Authors: Leslie Charteris
His gaze reverted to the sheaf of bills,
meditatively, as
though the thought was nevertheless penetrating slowly
into
his mind, against his will; and the judge moistened his dry
lips.
“What is all this nonsense?” he
croaked.
“Just a little friendly call.”
Simon poked at the bills again,
wistfully. It was clear that the idea which
Nather had dragged
in was gaining ground. “You and your packet of
berries—
me and my little effort at housebreaking. On second
thoughts,”
said the Saint, reaching a decision with apparent
reluctance, “I am afraid I shall have to borrow these. Just sitting and
looking at
them like this is getting me all worked up.”
Nather stiffened up in his chair, his flabby
hands curling up
into lumpish fists; but the gun in the Saint’s hand never
wavered
from the even keel that held it centred on the help
less judge like a finger of fate. Nather’s
small eyes flickered like
burning agates as
the Saint gathered up the stack of notes
with a sweeping gesture and dropped them into his pocket;
but he did not try to challenge the threat of the
.38 Colt
that hovered a scanty yard from his midriff. His impotent
wrath
exploded in a staccato clip of
words that rasped gropingly
through the stillness.
“Damn you—I’ll see that you don’t get
away with this!”
“I believe you would,” agreed Simon
amiably. “I admit that
it isn’t particularly tactful of me to do
things like this to you, especially in this man’s city. It’s a pity you don’t
feel sociable.
We might have had a lovely evening together, and then if
I
ever got caught and brought up in your court you’d burst
into tears
and direct the jury to acquit me—just like you’d have done with Jack Irboll
eventually, if he hadn’t had such
a tragic accident. But I suppose one
can’t have everything. .
… Never mind. Tell me how much I’ve
borrowed and I’ll
give
you a receipt.”
The pallor was gone from Nather’s cheeks,
giving place
to a savage flush. A globule of perspiration trickled down
his cheek and hung quivering at the side of his jaw.
“There were twenty thousand dollars
there,” he stated
hoarsely.
The Saint raised his eyebrows.
“Not so bad,” he drawled quietly,
“for blood money.”
Nather’s head snapped up, and a fleeting
panic widened
the irises of his eyes; but he said nothing. And the
Saint smiled again.
“Pardon me. In the excitement of the
moment, and all
that sort of thing, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m
afraid I’ve
had you at a disadvantage. My name is Templar—
Simon
Templar”—he caught the flash of stark hypnotic fear
that
blanched the big man’s lips, and grinned even more
gently. “You may
have heard of me. I am the Saint.”
A tremor went over the man’s throat, as he
swallowed me
chanically out of a parched mouth. He spoke between
twitch
ing lips.
“You’re the man who sent Irboll that
note.”
“And killed him,” said the Saint
quietly. The lilt of banter
was lingering only in the deepest undertones
of his voice—
the surface of it was as smooth and cold as a shaft of
polished
ice. “Don’t forget that, Nather. You let him out—and
I killed
him.”
The judge stirred in his chair, a movement
that was no
more than the uncontrollable reaction of nerves strained
be
yond the limits of their strength. His mouth shaped an almost
inaudible
sentence.
“What do you want?”
“Well, I thought we might have a little
chat.” Simon’s foot
swung again, in that easy, untroubled
pendulum. “I thought
you might know things. You seem to have been
quite a pal
of Jack’s. According to the paper I was reading tonight,
you
were the man who signed his permit to carry the gun that
killed
Ionetzki. You were the guy who signed the writ of
habeas corpus to get
Irboll out when they first pulled him in.
You were the guy who
adjourned him the last time he was brought up. And three years ago, it seems,
you were the guy
who acquitted our same friend Irboll along with four
others
who were tried for the murder of a kid named Billie Valcross.
One way and
another; Algernon, it looks like you must be
quite a useful sort
of friend for a bloke to have.”
Chapter 2
How Simon Templar Eavesdropped
to Some Advantage, and Inspector
Fernack
Went for a Ride
Nather did not try to answer. His body was
sunk deep
into his chair, and his eyes glared venomously up at the
Saint out of a face that was contorted into a mask of hate and fury;
but Simon
had passed under glares like that before.
“Just before I came in,” Simon
remarked conversationally,
“you were reading a scrap of paper that
seemed to have some connection with those twenty grand I borrowed.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” said the judge.
“No?” Simon’s voice was honeyed,
but none of the chill had gone out of his blue eyes. “Let me remind you.
You
screwed it up and plugged it into the wastebasket. It’s there
still—and
I’d like to see it.”
Nather’s eyelids flickered.
“Why don’t you get it?”
“Because I’d hate to give you the chance
to catch me bend
ing—my tail’s tender today. Fetch out that paper!”
His voice crisped up like the flick of a
whiplash, and Wallis
Nather jerked under the sting of it. But he
made no move to
obey.
A throbbing stillness settled over the room.
The air was surcharged with the electric tension of it. The smile had faded
from the
Saint’s lips when his voice tightened on that one
curt command; and it
had not come back. There was no vari
ation in the graceful ease with which
he held his precarious
perch on the edge of the desk, but the gentle
rocking of his
free foot had died away like the pendulum of a clock that
had
run down. And a thin pin-prickling temblor frisked up the
Saint’s
spine as he realized that Nather did not mean to obey.
Instead, he realized that the judge was
marshalling the last
fragments of his strength and courage to make
one desperate
lunge for the automatic that held him crucified in his
chair. It
was fantastic, incredible; but there could be no mistake.
The
intuitive certainty had flashed through his mind at the same instant as
it was born in the brain of the man before him. And
Simon knew, with the
same certainty, that just as surely as that
desperate lunge was
made, his own finger would constrict on
the trigger, ending
the argument beyond all human revision, without hesitation and without remorse.
“You wouldn’t dare to shoot,” said
Nather throatily.
He said it more as if he were trying to
convince himself; and
the Saint’s eyes held him on needle points of
blue ice.
“The word isn’t in my dictionary—and you
ought to know it! This isn’t a country where men carry guns for ornament,
and I’m
just getting acclimatized… .”
But even while Simon spoke, his brain was
racing ahead to
explore the reasons for the insane resolution that was
whiten
ing the knuckles of the judge’s twitching hands.
He felt convinced that such a man as Wallis
Nather would not go up against that gaping automatic on account of a mere
twenty
thousand dollars. That was a sum of money which any man might legitimately be
grieved to lose, but it was not large
enough to tempt anyone but a starving
desperado to the gam
ble that Nather was steeling himself to make.
There could be only one other motive—the
words scrawled
on that scrap of paper in the wastebasket. Something that
was
written on that crumpled slip of milled rag held dynamite
enough to
raise the ghostly hand of Nemesis itself. Something was recorded there that had
the power to drive Nather forward
inch by inch in his chair into the face
of almost certain death… .
With fascinated eyes Simon watched the slight,
nerve-tin
gling movements of the judge’s body as Nather edged
himself
up for that suicidal assault on the gun. For the first time in
his long
and checkered career he felt himself a blind instru
ment in the working
out of an inexorable fate. There was
nothing more that he could do. The one
metallic warning that
he had delivered had passed unheeded. Only
two things re
mained. In another few seconds Nather would lunge; and in
that instant the automatic would bark its riposte of death… .
Simon was vaguely conscious of the quickening of his pulse.
His mind reeled away to those trivial details that
sometimes
slip through the voids of an
intolerable suspense—there must
be
servants somewhere in the place—but it would only take
him three swift movements, before they could
possibly reach
the door, to scrawl his
sign manual on the blotter, snatch the
crumple
of paper from the wastebasket, and vanish through
the open windows into the darkness.
…
And then a bell exploded in the oppressive
atmosphere of
the room like a bomb. A telephone bell.
Its rhythmic double beat sheared through the
silence like a
guillotine, cleaving the overstrained chord of the spell
with
the blade of its familiar commonplaceness; and Nather’s effort
collapsed
as if the same cleavage had snapped the support of
his spine. He
shuddered once and slouched back limply in his
chair, passing a
trembling hand across his eyes.
Simon smiled again. His shoe resumed its gentle
swinging,
and he swept a gay, mocking eye over the desk. There were
two
telephones on it—one of them clearly a house phone. On
a small table to the
right of the desk stood a third telephone,
obviously a Siamese
twin of the second, linked to the same out
side wire and
intended for His Honour’s secretary. The Saint
reached out a long
arm and brought it over onto his knee.
“Answer the call, brother,” he
suggested persuasively.
A wave of his automatic added its
imponderable weight to the suggestion; but the fight had already been drained
out of the judge’s veins. With a grey drawn face he dragged one of
the
telephones towards him; and as he lifted the receiver Simon matched the
movement on the extension line and slanted
his gun over in a
relentless arc to cover the other’s heart. Def
initely it was not
Mr. Wallis Nather’s evening, but the Saint
could not afford to be
sentimental.
“Judge Nather speaking.”
The duplicate receiver at the Saint’s ear
clicked to the vibra
tions of a clear feminine voice.
“This is Fay.” The speech was crisp
and incisive, but it had a
rich pleasantness of music that very few
feminine voices can
maintain over the telephone—there was a rare quality in
the
sound that moved the Saint’s blood with a queer, delightful expectation
for which he could have given no account. It was
just one of those
voices. “The Big Fellow says you’d better stay
home tonight,”
stated the voice. “He may want you.”
Nather’s eyes seemed to glaze over; then they
switched to
the Saint’s face. Simon moved his gun under the desk lamp
and edged
it a little forward, and his gaze was as steady as the
steel. Nather swallowed.
“I—I’ll be here,” he stammered.
“See that you are,” came the terse
conclusion, in the same
voice of bewitching overtones; and then the
wire went dead.
Watching Nather, the Saint knew that at least
half the audience had understood that cryptic conversation perfectly. The
judge was
staring vacantly ahead into space with the lifeless
receiver still
clapped to his ear and his mouth hung half open.