The Saint Returns (14 page)

“Here you are, sir.”

The bartender was blond and pale-eyed, and
more
for friendly efficiency than for lively conversation, which suited
Simon fine. But, thanking him, he noticed a sudden change in the man’s
expression, a shift to
new alertness. The gray eyes followed—as the
Saint
could see by glancing into the mirror-covered wall—the
entrance and
transit of a dark unattractive individual
in a poorly cut suit.

The newcomer did what most newcomers to clubs
do
not do: having entered by the front door, he went
more or
less directly to the rear door, an obscure portal shrouded in black velvet,
AUSGANG glowing above it,
and disappeared behind the curtains.

Even a person less well versed in the ways of the Un
godly than Simon Templar would have felt some suspi
cion by now that all was not precisely as it
should be in
this modern Wonderland.
The hasty newcomer was no White Rabbit, but he was most certainly intent on
meet
ing some sort of deadline, and
he was choosing a strange
route by
which to do it.

The Saint had already gone beyond suspicion
to active
calculation. The eyes of the bartender became his mir
ror. The
Teutonic mixologist had become overly busy polishing glasses, but his narrowing
gaze never left the
velvet drapes of the exit.

When Simon whirled from his stool it was
already al
most too late. The dance had just ended, and the de
parting
couples had opened a clear avenue from the exit door to William Fenton’s table.
Pushing slowly from between the black curtains was the blunt snout of a
silencer.

Until that moment, the wine bunny had
inadvertently
shielded Fenton. Now she moved around his table to
pour
champagne, and there was no time for the Saint to
call out a warning.
In that space of a precious breath or two which an ordinary man would have
wasted staring
helplessly, Simon acted.

A waitress was passing, carrying on her tray a gigantic platter of
flaming shish kebab. In one, swift, fluid move
ment, like the blurred attack of a hawk, the Saint leaped
forward, snatched up one of the long steel spears,
drip
ping blue flame, and hurled it unerringly across the whole
width of the room.

Like a blazing arrow it pierced the velvet
curtains. A
man screamed. Simultaneously the champagne bottle
exploded, showering Fenton with foam and glass.

In the ensuing pandemonium, as the would-be
assas
sin fell forward hopelessly entangled in smoldering dra
peries, Simon moved through
panicking masses to the
wine-drenched table.
But there he found no gratefully
uninjured
William Fenton. He found no William Fen
ton
at all—which was clearly impossible. So he lifted the
edge of the tablecloth, stooped, and found himself
look
ing straight into the unblinking
eye of an automatic.

It was natural that the Saint’s fame as a
modern buc
caneer should have made him vividly remembered by
most of
those who had had even transient contact with
him. William Fenton
hesitated only for a split second.

“Simon Templar! Of all people to be
rescued by.”

The former naval officer crawled from under
the table
and put away his weapon.

“I assume it must have been you who put on the spear-throwing
exhibition.”

“Who else?” drawled the Saint. “There’s just one
infec
tion I couldn’t save you from, even
though you seemed
in imminent danger
of succumbing.”

“What’s that?” Fenton asked as they
made their way
past hysterically weeping bunnies to the fallen sniper.

“Tularemia.”

“Tularemia?”

“Rabbit fever.”

Three burly policemen had now arrived, and
Simon
remained at a discreet distance as they extracted the
skewer from
his victim’s shoulder and the victim from
the heavy velvet
curtains. Then one of the officers proceeded to haul the wounded man across
the room toward
what the manager said was the nearest private place: the
business
office.

The second cop stayed by the exit, while the
third
blockaded the main entrance, doubtless in an effort to
maintain
the status quo until the arrival of higher au
thorities.

The Saint and Fenton went along to the
office, having
already been implicated by witness, and when the po
liceman
had deposited his groaning burden on the zebra-
skin sofa, he turned
to them.

“Nun bitte.
One of you is the
gentleman who threw
the shish kebab at this man?”

“Ridiculous though it sounds,”
Simon said in fluent Ger
man,
“Sie haben recht.
I
did
it.”

At
 
that point
 
Fenton
 
interceded,
  
showing
 
a
 
card.

“I am with the British embassy, and this
gentleman
saved my life. The situation is more involved than I am
free to
tell you. I would very much appreciate it if you
would call Herr Gratz
of your Special Branch and re
quest in my name, as you see here on the card,
that he
come to this club at once.”

The policeman drew himself up with greater
respect.

“Jawohl, Herr Fenton.
But both
of you gentlemen must
remain here, please. No one is allowed to
leave the
building.”

“Of course,” Fenton said. “But
would you ask these
other people to leave the room? It seems improper…”

“Understood, Herr Fenton.
Naturally.”

A few moments later Simon and Fenton were
alone
with the sniper, who looked at them with understandable moodiness from
beneath his weedy black hair.

“What is your name?” the
intelligence officer snapped.

“Hahn.”

“Tell us what this is all about. And
quickly.”

Hahn closed his eyes and compressed his lips. Fenton glanced
around the room, which obviously had been got
ten
up to conform with certain magazine specifications
of the ideal seduction chamber, even down to the
drool
ing red and orange abstract
painting over the fireplace.

Fenton took up a poker from the cold hearth.

“I’m not going to play around. Who is
doing this, and
why?”

Hahn opened his eyes, but did not answer.

“I’ll use this on your shoulder. I’m not
in the least
squeamish.”

Hahn shrank back and gasped, “Please. No. A man of
fers a job. I take it.”

“What man?” Fenton asked.

“A man in a bar, no doubt,” said the Saint, “whose
face
and name you can’t remember.”

“Ja,”
Hahn agreed.

“Judging from your inexpert performance
out there,” Simon said, “I’m almost inclined to believe you.”

“Their lot have killed thirteen Russian
intelligence
agents in four months,” Fenton put in. “They’re
trained
assassins, not casual labor.”

Hahn turned his head away.

“I’ve put him on a skewer already,”
said the Saint good-naturedly. “I’d have no compunctions about roasting
him.
After all, he’s a Hahn, and pretty foul to boot.”

“But let’s pluck him first,” Fenton
put in, shamelessly
continuing the pun. He grasped the man’s lapels and pulled
him wincing to his feet. “If you please, Simon.”

A brief but expert frisk revealed only one thing of in
terest: a two way transistor radio about the size
of a cig
arette box.

“Standard Russian equipment,” Fenton
said, dropping
Hahn back onto the sofa.

“Where’d you get it?” Simon asked.

“The man, he says when I finish the job I
report back to him, with that.”

“Where is he?”

“I do not know.”

“Then report,” Fenton said, taking
the radio and shov
ing it into Hahn’s hand. “Tell him I’m dead.”

Hahn was hesitant.

“Go on,” demanded Fenton.

“Neun zu sieben. Neun zu sieben.
Antworten Sie,
bitte.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me for a
second,” Simon mur
mured, “I want to take a look through
the door at a pal
out here.”

He had felt sure that the police would not let
the bar
tender wander far, and he was right. Without even leav
ing the
doorway of the office, he could see the blond
man occupying himself
intently with something just be
low the counter. Behind Simon, Hahn was still
intoning
his numerical incantation.

“Neun zu sieben. Neun zu sieben.”

But then, as the bartender continued his operations, the
Saint heard a soft electronic whine in the office
behind
him, rising in pitch and volume
like the sound of an
irate mosquito.
He spun around.

“Fenton, run!”

He could see Hahn, puzzled, holding the radio
away
from his ear. Fenton was already diving for cover.

“Throw it away, man,” he was
yelling. “Into the fire
place! Fast!”

Simon escaped the blast with an agile move
which put
him just outside the door. The explosion was small in
range but
noisy and very effective. It had turned the un
fortunate Hahn into
an abstraction with little more recog
nizable form than the painting which
now sagged at a rakish angle over the mantelpiece.

William Fenton picked his way through the smoke and
debris.

“At last I’ve actually seen it
happen.”

“Something you’ve been looking forward
to?” asked
the Saint. “And people say radio’s lost its
punch.”

A policeman shoved his way through the newly
gath
ered mob at the door and stared at the wreckage.

“We’re all right,” Fenton said.
“But this man is not.”

“I see,” said the policeman, closing
the door and hur
rying to the body. “What happened?”

“When Herr Gratz comes he will
explain.”

“The bartender will already have escaped
in the con
fusion, of course,” Simon said. “But just in
case, why
don’t you check on it?”

The policeman gave orders to a comrade as
Fenton
asked, “The bartender?”

“Yes. He seemed to be twiddling with some
gadget
over at the bar at just about the time Herr Hahn went
up in
smoke. Now if you’d explain the background of these fireworks
…”

“It’s part of a death campaign,”
Fenton said. “The
organized assassination of intelligence
agents.”

“By radio? Sort of a variation on the
singing commer
cial?”

Fenton’s sense of humor was perhaps more
limited
than the Saint’s.

“Not only radios,” he went on.
“Explosive gadgets in general. All Russian espionage equipment.”

“But you said thirteen Russian agents had
died. They
knocking off their own men?”

“If I knew who was behind it, this might
not have
happened tonight.”

Fenton stooped and picked up the remnants of
the
radio, a tangled lump of metal.

“This isn’t a timed device. It had to be
triggered. An
impulse beamed from outside, probably from very short
range.”

“In this case from the bar, I’m sure.
Shall we see if
our friend left any traces there?”

Predictably, he had not.

“The bar man,” Simon said to the
cigarette bunny.
“Where is he?”

“He left.”

“What is his name?”

“Klaus. Hans Klaus.”

“I would suggest that you put out a call
for him,” Fen
ton said to the nearest policeman. “All stations.
The
club will have his address. He certainly knows some
thing
about this.”