The Saint vs Scotland Yard (16 page)

“I should like,” said the Saint, sinking into an armchair,
“three
large double Martinis in a big glass. Just to line my stomach. After which, I
shall be able to deal respectfully with
a thirst which can
only be satisfactorily slaked by two gallons of bitter beer.”

“You will have one Martini, and then we’ll have some
lunch,”
said Patricia; and the Saint sighed.

“You have no soul,” he complained.

Patricia put her magazine under the table.

“What’s
new, boy?” she asked.

“About Beppo? … Well, a whole heap of things are new
about
Beppo. I can tell you this, for instance: Beppo is no
smaller a guy than
the Duke of Fortezza, and he is the acting
President of the Bank
of Italy.”

“He’s—what?”

“He’s the acting President of the Bank of Italy—and that’s
not the
half of it. Pat, old girl, I told you at the start that
there was
some gay game being played, and, by the Lord, it’s
as gay a game as we
may ever find!” Simon signed the chit on the waiter’s tray with a flourish
and settled back again, survey
ing his drink dreamily. “Remember
reading in some paper
recently that the Bank of Italy were preparing
to put out an
entirely new and original line of paper currency?” he
asked.

“I saw something about it.”

“It was so. The contract was placed with Crosby Dorman,
one of our
biggest printing firms—they do the thin cash and
postal issues of half
a dozen odd little countries. Beppo put
the deal through. A
while ago he brought over the plates and gave the order, and one week back he
came on his second trip
to take delivery of three million pounds’
worth of coloured
paper in a tin-lined box.”

“And then?”

“I’ll tell you what then. One whole extra million pounds’ worth of
mazuma is ordered, and that printing goes into a
separate box. Ordered
on official notepaper, too, with Beppo’s
own signature in the
south-east corner. And meanwhile Beppo
is indisposed. The
first crate of spondulix departs in the
golden galleon without him, completely
surrounded by soldiers,
secret service
agents, and general detectives, all armed to the
teeth and beyond.
Another of those nice letters apologises for
Beppo’s
absence, and instructs the guard to carry on; a third
letter explains the circumstances, ditto and
ditto, to the
Bank——
”

Patricia sat up.

“And
the box is empty?”

“The
box is packed tight under a hydraulic press, stiff to the sealing-wax with the
genuine articles as per invoice.”

“But——
”

“But obviously. That box had got to go through. The new
issue had
to spread itself out. It’s been on the market three
days already. And the
ground bait is now laid for the big haul
—the second box,
containing approximately one million
hundred-lire bills convertible into
equivalent sterling on sight.
And the whole board of the Bank of Italy, the
complete staff
of cashiers, office-boys, and outside porters, the
entire vigilance
society
of soldiers, secret service agents, and general detectives,
all armed to the teeth and beyond, are as innocent
of the existence of that million as the unborn daughter of the Ca
liph’s washerwoman.”

The girl looked at him with startled eyes.

“And do you mean Beppo was in this?”

“Does it seem that way?” Simon Templar swivelled round
towards her
with one eyebrow inquisitorially cocked and a
long wisp of smoke
trailing through his lips. “I wish you could
have seen him… .
Sure he’s in it. They turned him over to
the Negro Spiritual,
and let that big black swine pet him till
he signed. If I told
you what they’d done to him you wouldn’t
be in such a hurry
for your lunch.” For a moment the Saint’s lips thinned fractionally.
“He’s just shot to pieces, and when
you see him you’ll
know why. Sure, that bunch are like
brothers to Beppo!”

Patricia sat in a thoughtful silence, and the Saint emptied
his
glass.
Then she said: “Who are this bunch?”

Simon slithered his cigarette round to the corner of his
mouth.

“Well, the actual bunch are mostly miscellaneous, as you
might say,” he answered.
“But the big noise seems to be a bird
named
Kuzela, whom we haven’t met before but whom I’m
going to meet darn soon.”

“And this money—
_:
—”

“Is being delivered to Kuzela’s men today.” The Saint
glanced at
his watch. “Has been, by now. And within twenty-
four hours parcels of
it will be burning the sky over to his
agents in Paris,
Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid. Within the week
it will be gravitating
back to him through the same channels—
big bouncing wads of
it, translated into authentic wads of
francs, marks, pesetas—while one million perfectly genuine
hundred-lire bills whose numbers were never in the
catalogue
are drifting home to a Bank
of Italy that will be wondering
whether
the whole world is falling to pieces round its ears.
…
Do
you get me, Pat?”

The clear blue eyes rested on her face with
 
the twist of
mocking
hell-for-leather delight that she knew so well, and she
asked her
next question almost mechanically. “Is it your party?”

“It is, old Pat. And not a question asked. No living soul
must ever
know—there’d be a panic on the international ex
changes if a word of
it leaked out. But every single one of
those extra million
bills has got to be taken by hand and led
gently back to Beppo’s
tender care—and the man who’s going
to do it is ready for his lunch.”

And lunch it was without further comment, for the Saint
was like
that.
…
But about his latest meeting with the Ne
gro
Spiritual he did not find it necessary to say anything at all
—for,
again, the Saint was that way… . And after lunch,
when Patricia was
ordering coffee in the lounge, yet another
incident which the
Saint was inclined to regard as strictly
private and personal
clicked into its appointed socket in the
energetic history of
that day.

Simon had gone out to telephone a modest tenner on a
horse for
the 3.30, and was on his way back through the hall
when a porter stopped
him.

“Excuse me, sir, but did you come here from the Berkeley?”
The Saint
fetched his right foot up alongside his left and
lowered his brows one millimetre.

“Yeah—I
have been in there this morning.”

“A coloured gentleman brought these for you, sir. He said
he saw you
drop them as you came out of the hotel, but he
lost you in the crowd
while he was picking them up. And
then, as he was walking through
Lansdowne Passage, he hap
pened to look up and see you at one of the
windows, so he
brought them in. From the description he gave me it seemed
as if it must have
been you, sir——”

“Oh, it was certainly me.”

The Saint, who had never owned a pair of lemon-coloured
gloves in
his life, accepted the specimens gingerly, folded
them, and slipped
them into his pocket.

“Funny coincidence, sir, wasn’t it?” said the porter chattily.
“Him
happening to pass by, and you happening to be in the
window at that
time.”

“Quite remarkable,” agreed the Saint gravely, recalling the
care he
had taken to avoid all windows; and, turning back, he
retired rapidly to a
remote sanctuary.

There he unfolded the gloves in an empty washbasin, con
triving to
work them cautiously inside out with his fountain
pen in one hand and
his propelling pencil in the other.

He had not the vaguest idea what kind of creeping West
African
frightfulness might be waiting for him in those citron-
hued misdemeanours,
but he was certainly a trifle surprised
when he saw what fell
out of the first glove that he tackled.

It was simply a thin splinter of wood, painted at both ends,
and
stained with some dark stain.

For a moment or two he looked at it expressionlessly.

Then he picked it up between two matches and stowed it
carefully
in his cigarette-case.

He turned his attention to the second glove, and extracted
from it a
soiled scrap of paper. He read:

If
you will come to
85,
Vandermeer
Avenue,
Hampstead, at midnight tonight, we may be able to reach
some
mutually satisfactory agreement. Otherwise, I fear
that the
consequences of your interference may be
infinitely
regrettable.

K.

Simon Templar held the message at arm’s length, well up to
the light, and gazed at it wall-eyed.

“And whales do so lay eggs,” he articulated at last, when he
could find a voice sufficiently
impregnated with emotion.

And then he laughed and went back to Patricia.

“If Monday’s Child comes home, you shall have a new hat,”
he said,
and the girl smiled.

“What else happens before that?” she asked.

“We go on a little tour,” said the Saint.

They left the club together, and boarded a taxi that had
just been
paid off at the door.

“Piccadilly Hotel,” said the Saint.

He settled back, lighting a cigarette.

“I shook off Teal’s man by Method One,” he explained.
“You
are now going to see a demonstration of Method Two.
If you can go on
studying under my supervision, all the shadowers
you will ever meet
will mean nothing to you… . The
present performance may be a waste of
energy”—he glanced back through the rear window—“or it may not. But
the wise
man is permanently suspicious.”

They reached the Piccadilly entrance of the hotel in a few
minutes,
and the Saint opened the door. The exact fare, plus bonus, was ready in the
Saint’s hand, and he dropped it in the
driver’s palm and
followed Patricia across the pavement—with
out any appearance of
haste, but very briskly. As he reached
the doors, he saw in
one glass panel the reflection of another
taxi pulling in to
the kerb behind him.

“This way.”

He steered the girl swiftly through the main hall, swung her
through a
short passage, across another hall, and up
 
some
steps, and brought her out through another door into
Regent Street. A break in the traffic let them straight through to the
taxi rank
in the middle of the road.

“Berkeley Hotel,” said the Saint.

He lounged deep in his corner and grinned at her.

“Method Two is not for use on a trained sleuth who knows
you know
he’s after you,” he murmured. “Other times, it’s the
whelk’s
knee-cap.” He took her bag from her hands, slipped
out the
little mirror, and used it for a periscope to survey the
south side
pavement as they drove away. “This is one of those
whens,” he said
complacently.

“Then why are we going to the Berkeley?”

“Because you are the nurse who is going to look after
Beppo. His
number is 148, and 149 is already booked for you.
Incidentally, you
might remember that he’s registered in the
name of Teal—C. E.
Teal. I’ll pack a bag and bring it along to you later; but once you’re inside
the Berkeley Arms you’ve got
to stay put so long as it’s daylight. The
doctor’s name is
Branson and mine is Travers, and if anyone else applies
for
admission you will shoot him through the binder and ring for
the
bell-hop to remove the
body.”

“But what will you be doing?”