Trust the Saint (6 page)

He was much taller and bigger, with the fine mahogany tan which develops on a certain type of Englishman, but as a rule only when he has been exiled for a long time to colonies where the sun shines more consistently than it normally does at home. He had large white teeth to contrast with his complexion, and an outdoor man’s interesting crowfoot wrinkles to point up his light gray eyes, and the ideal dusting of gray in his hair to give it all distinction without making him seem old.

He too was recognizable—in a lesser degree, but Simon happened to have read an article about him not long before, in the kind of magazine one thumbs through in waiting-rooms. His name was Russell Vail, and he was what is rather oddly called a white hunter: that is, he guided package-priced adventurers to the haunts of wild animals, told them when to shoot, and finished off the specimens that they wounded or missed, never forgetting that a satisfied client must go home not only with a soporific supply of anecdotes but also with the hides, heads, and horns to prove them. He had chaperoned a number of Hollywood safaris into Darkish Africa and had written a book about it, which made him a personality too.

“I only decided not to be stupid,” Usebio said quietly. “It is a matter of arithmetic. Even if you are very good, every afternoon there is a chance for the bull to get you. Each time you go out, he has more chances. If you shoot at a target often enough, no matter how difficult it is, one day you must hit it. Too many bullfighters have forgotten that. They say, ‘In one year, three years, when I am forty, I will retire.’ But before that, they meet a bull who does not know the date. There is only one time when you can say you retire and be sure of it. That is when you are alive to say you will not fight again, not even once more.”

“Quit while you’re ahead, eh?” Russell Vail said heartily. “Well, that’s how the sharpies play cards.”

“Elias was always very brave,” Iantha Lamb said. “All the critics always said that.”

“So, I had been lucky, and I was well paid, and I had not lived foolishly, as many bullfighters do. I was a rich man. I did not have to go on fighting, except for a thrill. And then I discovered a much greater thrill—to go on living, and be the husband of Iantha. That was the surprise present I gave her on our honeymoon.”

“And what a surprise,” she said pensively. “The last thing I ever expected. But don’t blame it on me. I never asked for it.”

Usebio looked up almost in pain, and said: “Who spoke of blame? I wanted to give you my life, and how could I give it if I did not have it?”

There was a slightly awkward silence, and Russell Vail ordered another round of drinks.

Simon, who had been eavesdropping unashamedly, was suddenly aware of Iantha Lamb’s huge slanting elfin eyes fixed on him with an intensity of the kind which every attractive male learns to interpret eventually, no matter how much modesty he may have started life with. He only met her gaze for a moment and then concentrated on stirring the ice in his Peter Dawson, but he could still feel her watching him.

Russell Vail took a hefty draught from his fresh glass and started up again.

“All this stuff about getting killed, Elias—honestly, aren’t you making a bit much of it? Fox-hunters get killed. Football players get killed. House painters get killed. Even ordinary pedestrians get killed on the streets. Considering how many bullfighters there must be in Spain and Mexico,, do they really have such a lot of accidents?”

“It is not the same,” Usebio said patiently, though a sensitive ear could detect the underlying effort. “The fox is not trying to kill the hunter. The public does not want a house painter to come as close as he can to falling off his ladder.”

“Oh, yes, your bullfight fans want their thrill. But even a fox has a more sporting chance. The bull never gets away, does he?”

“He is not intended to. It is so difficult to explain to an Anglo-Saxon. But bullfighting is not a sport. It is an exhibition, to let the matador show his skill and courage.”

“By tormenting a wretched hunk of beef that’s doomed before he starts?”

Vail smiled all the time, blazoning good nature with gleaming incisors.

“It is no more a hunk of beef than those African buffalo I have heard you speak of,” Usebio said.

“But they aren’t shut up in a little arena, either. They’re out in the open, where I have to find them—and they’re just as likely to be hunting me!”

“And you have a big gun that can knock them over with one touch of your finger.” The ragged scar on Usebio’s forehead seemed to throb lividly as he raised a finger to it, though his voice did not change. “Did you ever come close enough to one for it to do something like this to you?”

Vail took another solid sip, and answered a little more loudly: “I’m not so bloody silly. I’m not trying to impress an audience. But even without taking unnecessary risks, a lot of chaps in my profession have got themselves killed. A lot more than toreadors, I wouldn’t mind betting.”

Usebio winced.

“I do not know about toreadors, except what I have seen in a French opera, Carmen. The men who do what I do are called toreros.”

“All right, toreros—bullfighters—what’s in a name?”

“Elias is being modest,” his wife put in. “He’s a matador de toros. That’s more special than just any torero. It’s like being a star instead of just any actor.”

“I’m sorry,” Vail said, smiling more relentlessly than ever. “No offense meant. But I’d still like to know the figures.”

“Well, does either of you know them?”

There was no immediate answer, and Simon Templar could not resist sneaking another glance at the trio to observe any non-verbal response. And once again, disconcertingly, the glance was trapped by Iantha Lamb’s boldly speculative gaze.

This time he couldn’t break the contact too hastily without looking foolish, and she said, while he was still caught: “Somebody should be umpiring this—how about you?”

Simon felt four more eyes converging on him simultaneously, but they didn’t bother him. He said amiably: “I’m no statistician either.”

“You don’t look like one,” she said. “You look much more interesting. What are you?”

That was one of the questions he always hated: the truth was far too complicated for ordinary purposes, and the easier falsehoods or flippancies became tedious after all the times he had tried them.

“I’ve been called a lot of things.”

“What’s your name?”

He decided that this was one situation where he might as well give it, and let the gods take it from there.

It was perhaps significant, if not surprising, that neither Vail nor Usebio had any reaction to it, other than astonishment at the reaction of Iantha Lamb, who seemed as if she would have been happy to swoon.

“My hero!” she crowed, while they looked understandably blank.

“Please” begged the Saint, as she slid off her stool and began to move towards him.

An expression of ineffable smugness came over her internationally fabled face. She looked exactly like the cat that had one paw on the mouse’s tail.

“All right … for a price.”

“Name it.”

“Later,” she said, in the husky undertone that had throbbed from a thousand sound tracks.

Possibly because of a linguistic advantage, Russell Vail was the first of her two escorts to recover.

“That’s fine,” he said, with unflagging joviality. “But can’t we be introduced?”

She did that, formally. Usebio bowed with dignity. Vail shook hands, insisting on the grasp of his powerful paw.

“You must be something special,” he said, “if you send Iantha like that.” He might have been momentarily set back by the discovery that his consciously muscular grip was very gently but unmistakably equalled, but the check was barely perceptible. He went on, with the same geniality: “Did you ever do any big game hunting?”

“A little,” said the Saint.

“Do you know anything about bullfighting?” Usebio asked.

“A little.”

“Well, what do you think?” asked Iantha Lamb.

Simon shrugged.

“I think you’ll never settle that argument with figures, anyhow. So X number of guys were killed at the battle of Waterloo, and Y number of guys were killed at El Alamein. What formula do you use to figure who was braver?”

“In other words,” she insisted, “the only proof would be to test one against the other, like making a bullfighter go big-game hunting, or sending a big-game hunter into a bullfight.”

“I’d like to see any bullfighter take on a buffalo with his bare hands,” muttered Vail. “Or a rogue elephant. Or—”

“Or a man-eating shark,” Simon said. “Can both of them swim? … I’m not being facetious. There are different skills involved, as well as courage. A bullfighter might be a lousy shot. A big-game hunter probably wouldn’t even know how to hold a cape. If you want to match a bullfighter and a big-game hunter on equal terms—present company excepted, I hope—the only fair way would be in some field where they’re both amateurs.”

Iantha Lamb pouted.

“What would you suggest?”

It was then perhaps that the Saint felt his first truly premonitory chill. For an academic conversation, the point didn’t have to be pressed so hard. But he said lightly: “How about tiddly-winks? It’s easier to arrange than shark wrestling.”

She seemed petulantly disappointed, but Russell Vail grinned more widely as he emptied his glass.

“That’s a great idea,” he said. “But I’ve got a better one. Knives and forks and a juicy steak. Can we settle for that? I’m famished.”

While he and her husband competed amicably for the bar bill, Iantha held the Saint with a stare of dramatic malevolence which in spite of its obvious exaggeration Simon felt was not entirely in fun.

“You don’t get off so easily,” she muttered. “I’m still holding you to the bargain we made.”

“Any time,” said the Saint cheerfully.

“Where are you staying?”

“At Grosvenor House.”

“Our table is ready,” Usebio said, with rigid correctness.

And that should have been the end of it, except for an epilog that Simon might have read in the papers, for it was not the kind of situation that the Saint cared to meddle in. The sometimes fatal by-products of sharp-pointed triangles had crossed his path several times, but he did not seek them. Sometimes, however, they sought him.

He was finishing a rather late breakfast in his room the next morning when the telephone rang and a drowsy voice said: “Good morning. You see, I didn’t forget.”

“Maybe you’re dreaming,” he said. “You sound as if you were still asleep.”

“I wanted to try and catch you before you went out. Are you busy for lunch?”

As he hesitated for a second, she said: “Or are you backing out this morning? Last night you said any time.”

“I wasn’t thinking of anything so daring and dangerous as lunch,” he murmured.

She made a lazy little sound too deep to be a giggle.

“It still leaves the rest of the afternoon, doesn’t it? Shall we make it the Caprice—at one?”

Somewhat to his surprise, she was punctual, and she had a fresher and healthier air than he had half expected. It was true that she wore too much makeup for daylight, for his taste, but that was not conspicuous in itself in one of the favorite lunching-grounds of London’s show business. Even the Saint would have been less than human if he hadn’t enjoyed the knowledge that he was observed and envied by a fair majority of the males in the restaurant.

“Gossip can’t do me any harm,” he remarked, “but did you think about it when you chose this place?”

“What could be more discreet?” she asked coolly. “If I’d suggested some cozy little hideaway, and anyone happened to see us there, they’d have something to talk about. But everybody meets everybody here—on business. It’s so open that nobody wonders about anything.”

“I see that you’ve studied the subject,” he said respectfully. “And where is Elias?”

“Having lunch with a lawyer, in the sort of place lawyers go to.”

“What kind of lawyer?”

She gave a short brittle laugh.

“About making a will. Not what you’re thinking. Elks is a Catholic, of course. I’m not, but he’s as serious as they make ‘em. He couldn’t ask for a divorce if I slept with his whole cuadrilla and broke a bottle over his head any time he came near me. When these Papists get married, they really mean ‘till death do us part.’”

Mario the presiding genius came to their table himself and said: “Did you ever try kid liver? It’s much more delicate than calfs liver. I have a little, enough for two portions.”

“I couldn’t bear it,” said Iantha, emoting. “A poor little baby goat! … I’ll just have some vichyssoise and lamb chops.”

“My heart bleeds for that poor little lamb,” said the Saint. “I’ll try the kid liver.”

It was delicious, too, worthy of a place in any gourmet’s memory; but he knew that she hadn’t forced that meeting merely for gastronomic exploration.

“I suppose we’re all inconsistent,” he said, “but do you try to rationalize your choice of animals to be sentimental about?”

“Of course not. I just know how I feel.”

“I suppose lamb is a meat, a kind of food you see in markets and restaurants. You don’t associate it with a live animal. You’re not used to eating goat, so you visualize it alive, gambolling cutely when it’s young. But you don’t think of fighting bulls as beef, and I don’t expect you’re used to eating lions.”

“That’s different. Lions and fighting bulls can kill you. So a man can prove something when he kills one. You should be an analyst—you’ve found my complex. There’s something about danger and courage that gives me a terrific thrill.”

“You’d’ve loved it in ancient Rome, with the gladiators.”

“I might have.”

“And when they killed each other, it would’ve been even more thrilling.”

She bit her lip, but it was only a teasing play of little pearly incisors on a provocative frame of flesh.

“I’ve often wondered. I wish I could have seen it just once, for real, instead of in Cinemascope. I’ve always had this thing about brave men.”

“Don’t look at me. I’d like to be a coward, but I’m too scared.”

“You don’t have to make dialog. I can be honest. You fascinate me. You always have, ever since I first read about you.”