Saint in New York (35 page)

“So you see it’s been a big night,”
he wound up. “And there isn’t much of it left. Fernack’s probably
wondering already
whether I haven’t skipped into Canada and left him to hold
the baby.”

“And Fay Edwards told you the Big Fellow
would be here
at nine?” said Valcross.

“Not exactly. She asked me to be here at
nine—and she was looking for the Big Fellow. I’m hoping it means she
knows
something. I’m still hoping.”

“It’s an amazing story,” said
Valcross thoughtfully. “Do you know what to make of that girl?”

Simon shrugged.

“I don’t think I ever shall.”

“I shall never understand women,”
Valcross said. “I wonder what the Big Fellow will think. That marvellous
brain—an
organization that’s tied up the greatest city in the
world into
the greatest criminal combine that’s ever been known—
and a
harlot who falls in love with an adventurer can tear it
all to pieces.”

“She hasn’t done it yet,” said the
Saint.

Valcross was silent for a few moments; and
then he said:
“You’ve done your share. You’ve got five men out of
the six
names I gave you. In the short time you’ve been working, that’s
almost a
miracle. The Big Fellow’s your own idea—you put
him on the list. If
you fail—if you feel bound to keep your
word and go back to
Fernack—I can’t stop you. But I feel that
you’ve earned the
reward I promised you. I’ve had a million
dollars in a drawing
account, waiting for you, ever since you
came over. I’d like
to give it to you, anyhow. It might be
some use to you.”

Simon hesitated. Valcross’s eyes were fixed
on him eagerly.

“You can’t refuse,” he insisted.
“It’s my money, and I
think it’s due to you. No one could have
earned it better.”

“All right,” said the Saint.
“But you can pay me in propor
tion. I haven’t succeeded—why try to
make out that I have?”

“I think I’m the best judge of
that,” said Valcross and let
himself out of the cab with a quick
smile.

Simon watched him go with a troubled frown.
There was
an unpleasant taste in his mouth which he had not noticed
before. So the accounts of death would be paid according to
their
strict percentages, the blood money handed over, and the
ledger
closed. Six men to be killed for a million dollars. One
hundred and
sixty-six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six
dollars and
-sixty-six cents per man. He had not thought of it
that way before—he had
taken the offer in his stride, for the
adventure, without
seriously reckoning the gain. Well, he re
flected bitterly,
there was no reason why a man who in a few
short weeks would be
a convicted felon should try to flatter his
self-esteem. He would
go down as a hired killer, like any of the other rats he had killed… .

Valcross was closing the door, turning away
towards the
bank; and at that moment another taxi flashed past the one
in which Simon sat, and swung in to the curb in front of them.
The door
opened, and a woman got out. It was Fay Edwards.

Simon grabbed at the door handle and flung
himself out onto the sidewalk. And then he saw that the girl was not
looking at him, but at
Valcross.

The Saint had never known anything to compare
with that
moment. There was the same curious constricted feeling at
the back of his knees as if he had been standing with his toes
over the
edge of a sheer precipice, looking down through
space into an
unimaginable gulf; seconds passed before he realized that for a time he had
even stopped breathing. When
he opened his lungs again, the blood sang in
his ears like the
hissing
of distant surf.

There was no need for anything to be said—no
need for a
single question to be asked and answered. The girl had not
even seen him yet. But without seeing her face, without catch
ing a
glimpse of the expression in her eyes—he knew. Facts,
names, words, events,
roared through his mind like a turmoil
of machinery gone mad,
and fell one by one into places where
they fitted and joined. Kestry’s harsh
voice stating: “Why did
the guy that was phoning for you say ‘This is
the Big Fel
low’?” He had never been able to think who could
have given
him away—except the one man whom he had never thought
of. Fay
Edwards saying: “The last I heard of Curly Ippolino,
he was in
Pittsburgh.” Valcross had just returned from Pittsburgh. Fay Edwards
saying: “All the profits were paid into one
bank. It was agreed
that the racket should run for three years … divide the surplus equally… Since you’ve been here,
there aren’t many of them left to divide… That means a lot
of money for somebody.” Valcross on his way to the
bank— Valcross on his way back from Pittsburgh, where the last sur
viving
member of the partnership had been. Fay Edwards say
ing: “He told me
to try and make things easy for you.” Nat
urally—until the job
was finished. Valcross meeting him in
Madrid. The list of men for justice—all
of them dead now.
The story of his kidnapped and murdered son, which it had
never occurred to the Saint to verify. “I’ll pay you a million
dollars.”
With seventeen million at stake, the fee was very
modest. You might
clean up this rotten mess of crooks and grafters.” Oh, God, what a blind
fool he’d been!

In that reeling instant of time he saw it all.
Jack Irboll
dead. Morrie Ualino and Eddie Voelsang dead. The news
flashed
over the underworld grapevine, long before the news
papers caught up with
it, that Hunk Jenson and Dutch Kuhlmann
had also died. The
knowledge that the Saint’s sphere of
usefulness was rapidly drawing to a
close, and the bill would
remain for payment. The trip to Pittsburgh and
the telephone
message to police headquarters. The last Machiavellian
gesture
of that devilish warped genius which had gone out and picked
up the
scourge of all secret crime, the greatest fighting outlaw
in the
world, bought him with a story and the promise of a
million dollars, used
him for a few days of terror, and cast
him off before his
curiosity became too dangerous. The final
shock when Valcross
saw the Saint that morning, alive and
free. And the simple, puerile, obvious
excuse to continue into
the bank—and, once there, to slip out by
another exit, and
perhaps
send a second message to the police at the same time.
Simon Templar saw every detail. And then, as Fay Edwards
turned at last and saw him for the first time, he
read it all
again, without the
utterance of a single word, in that voiceless interchange of glances which was
the most astounding solution
to a mystery that he would ever know.

Æ
ons of time and
understanding seemed to have rocketed
past his head while he stood there
motionless, taking down
into his soul the last biting, shattering
dregs of comprehen
sion; and yet in the chronology of the world it was no
time
at all Valcross had not even reached the doors of the bank.
And then,
as Fay Edwards saw the Saint and took two quick
steps towards him,
some supernatural premonition seemed
to strike Valcross as if a shout had
been loosed after him, and
he turned round.

He saw Fay Edwards, and he saw the Saint.

Across the narrow space Simon Templar stared
at Valcross
and saw the whole mask of genial kindliness destroyed by
the
blaze of horrible malignity that flamed out of the old man’s
eyes. The
change was so incredible that even though he under
stood the facts in
his mind, even though he had assimilated
them into the
immutable truths of his existence, for that weird
interval of time he
was paralyzed, as if he had been watching
a spaniel turn into a
snake. And then Valcross’s hand streaked
down towards his hip
pocket.

Simon’s right hand started the hundredth part
of a second
later, moving with the speed of light—and the stiffness of
his wounded shoulder caught it in midflight like a cruel brake.
A stiletto
of pain stabbed through his back like a hot iron.
In the hypnotic grasp
of that uncanny moment his disability
had been driven out of his mind: he had
used his right hand
by instinct which moved faster than thought. In an
instant he
had corrected himself, and his left hand was snatching at
Fernack’s revolver in his coat pocket; but by that time Val
cross was
also holding a gun.

A shot smacked past his ear, stunning the drum
like the
blast of an express train concentrated twenty thousand
times.
His revolver was stuck in his pocket. Of the next shot he heard
only the
report. The bullet went nowhere near him. Then
he twisted his gun up
desperately and fired through the cloth;
and Valcross dropped
his automatic and clutched at his side,
swaying where he
stood.

Simon hurled himself forward. The street had
turned into pandemonium. White-faced pedestrians blocked the sidewalk
on either
side of the bank, crushing back out of the danger
zone. The air was
raucous with the screams of women and
the screech of skidding tires. He
caught Valcross round the
waist with his sound arm, swung him mightily
off his feet, and
started back with him towards the cab. He saw Mr. Lipski,
his features convulsed with intolerable excitement, scrambling
down from
his box to assist. And he saw Fay Edwards.

She was leaning against the side of the taxi,
holding onto it,
with one small hand pressed to the front of her dress;
and
Simon knew, with a terrible finality, where Valcross’s second
shot had
gone.

Something that was more than a pang came into
his throat; and his heart stopped beating. And then he went on.

He jerked open the door and flung Valcross in
like a sack. And then he took Fay Edwards in his arms and carried her in
with him.
She was as light in his arms as a child; he could
not even feel the
pain in his shoulder; and yet he carried the
weight of the whole
world. He put her down on the seat as
tenderly as if she had been made of
fragile crystal, and closed
the door. The cab was jolting forward even as
he did so.

“Where to, pal?” bellowed the driver
over his shoulder.

Simon gave him Fernack’s address.

There was a wail of police sirens starting up
behind them—
far behind. Weaving through the traffic, cornering on two
wheels,
whisking over crossroads in defiance of red lights,
supremely
contemptuous of the signs on one-way streets, per
forming hair-raising
miracles of navigation with one hand,
Mr. Sebastian Lipski found
opportunities to scratch the back
of his head with the other. Mr. Lipski
was worried.

“Chees!” he said bashfully, as if
conscious that he was guilty
of unpardonable sacrilege, and yet unable to
overcome the
doubts that were seething in his breast. “What is
dis racket,
anyway? Foist ya puts de arm on a guy wit’ out any
trouble.
Den ya lets him go. Den ya shoots up Fift’ Avenue an’
brings him back again. Howja play dis snatch game, what I wanna
know?”

“Don’t think about it,” said the
Saint through his teeth.
“Just drive!”

He felt a touch on his arm and looked down at
the girl.
She had pulled off her hat, and her hair was falling
about her
cheeks in a flood of soft gold. There were shadows in her
amazing amber eyes, but the rest of her face was untroubled,
unlined,
like unearthly satin, with the bloom of youth and
life undimmed on it.
The parting of her lips might have been
the wraith of a
smile.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m
not going with you—very
far.”

“That’s nonsense,” he said roughly.
“It’s nothing serious. “You’re going to be all right”