The Saint Closes the Case (11 page)

“What happened?” asked Norman Kent,
over his shoul
der; and the Saint leaned over the front seat and
explained.

“In fact,” he said, “we
couldn’t have done better if we’d
thought it out. Angel Face certainly
brought off that raid like no amateur. But can you beat it? No stealth or
subtlety, as far
as we know. Just banging in like a Chicago bandit, and
hell
to the consequences. That shows how much he means busi
ness.”

“How many men on the job?”

“Don’t know. We only met one, and that
wasn’t Angel Face.
Angel Face himself may have been in the car with Vargan,
but he’d
certainly taken to the tall timber when Roger and I
arrived. A man like
that wouldn’t tackle the job with one soli
tary car and a couple
of pals. There must have been a spare
bus, with load, somewhere—probably up
the lane. There
should be another way in, though I don’t know where it
is.
… You’d better switch on the lights—we’re out of sight
now.”

He settled back and lighted a cigarette.

In its way, it had been a most satisfactory
effort, even if its
success had been largely accidental; but the Saint was
frown
ing rather thoughtfully. He wasn’t worrying about the loss of
his
car—that was a minor detail. But that night he had lost something far more
important.

“This looks like my good-bye to England,”
he said; and
Conway, whose brain moved a little less quickly, was sur
prised.

“Why—are you going abroad after
this?”

The Saint laughed rather sadly.

“Shall I have any choice?” he
answered. “We couldn’t
have got the Furillac away, and Teal will
trace me through that. He doesn’t know I’m the Saint, but I guess they could
make the Official Secrets Act heavy enough on me without
that. Not
to mention that any damage Angel Face’s gang may
have done to the
police will be blamed on us as well. There’s
nothing in the world
to show that we weren’t part of the
original raid, except the evidence of
the gang themselves—
and I shouldn’t bet on their telling… .
No, my Roger.
We are indubitably swimming in a large pail of soup. By
morning
every policeman in London will be looking for me,
and by to-morrow
night my photograph will be hanging up in
every police station
in England. Isn’t it going to be fun?—as
the bishop said to
the actress.”

But the Saint wasn’t thinking it as funny as
it might have
been.

“Is it safe to go to Maidenhead?” asked Conway.

“That’s our consolation. The deeds of
the bungalow are in
the name of Mrs. Patricia Windermere, who spends her spare
time being Miss Patricia Holm. I’ve had that joke up my
sleeve for the past year in
case of accidents.”

“And Brook Street?”

The Saint chuckled.

“Brook Street,” he said, “is
held in your name, my sweet
and respectable Roger. I thought that’d be
safer. I merely
installed myself as your tenant. No—we’re temporarily cov
ered there,
though I don’t expect that to last long. A few
days, perhaps… .
And the address registered with my car
is one I invented for
the purpose… . But there’s a snag.
… Finding it’s a
dud address, they’ll get on to the agents I bought it from. And I sent it back
to them for decarbonising
only a month ago, and gave Brook Street as my
address. That
was careless! … What’s to-day?”

“It’s now Sunday morning.”

Simon sat up.

“Saved again! They won’t be able to find
out much before
Monday. That’s all the time we want. I must get hold of
Pat… .”

He sank back again in the seat and fell
silent, and remained
very quiet for the rest of the journey; but
there was little
quietude in his mind. He was planning vaguely, scheming
wildly,
daydreaming, letting his imagination play as it would
with this new state of
affairs, hoping that something would
emerge from the chaos; but all he
found was a certain rueful
resignation.

“At least, one could do worse for a last
adventure,” he said.

It was four o’clock when they drew up outside
the bunga
low, and found a tireless Orace opening the front door
before
the car had stopped. The Saint saw Vargan carried into the
house, and
found beer and sandwiches set out in the dining-
room against their arrival.

“So far, so good,” said Roger
Conway, when the three of
them reassembled over the refreshment.

“So far,” agreed the Saint—so
significantly that the other
two both looked sharply at him.

“Do you mean more than that?” asked
Norman Kent.

Simon smiled.

“I mean—what I mean. I’ve a feeling that
something’s hanging over us. It’s not the police—as far as they’re concerned I
should say the odds are two to one on us. I don’t know if it’s Angel
Face. I just don’t know at all. It’s a premonition, my
cherubs.”

“Forget it,” advised Roger Conway sanely.

But the Saint looked out of the window at the
bleak pallor that had bleached the eastern rim of the sky, and wondered.

5. How Simon Templar went back to Brook
Street,

and what happened
there

Breakfast was served in the bungalow at an
hour when all
ordinary people, even on a Sunday, are finishing their
midday
meal. Conway and Kent sat down to it in their shirtsleeves and a stubby
tousledness; but the Saint had been for a swim
in the river, shaved with Orace’s razor,
and dressed himself with
as much care as if
he had been preparing to pose for a maga
zine cover, and the proverbial morning daisy would have
looked
positively haggard beside him.

“No man,” complained Roger, after
inspecting the appari
tion, “has a right to look like this at
this hour of the morn
ing”

The Saint helped himself to three fried eggs
and bacon to
match, and sat down in his place.

“If,” he said, “you could open
your bleary eyes enough to
see the face of that clock, you’d see that
it’s after half-past two
of the afternoon.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,”
protested Conway feebly.
“We didn’t get to bed till nearly six.
And three eggs …”

The Saint grinned.

“Appetite of the healthy open-air man. I
was splashing mer
rily down the Thames while you two were snoring.”

Norman opened a newspaper.

“Roger was snoring,” he corrected.
“His mouth stays open
twenty-four hours a day. And now he’s talking
with his mouth
full,”
he added offensively.

“I wasn’t eating,” objected Conway.

“You were,” said the Saint
crushingly. “I heard you.”

He reached for the coffee-pot and filled a
cup for himself
with
a flourish.

The premonition of danger that he had had
earlier that
morning was forgotten—so completely that it was as if a
part
of his memory had been blacked out. Indeed, he had rarely
felt fitter
and better primed to take on any amount of odds.

Outside, over the garden and the lawn running
down to
the river, the sun was shining; and through the open French
windows of
the morning-room came a breath of sweet, cool
air fragrant with the
scent of flowers.

The fevered violence of the night before had
vanished as
utterly as its darkness, and with the vanishing of
darkness
and violence vanished also all moods of dark foreboding.
Those
things belonged to the night; in the clear daylight they
seemed
unreal, fantastic, incredible. There had been a battle
—that was all. There
would be more battles. And it was very
good that it should be
so—that a man should have such a
cause to fight for, and such a heart and a
body with which to
fight it.
…
As he walked back from his bathe an
hour ago,
the Saint had seemed to hear again the sound of the trum
pet.
…

At the end of the meal he pushed back his
chair and lighted
a cigarette, and Conway looked at him expectantly.

“When do we go?”

“We?”

“I’ll come with you.”

“O.K.,” said the Saint. “We’ll
leave when you’re ready.
We’ve got a lot to do. On Monday, Brook
Street and all it
contains will probably be in the hands of the police, but
that
can’t be helped. I’d like to salvage my clothes, and one or two other
trifles. The rest will have to go. Then there’ll be bags to pack for you two,
to last you out our stay here, and there’ll be
Pat’s stuff as well.
Finally, I must get some money. I think
that’s everything—and
it’ll keep us busy.”

“What train is Pat travelling on?”
asked Norman.

“That might be worth knowing,”
conceded the Saint. “I’ll get through on the phone and find out while
Roger’s dress
ing.”

He got his connection in ten minutes, and
then he was
speaking to her.

“Hullo, Pat, old darling. How’s
life?”

She did not have to ask who was the owner of
that lazy,
laughing
voice.

“Hullo, Simon, boy!”

“I rang up,” said the Saint,
“because it’s two days since I
told you that you’re the loveliest and
most adorable thing
that ever happened, and I love you. And further to ours
of
even date, old girl, when are you coming home? … No, no
particular
engagement… . Well, that doesn’t matter. To
tell you the truth, we
don’t want you back too late, but also,
to tell you the
truth, we don’t want you back too early, either.
… I’ll tell you
when I see you. Telephones have been
known to have ears… . Well, if you
insist, the fact is that
Roger and I are entertaining a brace of
Birds, and if you
came back too early you might find out… . Yes, they
are
very Game… . That’s easily settled—I’ll look you out a
train now
if you like. Hold on.”

He turned.

“Heave over the time-table, Norman—it’s
in that corner,
under the back numbers of
La Vie Parisienne…
.”

He caught the volume dexterously.

“What time can you get away from this f
ê
te effect? …
Sevenish? … No,
that’ll do fine. Terry can drive you over
to Exeter, and if you
get there alive you’ll have heaps of time
to catch a very
jolly-looking train at——
Damn! I’m looking
at the week-day trains… . And the Sunday
trains are as
slow as a Scotchman
saying good-bye to a bawbee… . Look
here, the only one you’ll have time to catch now is the 4.58.
Gets in at 9.20. The only one after that doesn’t
get to London
till nearly four o’clock
to-morrow morning. I suppose you
were
thinking of staying over till to-morrow… . I’m afraid
you mustn’t, really. That
is
important…
. Good enough,
darling. Expect you at
Brook Street about half-past nine… .
So long, lass. God bless …”

He hung up the receiver with a smile as Roger
Conway
returned after a commendably quick toilet.

“And now, Roger, me bhoy, we make our dash!”

“All set, skipper.”

“Then let’s go.”

And the Saint laughed softly, hands on hips.
His dark hair was at its sleekest perfection, his blue eyes danced, his brown
face was
alight with an absurdly boyish enthusiasm. He slipped an arm through Conway’s,
and they went out to
gether.

Roger approached the car with slower and
slower steps.
An idea seemed to have struck him.

“Are you going to drive?” he asked suspiciously.