Saint Steps In (9 page)

“Somebody
shot at you,” she said, and sounded as if she
knew it was the only possible foolish thing to say.

“That
would be another theory,” he admitted.

“But where from?”

“From
the grounds, or the Park. They had the window
spotted, of course. I’m afraid I’m getting careless
in my old
age.”

He reached sideways cautiously for the edge of the shade,
and pulled it all the way down. Then
he did the same thing
for
the other window. After that he felt free to move again.

“Won’t
you catch them, or—or something?”

He
laughed.

“I’m
not Superman, darling. By the time I got downstairs
they could be blocks away. I should have known
better—I was
warned once, at
least.” Then his face was sober again. “But I
guess the ungodly are still answering
for you. If all this is fooling, it’s certainly an awful complicated
game.”

She met his eyes with a visible tumult of thoughts that
couldn’t form into words.

Then,
in the silence, the telephone rang.

Simon crossed to
it and picked it up.

“This is Miss Brown of the Associated Press,” it said.
“I heard
that you were in town, and
I wondered if you’d be terribly
angry if I asked
you for a short interview.”

It was a light and engaging and unusually arresting voice,
but Simon Templar had met specialised
voices before.

“I don’t know what you could interview me about,” he said.
“I’m thirty-five years old, I
think J. Edgar Hoover is wonderful, I believe that drinking is here to stay, I
want everyone to
buy War
Bonds, and I am allergic to vitamins. Beyond that,
I haven’t anything to say to the world.”

“I’d only take a few minutes, really, and you wouldn’t have
to answer any questions you didn’t like.”

“Suppose you
call me tomorrow and I’ll see what I’m doing,” he suggested, giving
himself a mental memorandum to see that
his
telephone was cut off.

“Why, are you in bed already?”

The Saint’s brows climbed fractionally and drew down again.

“When I was a girl that would have been called a rather
personal question,” he said.

“I’m
downstairs in the lobby now,” she said. “Why couldn’t
we get it over tonight? I promise you
can throw me out as
soon as
you’ve had enough.”

And that was when
the last of the Saint’s hesitations winked
out
like a row of punctured bubbles, so that he wondered how
he could ever have wasted time on them.

For girl reporters in real life do not come as far as the lobby
of their victim’s hotel before they
ask for an interview. Nor
do they press for ordinary interviews in the middle of the night.
Nor do they use a sexy voice and a
faintly suggestive turn
of phrase to wheedle their way into the presence of a reluctant
subject.

The sublime certainty of his intuition crescendoed around
him with the symphonic grandeur of a
happy orchestra. The
decision
had been taken out of his hands. He could resist
temptation just so long, but there was a limit to how much he could be
pushed. The note he had found in his pocket had been
bad enough. The encounter with the aspiring kidnapers had
been worse. The episodes of Mr. Angert and Mr.
Imberline had
been a bonus of
aggravation. To be potted at in his own win
dow by a sniper was almost gross provocation, even if he was
broad-minded
enough to admit that it was his own fault for providing the target. But
this—this was positively and finally
going
too far.

“Okay,”
he said in a resigned tone. “Come on up.”

He put the
telephone back in its cradle as gently as a mother
laying down her first-born, and turned back to the girl with
a smile.

“Go
to your room again, Madeline,” he said; and for the
first time that evening the full gay carelessness of a
Saintly lilt was alive and laughing in his voice. “Get your things packed.
We’re going to Connecticut tonight.”

Her eyes were bewildered.

“But I have to see Mr. Imberline.”

“I’ll get
you back here as soon as we’ve arranged a genuine
appointment. But that won’t be tomorrow. Meanwhile, I can’t
be in two places at once. And maybe your father
needs looking
after too.” He
grinned. “Don’t bother about those private de
tectives. I’m sold—if you’ll still buy me.”

She laughed a little through uncertain lips.

“Are you very expensive?

“Not if you buy your Peter Dawson wholesale. Now run
along. And the same password applies.
I’ll be after you as
soon as I’m
through with this.”

He had her arm
and he was taking her to the door.

“What
was that telephone call?” she asked. “And how do
you know you’re going to be all
right?”

“That’s
what I’m going to find out,” he said. “I won’t be
any help to you hiding in a cellar.
But I’m firmly convinced
that I was not
destined to die In Washington. Not this week,
anyhow
… I’ll see you soon, darling.”

She stood in the
doorway for a moment, looking at him; and
then,
suddenly and very quickly, she kissed him.

Then she was gone.

Simon
went into the bedroom, opened a suitcase, and took
out an automatic already nested in a spring holster.
He slipped
his arms through the
harness, shrugged it into comfort, and
went back into the living room and put his coat on
again. It
seemed like a slightly
melodramatic routine; but the only
reason why Simon Templar had lived long enough to become
a legend before he was also a name on
a tombstone was that he
had never been
coy about taking slightly melodramatic precautions
. And in the complex and sinful world where he had
spent most of
his life, there were no guarantees that when an alluring feminine voice invited
itself in on the telephone there
would be an
alluring feminine person on the doorstep when
the doorbell next rang.

He
just had time to light another cigarette and freshen his
drink before that potential crisis was with him.

He opened the door with his left hand and swung it wide, standing well
aside as he did so. But it was only a girl who
matched the telephone voice who came in.

He risked one arm to reach across the opening and draw
the door shut behind her, and he
quietly set the safety lock as
he did so.

After
that, without the slightest relaxing of his vigilance,
and still with that steady pressure of ghostly bullets
creeping over his flesh, he followed her into the living-room and sur
veyed her again in a little more
detail. She was tall, and built
with the kind of
curvacious ripeness in which there is hardly a
margin of a pound between perfection and excess. So far she
was still within the precarious safety of that
narrow margin,
so that her figure was
a startling excitement to observe. Her
face
was classically beautiful in a flawless peach-skinned way.
She had natural
blonde hair and rather light blue eyes that gave
her expression a kind of passionate vagueness.

“All right, darling,” said the Saint. “I’m in a hurry
too, so we’ll make it easy. Who sent you and what am I supposed to
fall for?”
  

3

Her face was blank
and innocent.

“I don’t quite understand. I was just told to get an inter
view——
”

“Let’s
save a lot of time,” said the Saint patiently. “I know
that you aren’t from the AP, and
probably your name isn’t
Brown either—but that’s a minor detail. You can put on any act you like
and talk from here to breakfast, but you’ll never
get anywhere. So let’s start from here.”

She regarded him quite calmly.

“You have very direct methods, haven’t you?”

“Don’t you think they cut the hell out of the overhead?”

She
glanced placidly around the room, and observed the
potable supplies on the side table. He was aware that she didn’t
miss the half-empty glass that Madeline Gray had
left, either.

“I suppose
you wouldn’t like to offer me a drink.”

Without answering, he poured a highball and handed it to
her.

“And a cigarette?”

He gave her one
and lighted it.

“Now,” he remarked, “you’ve had plenty of time to work
on your story, so it ought to be good.”

She laughed.

“Since you’re so clever—you ought to be able to tell me.”

“Very
likely I can.” He lighted another cigarette for him
self. “You are either an Axis
agent, a private crook, or a mildly
enterprising
nitwit. You may have fancier names for it, but it
comes to the same thing. Once upon a time I’d have laid odds
on the third possibility, but just recently I’ve
gotten a bit
skeptical.”

“You make it sound awfully interesting. So what am I here
for—as an Axis agent or a private
crook?”

“That’s
a little more difficult. But I can think of the pos
sibilities. You either came here to eliminate me—with or with
out outside cooperation—or to get information of
one kind
or another. Of course, there
are gentle angles on both of those
bright
ideas, as well as the rough and noisy ones. We could stay
up all night playing permutations and
combinations. I was just
curious to
know what your script was.”

“And if I don’t tell you?”

“We’ll just have to play it out,” he said tiredly. “Go
on.
Shoot. Give me the opening line.”

She tilted her
head back, showing teeth as regular as a neck
lace
of pearls.

“I think you’re beautiful,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“You talk
just like I imagined you would.”

“That must be a great relief.”

“You sound wildly exciting.”

“Good.”

“But I’m afraid I’m going to be a great disappointment.”

“Are you?”

“I’m afraid I’m only a mildly enterprising nitwit.”

He went on
looking at her dispassionately.

“I adore you,” she said.

“I adore me too,” he said. “Tell me about you.”

She tasted her
drink.

“My name’s
Andrea Quennel.”

It went through him like a chemical reaction, a sudden congealing and
enveloping stillness. In an almost unreal detach
ment he observed her left hand. It wore no rings. He
crossed
over to her, and calmly
took the purse from her lap and
opened it. He found a compact with her initials on it, and
didn’t search any further.

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“You must be
Hobart Quennel’s daughter,” he said.

“That’s
right. We came in just as Mr. Devan was driving off
after he’d dropped you. He told us about your little excitement
this evening. He hadn’t thought anything about
your name, but being a romantic soul of course I had to wonder at once
if
it was you. So I inquired at the desk, and it was.”

She looked very pleased with herself, and very comfortable.

“That still doesn’t tell me why you had to see me this way,”
he said.

“I wanted to meet you. Because I’ve been crazy about you for
years.”

“Why did you try to pretend to be a reporter?”

She shrugged.

“You
said it yourself, didn’t you? I’m a mildly enterprising
nitwit. So I don’t want everyone to
know what a nitwit I am.
I
suppose I could have made Mr. Devan call you up on some
excuse and met you that way, but I try
to let him think I’m
halfway
sane, because after all he does work for my father.
And if I’d call you up and said I was dying to meet
you I was
sure you’d just send the
house detective after me. So I thought
I was being rather clever.” Her face became quite
empty and
listless. “I guess I
wasn’t. I’m sorry.”