The Saint to the Rescue (2 page)

“That’s right,” Mr. Fennick said
eagerly. “The Fennick
Candy Company. You must have heard of
it.”

He whipped out a wallet and extracted a card
from it with
an automatic dexterity which even his temporarily
shattered
condition could not radically unhinge. He went on, in a
kind
of delirious incantation: “Jumbo Juicies, Crunchy Wunchies,
Crackpops, Yummigum—”

“That sounds like a powerful
spell,” said the Saint respectfully. “Now are you supposed to vanish
in a puff of smoke, or
am I?”

“I wish I could,” said Mr. Otis Q.
Fennick, President, for
lornly.

Having read everything on the card, Simon put
it down
on the dresser and picked up a cigarette.

“It begins to seem as if you have a
problem,” he said. “But
presumably it isn’t anything so sordid
as not being able to pay your bill. You weren’t doing the moonlight flit, were
you?”

“Oh, dear me, no! I’m quite comfortably
well off, I assure
you. In fact, I was most upset with the convention Commit
tee for
booking me into a place like this. Of course, they said
that all
the rooms were allotted by drawing names out of a
hat, but I noticed
that they all got the Mark Hopkins or the Drake. This isn’t at all the class of
hotel I’d choose for my
self.”

“We have that in common, anyhow.”

“I don’t remember seeing you at any of
the meetings.
What’s your line?”

“I was referring to our taste in hotels,
Otis. I’ve never
taken much interest in candy, unless it happened to be poi
soned.”

“Oh.” Mr. Fennick looked pardonably
vague. “Well, I
am attending this soft-drink and candy
convention which you
may have heard of—”

“I could hardly help it. It stuck me
with this dump—and
me not even a delegate. So what were you doing just now?
Trying to sneak in on one of your competitors and steal his
secret
formula for the ultimate frightful blend of peppermint, popcorn, and peanut
butter, with the miracle self-inflating
ingredient and the
atomic crackle?”

“No, nothing like that——”

“Then it must have been his new sales
gimmick to top your offer of a rocket trip to Venus in exchange for fifty
million
Crunchy Wunchy wrappers.”

Mr. Fennick blinked at him.

“You must be misinformed, sir. The
Fennick Candy Com
pany never made any such offer.”

“Then I’ll make you a present of the
idea. So what
were
you doing?”

“Well, I suppose I was just in a panic.
I knew I was
being framed.”

“Maybe you were,” said the Saint
cheerfully. “But I still
don’t get the picture. Why don’t you begin at
the begin
ning?”

Mr. Fennick gulped, wriggled miserably, and
took a deep
breath like a diver about to plunge.

“All right. I was out last night—it would
be last night,
wouldn’t it? I was out with some business connections. We
had dinner at the Sheraton Palace, and went to some night
clubs. We
were at the Forbidden City, and Bimbo’s. Of
course, we drank
quite a lot—”

“Coke, or chemical fruit punch?”

“No, I like a real drink when I go out.
But I wasn’t drunk.
You must believe me. I only mentioned it to explain why
I must
have fallen asleep especially soundly when I got
to bed, which was
about two o’clock.”

“Why must you?”

“Because when I woke up, there was this
girl in bed with
me, with nothing on. And I hadn’t heard her come in, or
get
undressed, or anything.”

The Saint’s blue eyes became slightly wider.

“Wow!
…
I mean,
that must have been disappointing.
You probably missed the best
strip-tease of the evening.”

“I give you my word, sir, I’m not used
to anything like
that. At least, not at such close quarters.”

“Don’t be discouraged, chum. It may grow
on you yet.
The
savoir faire
comes with practice. What did you
do-
offer her some Yummigum?”

“I think I woke up when the lights
suddenly went on.
Or when she leaned over and put her arms around me. Both
things
seemed to happen together. I was completely fuddled,
of course. And then,
before I could really get my bearings
at all, the light blinded me. I think
there was someone else in the room, but I was too dazzled to have anything more
than an impression. And then, something hit me on the
head, and
it hurt terribly, and everything went black. It all
seems like a bad dream
now, except …”

The little man took off his prim felt hat and
gingerly
touched the upper side of his cranium. The mousy hair had
ebbed far
enough from that region for the Saint without even
coming closer to
authenticate a swelling that was already
making its first
experiments with the palette of color effects.

“What happened when you woke up
again?” Simon asked.

“There wasn’t anyone there. Except me, of
course. And
as soon as I could think it out, I knew I’d been framed.
That
blinding light—obviously, a flash bulb. Somebody had
taken a picture of me,
in that
awful
situation.”

“Was this doll really gruesome?”

“No. No, not at all. That’s what makes it
so dreadful. In
fact, she was … well, er—”

“Stacked?”

Mr. Fennick winced, his pallor taking on a
definite tint
of rose.

“I don’t particularly like such vulgar
expressions. But,
yes, if someone was planning to blackmail me, I suppose
she’d be
the type they’d use.”

“Then all may not be lost,” said
the Saint consolingly. “If some prankster in this Convention is trying to
sabotage your
bid to be elected Supreme Lollipop by charging you with
dissolute
habits, the foul conspiracy may yet boomerang. With your new reputation as the
Confectionery Casanova,
you might become the hero of the Convention.
Think what
a few shots like that did for Brigitte Bardot.”

“I am hardly in the same category,”
said Mr. Fennick
severely. “And in my case, that’d be all my wife
would
need.”

Simon Templar nodded.

“Aha. Now it starts to make sense. I
gather that Mrs. Fennick isn’t here with you.”

“No, she’s home in New York.”

“Enjoying The Theatre, The Ballet, and
The Mink, no
doubt.”

“Yes, she likes all those things. And
she thinks conventions are just an excuse for a lot of men to cut loose and—
well, you
know… .”

“Get into the sort of mischief you were
photographed
in?”

“Exactly.”

“So that if you tried to explain that
snapshot the way
you’ve told it to me, you’d expect a fairly hilarious
recep
tion.”

“I wouldn’t have the least chance of
convincing her.”

“I see.” The Saint produced a
thoughtful aureole of smoke.
“But at the risk of seeming to harp on
the subject, chum,
I’m still trying to find out why you were cavorting on the
fire escape.”

Mr. Fennick wrung his hands— it was the first time Simon
had seen that well-worn cliche actually performed,
and it
corrected his lifelong
delusion that it was merely a slightly
archaic
figure of speech.

“As I told you, I went into a funk. The
only thing I could
think of was to find the young woman and try to persuade
her that
whatever she’d been paid for playing her part, I
could make it a little
more worth her while to testify to
the truth.”

“Because that’d certainly be less than
half what the pho
tographer or
his
boss would be expecting to
collect. Not bad
thinking, for a guy who just came out of a conk on the
noggin. But
what made you think she’d be hanging on the
wall outside?”

“Nothing. But I had an idea where to
begin looking.”

The Saint’s eyes narrowed fractionally.

“So you did know her, after all.”

“I had seen her once before,” Mr.
Fennick said precisely.
“As a matter of fact, that’s what made
it seem so specially
shocking and like a dream when I woke up and
saw her
without—um—the way I described her.
 
She works in the
bar downstairs, in the hotel, with one of
those flashlight
cameras, getting customers to have souvenir pictures
taken.”

“Then why didn’t you go down in the
elevator, like any respectably indignant customer, and start yelling for the
manager?”

“Because I felt certain that somebody on
the staff must
have been in on the plot. I’m always very careful about
locking my door in hotels.
Somebody must have given those
people a key,
or let them into my room. It might have
been the elevator boy, or the night clerk—”

“Why couldn’t they have used the fire
escape, too?”

“My window was only open a few inches,
and there’s a
safety chain on the inside. I expect yours has one, too,
because of
the fire escape being so close. I remembered to
make sure the chain
was fastened before I went to bed—
I don’t carry an excessive amount of
cash with me, but I
don’t believe in taking unnecessary chances… . Well, I
thought, if any of the other accomplices sees me looking
for the
girl, they’ll know I recognized her, and they’d do
anything to keep us
apart.”

“Didn’t you think anyone would see you
talking to her
in the bar?”

“That’s why I had to take such extreme
steps to avoid
the lobby. I intended to wait outside, hoping to follow
her when
she went home.”

Simon regarded Mr. Fennick with increasing
respect. It
was becoming indisputably manifest that in spite of his
somewhat
dehydrated aspect, prissy personality, and fluttering agitation, this bonbon
baron had something more active
than nougat in his noodle.

“I couldn’t have figured it any better
myself if I’d had all the facts,” he murmured, picking up his recently
discarded
shirt
and sliding an idle arm into a sleeve. “But by the same
logic, Otis, old bean, I think this is where I’ll
have to take
over.”

The little man stared.

“You?”

“There’s nothing wrong with your analysis
except that it
stops short. Never mind about being seen talking to this
chick—you
can’t even afford to let
her
hear you. Suppose she
doesn’t go for your bid, which
could happen for a whole flock
of reasons.
You’d only have told the Ungodly how scared they’ve got you, and bang goes any
chance of bluffing them
out of a
showdown. Whereas someone else could move in as
your representative, proving
you’re not all alone in the world,
and
talking tough, and maybe give ‘em some worries they
weren’t expecting.”

Mr. Fennick pursed his lips, with commendable
acuteness
for a man in his disconcerting predicament.

“Quite possibly; but why should you, Mr.—”

“Templar. Simon Templar.”

In those later days of the Saint’s career, it
was no longer
such a potentially interesting moment when he gave his
real name
to a stranger for the first time. The range of,
possible reactions
had become rather standardized. Still,
there was always the hope of evoking some
absolutely novel
response.

Mr. Fennick inclined his head with mechanical
polite
ness.

“—Mr. Templar,” he continued, with hardly a break.
“I’ve already imposed on you enough—”

“But I insist,” said the Saint genially.
“And if you give
me any trouble, I might have to call the house
detective,
if this roach farm has such a person, and turn you in as
a captured
burglar.”