Authors: Leslie Charteris
His leisurely stroll past the house had given
him plenty
of time to assimilate a few other important details.
Lights
showed from the heavily curtained windows on the second
floor, and
the gloom at the far end of the alley was broken
by a haze of diffused
light. Knowing something about the
particular style of architecture in
question, Simon felt reason-
ably sure that the last-mentioned light came
from the library
of the house. The illuminations indicated that someone
was
at home; and from the black sedan parked at the curb, with a
low number
on its license plate and the official city seal af
fixed above it, the
Saint was entitled to deduce that the home
lover was the
gentleman with whom he was seeking earnest
converse.
He turned back from the corner and retraced
his tracks;
and although to a casual eye his gait would have seemed
just
as lazy and nonchalant as before, there was a more elastic
spring to
his tread, a fettered swiftness to his movements, a razor-edged awareness in
the blue eyes that scanned the side
walks, which had not been there when
he first set out.
The legend painted in neat white letters at
the opening
of the alley proclaimed it the Trade Entrance; but Simon
felt
democratic. He turned into it without hesitation. The passage
was barely
three feet wide, bounded at one side by the wall
of the building and
at the other by a high board fence. As the
Saint advanced, the
light from the rear became brighter.
He pressed himself dose to the darker
shadows along the wall
of the house and went on.
A blacker oblong of shadow in the wall ahead
of him in
dicated a doorway. He passed it in one long stride and
pulled up short at the end of the alley against an ornamental picket
fence. For
a moment he paused there, silent and motionless as a statue. His muscles were
relaxed and calm; but every
nerve was alert, linked up in an uncanny
half-animal coordination of his senses which seemed to bend every faculty of
his being to the aid of the one he was using. To his listening
ears came
the purling of water; and as a faint breeze stirred
the foliage ahead of
him it wafted to his arched nostrils the
faint, delicate odour
of lilacs.
A garden beyond, deduced the Saint. The dim
light which
he had seen from the street came from directly above him
now,
shining out of a tier of windows at the rear of the house.
He watched
the irregular rectangles of light printed on the
grass beyond and saw
them move, shifting their pattern with
every breath of thin
air. “Draperies at open windows,” he
added to his
deductions and smiled invisibly in the darkness.
He swung a long, immaculately trousered leg
over the
picket fence, and a second later planted its mate beside
it.
His eyes had long since accustomed themselves to the gloom like a cat’s,
and the light from the windows above was more
than sufficient to
give him his bearings. In one swift survey
he took in the
enclosed garden plot, made out the fountain
and arbour at the far
end, and saw that the high board fence,
after encircling the
yard, terminated flush against the far side
of the house. The
geography couldn’t have suited him better
if it had been laid out to his own
specifications.
He listened again, for one brief second,
glanced at the case
ment above him, and padded across the garden to the far
fence wall.
The top was innocent of broken glass or other
similar
discouragements for the amateur housebreaker. Flex
ing the muscles of his
thighs, Simon leaped upwards, and
with a masterly blend of the techniques
of a second-story
man and a tight-rope walker gained the top of the fence.
From this precarious perch he surveyed the
situation. again
and found no fault with it. Its simplicity was almost
puerile. The open windows through which the light shone were long
French
casements reaching down to within a foot of the fence
level; and from where
he stood it was an easy step across to
the nearest sill.
Simon took the step with blithe agility and
an unclouded
conscience.
*
*
*
It is possible that even in these
disillusioned days there
may survive a sprinkling of guileless souls
whose visions of
the private life of a Tammany judge have not been tainted
by the cynicism of their time—a few virginal, unsullied minds
that would
have pictured the dispenser of their justice at this
hour poring dutifully
over one of the legal tomes that lined
the walls of his
library, or, possibly, in lighter mood, gambol
ling affectionately on
the floor with his small curly-headed
son.
Simon Templar, it must be confessed, was not
one of these.
The pristine luminance of his childhood faith had suffered
too many shocks since the last day when he believed that
the
problems of overpopulation could be solved by a scientific extermination of
storks. But it must also be admitted that he
had never in his most
optimistic hours expected to wedge himself straight into an orchestra stall
for a scene of domestic
recreation like the one which confronted him.
Barely two yards away from him, Judge Wallis
Nather, in
the by no means meagre flesh, was engaged in thumbing over
a voluptuous roll of golden-backed bills whose dimension
made even
Simon Templar stare.
The tally evidently proving satisfactory, His
Honour placed
the pile of bills on the glass-topped desk before him and
patted it
lovingly into a thick, orderly oblong. Then he re
trieved a sheet of
paper from beneath a jade paperweight
and glanced over the few lines written
on it. With an ex
halation of breath that could almost be described as a
snort,
he crumpled the slip of paper into a ball and dropped it into
the
wastebasket beside him; and then he picked up the pile of
bills again
and ruffled the edges with his thumb, watching
them as if their
crisp rustle transmuted itself in his ears into
the strains of some
supernal symphony.
Taken by and large, it was a performance to
which Simon
Templar raised his hat. It had the tremendous simplicity
of
true greatness. In a deceitful, hypocritical world, where all
the active
population was scrambling frantically for all the
dough it could get its
hands on, and at the same time smugly
proclaiming that money could not buy happiness,
it burned
like a bright candle of sincerity. Not for Wallis Nather
were any of those pettifogging affectations. He had his dough; and
if he
believed that it could not buy happiness, he faced his
melancholy destiny
with dauntless courage.
Simon was almost apologetic about butting in.
Nothing but
stern necessity could have forced him to intrude the anti
climax of
his presence into such a moment. But since he had to intrude, he saw no reason
why the conventions should not
be observed.
“Good-evening, Judge,” he murmured
politely.
He would always maintain that he did
everything in his
power to soften the blow—that he could not have
introduced
himself with any softer sympathy. And he could only sigh
when he
perceived that all his good intentions had misfired.
Nather did three things simultaneously. He
dropped the
sheaf of bills, spun round in his swivel chair as if it’s
axle had
suddenly got tangled up in a high-speed power belt, and
made
a tentative pass for a side drawer of the desk. It was the last
of these
movements which never came to completion. He
found himself staring
into the levelled menace of a blue steel
automatic, gaping into
a pair of the most mocking blue eyes that he had ever seen. They were eyes that
made something
cringe at the back of his brain, eyes with a debonair
gaze like
the flick of a rapier thrust—eyes that held a greater
terror for the Honourable Judge than the steady shape of the automatic.
He sat there, leaning slightly forward in his
chair, with his
heavy body stiffening and his fleshy nostrils dilating,
for a
space of ten terrific seconds. The only sound was the thud of
his own
heart and the suddenly abnormally loud tick of the
clock that stood on
his desk. And then, with an effort which
brought the sweat out
in beads on his forehead, he tried to
shake off the supernatural fear that
was winding its icy grip
around his chest.
He started to heave himself forward, but he
got no further
than that brief convulsive start. With a faint, flippant
smile,
the Saint whirled the automatic once around his forefinger
by the
trigger guard and came on into the room. After that
one derisive gesture
the butt of the gun settled into his hand
again, as smoothly
and surely as if there were a socket there
for it.
“Don’t disturb yourself, comrade,”
purred the Saint. “I
know the book of rules says that a host should
always rise
when receiving a guest, but just for once we’ll forget the
for
malities. Sit down, Your Honour—and keep on making your
self at
home.”
The judge shifted his frozen gaze from the
automatic to
the Saint’s face. The cadences of that gentle, mocking
voice
drummed eerily on through his memory. It was a voice that
matched the
eyes and the debonair stance of the intruder—
a voice that for some
strange reason reawakened the clammy
terror that he had known when he first
looked up and met
that cavalier blue gaze. The last of the colour drained
out of
his sallow cheeks, and twin pulses beat violently in his throat.
“What is the meaning of this infernal
farce?” he demanded,
and did not recognize the raw jaggedness of his own voice.
“If you sit down I’ll tell you all about
it,” murmured the
Saint. “If you don’t—well, I noticed a
slap-up funeral parlour
right around the corner, with some
jolly-looking coffins at bargain prices. And this is supposed to be a lucky
month to
die in.”
The eyes of the two men clashed in an almost
physical en
counter, like the blades of two duellists engaging; but
the
Saint’s smile did not change. And presently Judge Nather
sank back
heavily in his chair, with his face a pasty white
and the dew of
perspiration on his upper lip.
“Thanks a lot,” said the Saint.
He relaxed imperceptibly, loosening the crook
of his finger
fractionally from the trigger. With unaltered elegance he
moved himself sideways to the door and turned the key in the
lock with a
flick of his wrist. Then he strolled unhurriedly
back across the
deep-piled rug towards His Honour.
He hitched his left hip up onto the corner of
the mahogany desk and settled himself there, with one polished shoe swing
ing
negligently back and forth. One challenging blue eye slid
over the
fallen heap of bills that lay between himself and his
host, and his brows tilted speculatively.
He poked at the nest egg with the nozzle of
his gun, scatter
ing
the bills across the table in a golden cascade.
“Must be quite a cozy little total,
Algernon,” he remarked.
“Almost enough to make me forget my
principles.”
“So it’s robbery, eh?” grated
Nather; and the Saint thought
he could detect a note of relief in the words.
He shook his head rather sadly, turning wide
innocent eyes
on
his victim.
“My dear Judge—you wrong me, I merely
mentioned that
I was struggling against temptation. This really started
to be
just a sociable interview. I want to know where you were born
and why,
and what penitentiary you graduated from, and
what you think about
disarmament, and whether your face
was always so repulsive or if somebody
trod on it. I wasn’t
thinking of stealing anything.”