Alias the Saint (3 page)

The man departed, grumbling, and Simon walked over to the fire and warmed his hands at the blaze. The man came back in ten minutes, and it appeared at once that the Saint’s warning had had some effect.

“The Guv’nor says you can have a room.”

“I thought he would,” said the Saint comfortably, and peeled off his coat. There were seventy-four inches of him, and he looked very lean and tough in his plus-fours,

“There’s a car outside,” he said. “Shove it in your garage, will you. Basher?”

The man stared at him.

“Who are you speaking to?” he demanded. “Speaking to you, Basher Tope,” said the Saint pleasantly. “Put my car in the garage.”

The man came nearer and scowled into Simon’s face. The Saint saw alarm dawning in his eyes. “Who are you?” asked Tope hoarsely, “Are you a split?”

“I am,” admitted the Saint mendaciously. “We wondered where you’d got to, Basher. You’ve no idea how we miss your familiar face in the dock, and all the wardens at Wormwood Scrubs have been feeling they’ve lost an old friend.”

Basher’s mouth twisted.

“We don’t want none of you damned flatties here,” he said. “The Guv’nor better hear of this.”

“You can tell the Guv’nor anything you like after you’ve attended to me,” said the Saint languidly. “My bag’s in the car. Fetch it in. Then bring me the register, and push the old bus round to the garage while I sign. Then, when you come back, bring me a pint of beer. After that, you can run away and do anything you like.”

It is interesting to record that Simon Templar got his own way. Basher Tope obeyed his injunctions to the letter before moving off with the obvious intention of informing his boss of the disreputable policeman whom he was being compelled to entertain. Of course, Basher Tope was prejudiced about policemen; and it must be admitted that the Saint used menaces to enforce obedience. There was the little matter of a robbery with violence, for which Basher Tope had been wanted for the past month, as the Saint happened to know, and that gave him what many would consider to be an unfair advantage in the argument,

Left alone with a tankard of beer at his elbow, the register on his knee, a cigarette between his lips, and his fountain-pen poised, Simon read the previous entries with interest before making his own. The last few names were those which particularly occupied his attention:

A.E. Crantor Bristol British

Gregory Marring London British

E. Tregarth London British

Professor Bernhard Raxel Vienna Austrian

All these entries were dated about three weeks before, and none had been made since.

Simon Templar smiled, and signed directly under the last entry;

Professor Rameses Smith-Smyth-Smythe..

Timbuctoo, Patagonian

“And still,” thought the Saint, as he carefully blotted the page, “the question remains—who is E. Tregarth?”

3

The saint went to bed early that night, and he had not seen any of the men he hoped to find. That fact failed to trouble him, for he reckoned that the following day would give him all the time he needed for making the acquaintance of Messrs. Raxel, Marring, and Crantor.

He got up early the next morning and went out to have a look round. The mist had cleared, and although it was still bitterly cold the sky was clear and the sun shone. Standing just outside the door of the inn, in the road, he could see on his left the clustered houses of the village of Llancoed, of which the nearest was about a hundred yards away. On the other side of the road was a tract of untended ground which ran down to the sea, two hundred yards away. A cable’s length from the shore, a rusty and disreputable-looking tramp steamer, hardly larger in size than a sea-going tug, rode at anchor. A thin trickle of black smoke wreathed up into the still air from her single funnel, but apart from that she showed no signs of life.

Simon returned to the inn and discovered the dining room.

It contained only three tables, and only one of these was laid. In the summer, presumably, it catered for the handful of holiday makers who were attracted by the quietness of the spot, for there were green-painted chairs and tables stacked up under a tarpaulin outside; but in December the place was deserted except for the villagers, and those would be likely to eat at home. The table was laid for four. The Saint chose the most comfortable of the selection of uninviting chairs that offered themselves, and thumped on the table with the handle of a knife to attract attention. It was Tope who answered.

“Breakfast,” said the Saint laconically. “Two boiled eggs, toast, marmalade, and a pint of coffee.”

Tope informed him that the table he occupied was engaged, and Simon mildly replied that he was not interested.

“It’s the only table that looks ready for use,” he pointed out, “and I want my breakfast. You can be laying a table for the other guys while I eat. Jump to it. Basher, jump to it!”

Basher Tope muttered another uncomplimentary remark about interfering busies what thought they owned the earth, and went out again. The Saint waited patiently for fifteen minutes, and at the end of that time Tope reentered, bearing a tray, and banged eggs, toast rack, and coffee pot down on the table in front of him.

“Thank you,” said the Saint. “But you don’t want to be so violent, Basher. One day you’ll break some of the crockery, and then your boss will be very angry. He might even call you a naughty boy, Basher, and then you’ll go away into a quiet corner and weep, and that would be very distressing for all concerned.”

Basher Tope was moved to further criticisms of the police force and their manners, but Simon took no further notice of him, and after glaring sullenly at the detective for some moments. Tope turned on his heel and shuffled out again.

The Saint was skinning the top of his second egg when the door opened and a girl came in. She was wearing a plain tweed costume, and Simon thought at once that she must be the loveliest thing that had ever walked into that sombre room. He rose at once.

“Good-morning,” he said politely. “I’m afraid I’ve pinched part of your table, but the cup smasher who attends to these things couldn’t be bothered to lay another place for me.”

She come up hesitantly, staring at him in bewilderment. She saw a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with twinkling blue eyes, smooth dark hair, and the most engaging smile she had ever seen in her life. Simon, modestly realizing that her amazement at seeing him was pardonable, bore her scrutiny without embarrassment.

“Who are you?” she asked at length,

The Saint waved her to a chair, and she sat down opposite him. Then he resumed his own seat and the assault on the second egg.

“Me? … Professor Smith, at your service. If you want to call me by my first name, it’s Rameses. The well-known Egyptian Pharaoh of the same label was named after me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said at once. “I must have seemed awfully rude. But we—I mean, I wasn’t expecting to see a stranger here.”

“Naturally,” agreed the Saint conversationally. “One’s never expecting to see strangers, is one? Especially of the name of Smith. But I’m the original Smith. Look for the trade-mark on every genuine article, and refuse all imitations.”

He finished his egg, and was drawing the marmalade towards him when he noticed that she was still looking at him puzzledly.

“Now you’ll be thinking I’m rude,” said Simon easily. “I ought to have noticed that you weren’t being attended to. The service is very bad here, don’t you think?”

He banged the table with his knife, and presently Tope came to answer.

“The lady wants her breakfast,” said the Saint, “Jump to it again, Basher, and keep on jumping until further notice.”

The door closed behind the man, and Simon began to clothe a slice of toast with a thick layer of butter.

“And may one ask,” he murmured, “what brings you to this benighted spot at such a benighted time of year?”

His words seemed to bring her back to earth with a jerk. She started, and flushed; and there was a perceptible pause before she found her voice.

“Couldn’t one ask the same thing about you?” she countered.

“One could,” admitted the Saint genially. “If you must know, I shall be strenuously occupied for the next few days with the business of being Professor Rameses Smith.”

“The famous charlatan, humbug, and imitation humorist?” she suggested.

Simon regarded her delightedly.

“None other,” he said. “How did you ever guess?”

She frowned.

“You were so obviously that sort.”

“True,” said the Saint, unabashed. “But in my spare time I am also a detective.”

He was watching her closely, and he saw her go pale. Her hands suddenly stopped playing with the fork which she had picked up and with which she had been toying nervously. She sat bolt upright in her chair, absolutely motionless, and for the space of several seconds she seemed even to have stopped breathing.

“A—detective?”

“Yes.” Simon was unconcernedly providing his buttered toast with an overcoat of marmalade. “Of course, I was sitting down when you came in, so you wouldn’t have noticed the size of my feet.”

She said nothing. Tope came in with a tray and began unloading it, and Simon Templar went on talking in his quiet flippant way without seeming to notice either the girl’s agitation or the other man’s presence.

“Being a detective in England,” he complained, “has its disadvantages. In America you can always prove your identity by clapping one hand to your hip and using the other to turn back the left lapel of your coat, thereby revealing your badge. It’s a trick that always seems to go down very well–that is, if you can judge by the movies.”

The colour was slowly ebbing back into the girl’s face, but her hands were trembling on the table. She seemed to become conscious of the way they were betraying her, and began twisting her fingers together in a fever. In the silence that followed, Tope shambled out of the room, but this time he did not quite close the door. The Saint had no doubt that the man was listening outside, but he could see no reason why Basher Tope should be deprived of the benefits of a strictly limited broadcasting service. As for the girl, it was plain that the Saint’s manner had started to convince her that he was jollying her, but he couldn’t help that.

“Is there any reason,” he asked, “why I shouldn’t be a detective? The police force is open to receive any man who is sufficiently sound of mind and body. I grant you I have a superficial resemblance to a gentleman, but that’s the fault of the way I was brought up.”

She had no time to frame a reply before there came the sound of voices approaching outside, and a moment later the door swung open and three men came in.

Simon Templar looked up with innocent interest at their entry, but he also spared a glance for the girl. Obviously she was one of their party; but she did not strike Simon as being the sort of girl he would have expected to find in association with the men he was after, and he had some hopes of getting a clue to her status with them by observing the way in which she greeted their arrival. And he was not unpleasantly surprised to find that she looked up furtively—almost, he would have said, in terror.

The three men, as the Saint might have foreseen, showed no surprise at finding him at their table. They came straight over and ranged themselves before him, and Simon rose with his most charming smile.

“Good-morning,” he said.

The tallest of the three bowed.

“Our table, I think, Professor Smith?”

“Absolutely,” agreed the Saint.” I’ve just finished, and you can step right in”

“You are very kind.”

Simon screwed up his napkin, dropped it on the table, and took out his cigarette case. His eyes focused thoughtfully on the man who stood on the left of the tall man who appeared to be the leader.

“Mr. Gregory Marring, I believe?”

“Correct. ”

“Six months ago,” said the Saint, “a special messenger left Hatton Garden for Paris, with a parcel of diamonds valued at twenty thousand pounds. He travelled to Dover by the eleven o’clock boat-train from Victoria. He was seen to board the cross-Channel packet at Dover, but when the ship arrived at Calais he was found lying dead in his cabin with his head beaten in, and the diamonds he carried have not been heard of since. I don’t want you to think I am making any rash accusations, Marring, but I just thought you might be interested to hear that I happen to know you travelled on that boat.”

His leisurely gaze shifted to the man on the extreme right.

“Mr. Albert Edward Crantor?”

“Thasso.”

“The Court of Inquiry could only find you guilty of culpable negligence,” Said the Saint, “but the Special Branch haven’t forgotten the size of the insurance, and they’re still hoping that it won’t be long before they can prove you lost your ship deliberately. The case isn’t ready yet, but it’s tentatively booked for the next Sessions. I’m just warning you.”

The man in the centre smiled.

“Surely, Professor Smith,” he remarked, “you aren’t going to leave me out of your series of brief biographical sketches?”

“For the moment I prefer to,” answered the Saint steadily. “At any moment, however, I may change my mind. When I do, you’ll hear from me soon enough. Good-morning, my lovely ones.”

. He turned his back on them and walked quietly to the door; but he opened the door with an unexpectedly sudden jerk, and the movement was so quick that Basher Tope had no time to recover his balance and fell sprawling into the room. Simon caught him by the collar and yanked him to his feet.

“This reminds me,” said the Saint, turning. “There was another man skulking around when I came down this morning. I know him, too.”

The other three were plainly surprised.

“Everyone here of importance is presently in this room,” said Raxel. “You must be suffering from a delusion.”

“The man I saw was no delusion,” Smith replied. “His name is Duncarry. He’s a much-wanted American gun artist who’s come to England for his health. We still don’t know how he slipped into the country, but he’s one of the men I’m taking back to London with me when I go. There’s a seat reserved for him in the hot chair at Sing Sing, and if you see him loafing around here again you can tell him I said so!”