite from Aldgate. ‘Ow did yer
guess?”

“Oh, I’m getting so I can spot all the
accents.”

“Well now!” said the Saint
admiringly.

“This your first time here?”

“Yus, miss.”

“When did you get to New York?”

“Just got in larst night.”

“Well, you didn’t take long to find us.
Do you have any
friends here?”

“No, miss… .”

The Saint was just saying it when a face
caught his eye
through the blue haze. The man was alone now in a booth
which a
couple of other seamen had just left, and as he shifted
his seat
and looked vacantly around the room the Saint saw him
clearly and recognised
him.

He said suddenly: “Gorblimy, yes I do! I
know that chap
dahn there. Excuse me, miss——
”

He jostled away through the mob and squeezed
uncere
moniously into the booth, plonking his bottle down on the stained
tabletop in front of him.

“Ullo, mite,” he said cheerfully.
“I know I’ve seen you before.
Your nime’s Patrick ‘Ogan, ain’t
it?”

“Shure, Hogan’s the name,” said the
other genially, giving
him a square view of the unmistakable
pug-nosed physiognomy
which Simon had last seen impaled on the
spotlight of Cookie’s
Cellar. “An’ what’s yours?”