Saint on Guard (5 page)

For the cadaverous gent with the cracked forehead wasn’t there any more.

There was just nothing to argue about in it. He wasn’t there. The entire area of stone flooring at the foot of the back steps was burdened with nothing more substantial than a probable film of New York grime.

Simon Templar stood and gazed down at it with the utmost restraint for several seconds; until Fernack said impatiently: “Well, where is this man?”

“This is going to make you very unhappy, Henry,” said the Saint, raising his eyes, “but he doesn’t seem to be here any more. I’m afraid he must have had a boy friend who came back for him. The way I had him tied, he couldn’t possibly have gotten loose by himself. But he’s certainly gone away.”

The gastric ulcers of innumerable haggard authors bear witness to the awful responsibility of attempting an adequate description of such scenes as this. The present chronicler, however, having much more respect and affection for his mucosa, intends to court no such disaster. He proposes to leave most of the detailed etching to the imagination of the reader, for whose lambent perspicacity he has the very highest regard.

He will nevertheless go so far as to give a slight lead by mentioning that the calorific swelling of a moderately understandable indignation caused Inspector Fernack’s face to give a startling imitation of an overripe plum which is receiving an unexpected hypodermic from a jet of high-pressure steam.

“All right,” Fernack said, and his voice had the slow burn of molten lava. “I can’t blame you for trying, but this is the last time you’re going to treat me like a moron.”

“But Henry, I give you my word–-“

“You can give your word to a judge, and see what he thinks of it,” snarled the detective. “I’m through. I’m going to take you down to Headquarters and lock you up right now, and you can save the rest of it for your lawyer!”

“And I thought you were a real professional, Henry. If you’d only stationed a man at the back door, as I was sure you would have, instead of getting so excited–-“

“Are you coming along?” Fernack asked glowingly. “Or am I going to have to use this?”

Simon glanced down regretfully at the revolver which had appeared in the other’s fist.

He might conceivably have been able to take it away. And apparently there was no one to stop him outside the back door. But he was reluctant to hurt Fernack seriously; and he knew that even if he succeeded the call would be out for him within a space of minutes, and that would be a handicap which might easily be crippling.

And just the same, nothing could have been much more manifest than that the last chance of talking the situation away had departed for the night. There is such a thing as an immutably petrified audience, and Simon Templar was realistic enough to recognise one when he saw it.

He shrugged.

“Okay,” he said resignedly. “If you can’t help being a moron, I’ll pretend I don’t notice. But if you’ll take any advice from me at all, please don’t be in too much of a hurry to call in the reporters and boast about your performance. I don’t want you to make a public spectacle of yourself. Because I’ll bet you fifty dollars to a nickel you won’t even hold me until midnight.”

He lost his bet by a comfortable margin, for Hamilton was away from Washington that night; and the far-reaching results of that delay were interesting to contemplate long afterwards.

A little after ten the next morning, a rather rotund and unobtrusive gentleman with the equally unobtrusive name of Harry Eldon presented Fernack with his credentials from the Department of Justice and said: “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to exercise our priority and take Templar out of your hands. “We want him rather badly ourselves.”

Somewhat to his own mystification, the detective found that he didn’t know whether to feel frustrated or relieved or worried.

He took refuge in an air of gruff unconcern.

“If you can keep him where he belongs, it’ll be a load off my mind,” he said.

“You haven’t made any statement about his arrest yet?”

“Not yet.”

Fernack could never have admitted that he had been sufficiently impressed by the Saint’s warning, combined with the saddening recollection of previous tragic disappointments, to have forced himself to take a cautious breathing spell before issuing the defiant proclamation that was simmering in his insides.

“That’s a good thing. You’d better just forget this as well,” Eldon said enigmatically. “Those are my orders.”

He took Simon Templar out with him, holding him firmly by the arm; and they rode uptown in a taxi.

The Saint filled his cigarette-case from a fresh pack, and lighted the last one left over, and said: “Thanks.”

“I had a message to give you,” Eldon said laconically. “It says that this had better be good. Or somebody else’s neck will be under the axe.”

“It will be good,” said the Saint.

“Where do you want to be let off?”

“Any drug store will do. I want to look in a phone book.”

It was just a chance that Barbara Sinclair’s apartment would be listed under her name; but it was. It lay just off Fifth Avenue, across from the park.

When Simon arrived there, he found that it was one of those highly convenient buildings with a self-service elevator and no complications in the way of inquisitive doormen, which are such a helpful accessory to the vie boheme.

He rode up to the floor where he had found her name listed in the hall, and rang the bell. After a reasonable pause, he rang it again. There was still no answer; and he proceeded to inspect the lock with professional penetration. It was the usual Yale type, but the way it was set in the door promised very little opposition to a man whom the master cracksmen of two continents had been heard to mention with respect. He took a thin strip of flexible metal from a special compartment in the back of his wallet, and went to work with unhurried confidence.

It took him less than a minute, and he went into a living-room which could have served as a model of relaxing and fussless cosiness to any lady who wanted her gentleman friends to feel much better than at home.

He took three steps into the room, and a syrupy voice said: “The hands up and clasped behind the back of the neck, please, Mr Templar.”

5 Simon did as he was told, while he turned to locate the welcoming committee. He realised that he had been quite con-spicuously careless: because there had been no answer to the bell, he had assumed that there was nobody home. Which seemed to have been an egregiously rash assumption.

He found himself considering two separately unreliable trigger fingers.

One of them, which had appeared from behind the door, belonged to the thin blue-chinned specimen who had had such an unfortunate collision with a slab of functional timber the night before. He wore a broad patch of adhesive tape across his brow as a souvenir of the occasion, and if there was any spirit of Christian forgiveness and loving-kindness in his secret soul it had. not yet had time to dig its way out into his sunken eyes.

The other man, who must have been the owner of the grenadine voice, stood in the doorway of the bedroom. A glimpse of the room behind him formed a sudden sensuous woodcut of black painted floor and white snow leopard rugs, black marble fireplace and white leather paneled walls, ebony and white corduroy furniture—the sort of room from which a man like that would most naturally seem to emerge. For aside from the plated automatic in his hand, he was outwardly a very boudoir type. In contrast with the hapless butter of doors, whose clothes hung on his skinny frame like washing on a line, this exhibit was tailored to the point of being almost zoot-suited. He had glossy black hair with three beautiful regular waves in it, and the adenoidal type of Latin countenance which belongs with the male half of a ballroom dance team. He smiled steadily, showing teeth that were very white and slightly buck.

“So you walked into the parlor, Mr Templar,” he said.

“You have the advantage of me,” Simon said genially. “Would you like to introduce yourself, or are you the man of mystery?”

The wavy head bowed.

“Ricco Varetti—at your service. And on your left is Cokey Walsh, who will now proceed to search you.”

Simon nodded.

“We nearly met last night, only something came between us. I suppose you were the guy who rescued him?”

“I had that pleasure. By the way, it’s a little surprising to see you. We really expected that the police would detain you much longer than this. How were you able to get away so soon?”

“I told them I had an appointment with the hairdresser for a new permanent, so of course they had to let me go. You’d understand.”

The scrawny warrior stepped back from his search with malevolence in the thin gash of his mouth.

“So this is the guy, is it?” he said.

“This is the guy, Cokey,” Varetti agreed.

“The guy who gave me this crack on the head.”

“Yes, Cokey.”

“Lemme have him, Ricco. All to myself.”

“Not yet, Cokey.”

“The sonofabitch bust my head open,” Cokey argued. “Lemme get a piece of rope and put him out of my misery.”

“Not yet, Cokey.”

The Saint’s expression was interested and sympathetic.

“After all, we do have to make up our minds about me,” he murmured helpfully. “Cokey is just trying to be practical. Now, what are the possibilities? We could all just stand around here for ever, but one day we might get bored with our own conversation. Of course, you could always shoot me; but then one of the other apartments might hear it and get curious about the noise. You might take me for an old-fashioned ride; but that’s kind of a luxury these days, what with the tire situation and gasoline rationing and everything.”

“Or,” said Varetti, in the same vein, “we might call the police again and give you back to them for breaking in here.”

“That’s quite an idea,” Simon admitted. “But I was under the impression that this apartment belonged to a Miss Barbara Sinclair. Are you sure that you mightn’t have to do a little awkward explaining about why you’re here yourselves and how you got in?”

As bait, it was worth the casual try; but Varetti’s greasy smile was toothily unchanged.

“I think you forget your position, Mr Templar. Yes, I am sure you do. I ask the questions. You answer them … I hope. If not, I shall have to ask Cokey to help you. And that wouldn’t be nice. I’m afraid Cokey doesn’t like you.”

“I like him,” Cokey said glitteringly. “I’ll show you, Ricco. Just lemme tie a piece of rope around his neck and show you. He bust my head open, didn’t he?”

“You see?” said Varetti. “He does like you. And there are plenty of things you ought to be telling us. Yes. Perhaps he has the right idea.”

“He must have one sometimes,” Simon conceded. “Anyone with his looks has to have some compensation.”

“You shut your trap,” said Cokey with cold savagery; and the Saint raised one mildly mocking brow at him.

“Well, well, well! What coarse idioms you do use, Cokey, old chum. I didn’t think you’d really be sore about our little game of hide-and-seek last night. I thought that would all be under the heading of business as usual.”

Varetti flashed him another dental broadside.

“Cokey has his feelings,” he said. “You hurt his pride last night. So he’s entitled to a little revenge… . Go and find your piece of rope, Cokey. We’ll try to make Mr Templar take us into his confidence.”

Everything had been diverting enough up to that point; but there is always a stage in such situations where the fun can go too far, and Simon Templar was very sensitive to those subtle barometric changes. He could feel this one all the way from his fingertips to his toes.

He said coolly: “While we’re all getting so friendly, would you mind very much if I took my hands down from this uncomfortable position and had a cigarette?”

“Go ahead,” said Varetti. “But don’t try anything clever, because I’d hate to have to deprive Cokey of his entertainment.”

The Saint let his hands down and eased his shoulders as he took out his cigarette-case, watching Varetti with thoughtful blue eyes like flakes of sapphire.

He was not, he told himself, a slave to snap judgments. He tried to be broadminded and forbearing; he tried to find in even the most repulsive creatures some redeeming spark that would allow his heart to warm towards them. But even with the most noble effort, it was becoming cumulatively plain to him that he and Mr Varetti could never be as brothers. He did not like any part of Mr Varetti, from his marcelled hair to his pointed shoes. And he particularly disliked Mr Varetti’s idea of suave dialogue—no doubt partly because it was too much like a hammy imitation of his own. He was going to enjoy doing something about Comrade Varetti.

He selected his cigarette with care from one end of the case— it was the single cigarette that had been left there when he refilled it, as it was always still left there when he refilled, for the Saint was never totally unprepared for any emergency. He lighted it, and strolled across the room to deposit the match in an ashtray as Cokey came back from the kitchen.

He was figuring and maneuvering for position with the oblique innocence of a cat encircling a pair of sparrows.

“Before this gets too unpleasant,” he said, “couldn’t we talk it over?”

“You talk,” said Varetti, with his teeth gleaming. “I’ll listen.”

Simon hesitated a moment; and then with the most natural gesture of decision he put his cigarette down in the ashtray and moved around towards Varetti, while Cokey came around to follow him.

Varetti said: “Not too close, Mr Templar. You can talk from there.”

Simon stopped a step further on. Varetti’s gun, trained steadily on his midsection, was about four feet away. Cokey was to his right and a little further off, but he had put his gun away to have both hands free for the length of cord he had found.

“Look,” said the Saint. “All this business–-“

It was at that point that the cigarette he had left in the ashtray went bam! like a small firecracker, which in fact it was.

Varetti would probably have been too smart to fall for any ordinary stall, but he would have been less than animate if he eould have heard that noise with no reaction. His head and eyes switched away together; and that was all Simon really needed. The fact that this involuntary movement also happened to angle one side of Varetti’s jaw into an ideal position for receiving a left hook was actually only a bonus.