In the
dingy upper room which was the young man’s destination, Mr Osbett was
entertaining the stout and agi
tated man. That is to say, he was talking to him. The agitated
man did not look very entertained.
“It’s
no good cursing me, Nancock,” Osbett was saying,
in his flustered
old-maidish way. “If you’d been on time last
night——
”
“I was
on time!” yelped the perspiring Mr Nancock. “It was that young
idiot’s fault for handing the package over
without the
password-—and to Teal, of all people. I tell you,
I’ve been through
hell! Waiting for something to happen
every minute—waiting, waiting.
…
It isn’t
even safe for me
to be here now——
”
“That’s
true,” said Osbett, with one of his curiously
abrupt transformations
to deadly coldness. “Who told you
to come here ?”
“I came here because I
want my money!” bawled the other
hysterically.
“What do you think I’ve done your dirty work
for ? Do you think I’d have taken a risk like this
if I didn’t
need the money ? Is it my
fault if your fool of an assistant
gives
the money to the wrong man? I don’t care a damn for
your pennydreadful precautions, and all this
nonsense about
signs and countersigns
and keeping out of sight. What good
has
that done this time ? I tell you, if I think you’re trying to
cheat me——
”
“Cheat
you ?” repeated the chemist softly. The idea seemed
to
interest him. “Now, I wonder why you should be the
first to
think of that ?”
There was a quality of menace
in his voice which the stout
man did not
seem to hear. His mouth opened for a fresh
outburst; but the outburst never came. The first word was
on his lips when the door opened and the
shifty-eyed youth
burst in without
the formality of a knock.
“It’s
Teal’s—packet!” he panted out. “A man just came
in and
said he wanted to change it!
He
said—Teal gave it to
him. It hasn’t been opened!”
Nancock
jumped up like a startled pig, with his mouth
still open where the
interruption had caught it. An inarticulate yelp was the only sound that came
out of it.
Osbett got
up more slowly.
“What
sort of man ?” he snapped, and his voice was hard
and suspicious.
The youth
wagged his hands vaguely.
“A
silly-ass sort of fellow—Burlington Bertie kind of
chap—I didn’t notice
him particularly—”
“Well,
go back and notice him now!” Mr Osbett
was flapping
ditherily again. “Keep him talking. Make
some excuse, but keep
him there till I can have a look at
him.”
The
assistant darted out again and went pelting down the
stairs—so precipitately that he never
noticed the shadow that
faded beyond the
doorway of the stockroom on the opposite side of the landing.
Osbett had
seized the packet of tea and was feeling it
eagerly. The
suspicious look was still in his eyes, but bis
hands were shaking
with excitement.
“It
feels like it!” he muttered. “There’s something funny
about this——
”
“Funny!”
squeaked Nancock shrilly. “It’s my money,
isn’t it ? Give it to
me and let me get out of here!”
“It
will be lucky for you if it is your money,” Osbett said
thinly.
“Better let me make sure.” He ripped open the
package.
There was no tea in it—only crumpled pieces of
thin white paper.
“Yes, this is it. But why … My God!”
The oath
crawled through his lips in a tremulous whisper.
He looked as if he
had opened the package and found a snake
in his hands.
Nancock, staring at him, saw that his face had
turned into a blank
grey mask in which the eyes bulged like
marbles.
Osbett spread out the piece of
paper which he had opened.
It was not a
banknote. It was simply a piece of perforated tissue on which had been stamped
in red the drawing of a
quaint little
figure with straight lines for body and legs and
arms and an elliptical
halo slanted over his round featureless
head.
… Osbett tore open the other papers with suddenly
savage hands. Every one of them was the same,
stamped with
the same symbolic figure….
“The
Saint!” he whispered.
Nancock
goggled stupidly at the scattered drawings.
“I—I
don’t understand,” he faltered, and he was white at
the lips.
Osbett
looked up at him.
“Then
you’d better start thinking!” he rasped, and his
eyes had gone flat
and emotionless again. “The Saint sent
this, and if he knows
about the money——
”
“Not
‘sent’, dear old Whiskers, not ‘sent’,” a coolly mock
ing voice
corrected him from the doorway. “I brought it along
myself,
just for the pleasure of seeing your happy faces.”
The Saint
stood leaning against the jamb of the door
smiling and debonair.
VIII
T
HE TWO
men stood
and gawped at him as if he had been a visitor from Mars. A gamut of emotions
that must have
strained their endocrine glands to bursting point
skittered
over
their faces like foam over a waterfall. They looked as if
they had been simultaneously goosed with
high-voltage
wires and slugged in the
solar plexus with invisible sledge
hammers.
Simon had to admit that there was some excuse for
them. In fact, he had himself intentionally
provided the
excuse. There were certain reactions which only the ungodly
could perform in their full richness that
never failed to give him the same exquisite and fundamental joy that the flight
and impact of a well-aimed custard
pie gives to a movie
audience; and
for some seconds he was regaled with as ripe
and rounded an exhibition of its kind as the hungriest heart
could desire.
The Saint
propped himself a little more comfortably
against his
backrest, and flicked a tiny bombshell of ash from
his cigarette.
“I
hope you don’t mind my asking myself in like this,” he
remarked
engagingly. “But I thought we ought to get to
gether on this tea
business. Maybe I could give you some
new ideas. I was mixing a few odds and ends together myself
yesterday——
”
Credit
must be given to Mr Osbett for making the first
recovery. He was
light-years ahead of Nancock, who stood
as if his feet had
sunk into the floor above the ankles, looking
as though his lower
jaw had dislocated itself at its fullest stretch. In one sheeting flash of
dazzling clarity it dawned upon him that the man who stood there was
unarmed—that
the Saint’s hands were empty except for a cigarette. His
mouth shut
tight under the spreading plumes of his mous
tache as he made a
lightning grab towards the inside of his
coat.
“Really!”
protested the Saint. “Weren’t you ever taught n
ot to scratch
yourself in public ?”
Osbett had
just time to blink—once. And then he felt as if
a cyclone had hit him. His fingers had not
even closed on the
butt of the automatic in
his shoulder holster when he found
himself
full in the path of what seemed like a ton of incarnate
dynamite moving with the speed of an express train.
Something like a chunk of teak zoomed out of the cyclone and
collided with his jaw: as if from a great
distance, he heard it
make a noise
like a plank snapping in half. Then his head
seemed to split open and
let in a gash of light through which
his
brain sank down into cottony darkness.
The rest of
him cannoned soggily into Nancock, bounded
sideways, and
cascaded over a chair. Osbett and the chair
crashed to the floor
together; and the stout man reeled
drunkenly.
“Here,”
he began.
Perhaps he
did not mean the word as an invitation, but it
appeared to have that
effect. Something possessed of stag
gering velocity and hardness accepted
the suggestion and
moved into his stomach. The stout man said
“Oof!”
and
folded over like a jack-knife. This put his chin in line with
another
projectile that seemed to be travelling up from the
floor. His teeth
clicked together and he lay down quite
slowly, like a collapsing concertina.
Simon
Templar straightened his tie and picked up the cigarette which he had dropped
when the fun started. It had
not even had time to scorch the carpet.
He
surveyed the scene with a certain shadow of regret. That was the worst of
having to work quickly—it merely
whetted the appetite for exercise, and then
left nothing for it to expend itself on. However, it was doubtful whether
Osbett and
Nancock could ever have provided a satisfactory
workout, even with
plenty of time to develop it… . The
Saint relieved Osbett
of his gun, felt Nancock’s pockets for
a weapon and found
nothing, and then rose quickly as a
scutter of footsteps on the stairs
reminded him that he still had one more chance to practise his favourite
uppercut. He
leaped behind the door as the shifty-eyed assistant
tumbled
in.
The
assistant was blurting out his news as he came.
“Hey,
the fellow’s disappeared——
”
Simon toed the door away from
between them and grinned
at him.
“Where
do you think he went to ?” he inquired interestedly.
His fist
jolted up under the youth’s jaw, and the assistant
sat down and unrolled
himself backwards and lay still.
The Saint massaged his knuckles
contentedly, and pulled a
large roll of
adhesive tape from his pocket. He used it to
fasten the three sleeping beauties’ hands and feet together,
and
had enough left to fasten over their mouths in a way that
would gravely handicap any loquacity to which they
might
be moved when they woke up.
Not that
they were showing any signs of waking up for
some time to come,
which was another disadvantage attached
to the effectiveness
of that sizzling uppercut. By all the
symptoms, it would be quite a while
before they were in any
condition to start a conversation. It was an obstacle to further
developments which Simon had not previously
considered,
and he scratched his head
over it in a moment of indecision.
As
a matter of fact, he had not given much previous con
sideration to
anything beyond that brief and temporarily conclusive scuffle—he never made
any definite plans on such
occasions, but he
had an infinite faith in impromptu action
and the bountiful inspirations of Providence. Meanwhile, no
harm would probably be done by making a quick and
comprehensive search of the premises, or—
In the
stillness of his meditation and the surrounding
atmosphere of sleep,
an assortment of sounds penetrated to
his ears from the regions downstairs.
There was some forced
and pointed coughing, an impatient shuffling of feet, and the
tapping of a coin on plate glass. More business
had apparently
arrived, and was
getting restive.
A faintly
thoughtful tilt edged itself into his eyebrows.
He glanced round the
room, and saw a slightly grubby white
coat hanging behind the door. In a
moment he had slipped
into it and was buttoning it as he skated down
the stairs.
The
customer was a fat and frowsy woman in a bad
temper.
“Tike
yer time, dontcher?” she said scathingly. “Think I’ve got all die ter
wiste, young man? You’re new here,
aintcher ? Where’s Mr Osbett ?”
“Some
people, madam, prefer to call me fresh,” replied
the Saint courteously.
“Mr Osbett is asleep at the moment,
but you may confide
in me with perfect confidence.”