The Saint Closes the Case (32 page)

But on this occasion the card up the sleeve
was very ordi
nary. The Saint, inwardly revolving every aspect of the
inter
ruption with a furious attention, could still find nothing new
to add to
his first estimate of the deal. Norman Kent re
mained the only
hidden card.

By now, Norman Kent must know what had
happened.
Otherwise he would have been in the boat with them long
ago,
reaching down the ceiling while a youngster in plus
eights whizzed his
Webley. And if Norman Kent knew, Patricia
would know. The
question was—what would they be most
likely to do? And how could Simon
Templar, out of touch with them and practically powerless under the menace of
Harding’s
automatic, divine their most probable plan of action and
do
something in collaboration?

That was the Saint’s problem—to reverse the
normal proc
esses of strategy and put himself in the place of the
friend
instead of in the place of the enemy. And, meanwhile, to
keep
Harding amused.
…

“You’re a clever child,” said the
Saint. “May one inquire
how you come to be doing Teal’s job?”

“We work in with the police on a case
like this,” said Hard
ing grimly, “but we don’t mind stealing
a march on them if
we can. Teal and I set out on an independent tour. He.
took
the high road and I took the low road, and I seem to have
got there
before him. I saw your car outside on the drive, and
came right in.”

“You should have a medal,” said
Simon composedly. “I’m
afraid I can’t give you anything but love, baby,
but I’ll write
to the War Office about you, if you think that might
help.”

Harding grinned and smoothed his crisp hair.

“I like your nerve,” he said.

“I like yours,” reciprocated the
Saint. “I can see you’re a
good man gone wrong. You ought to have been
of Us. There’s
a place in the gang vacant for you, if you’d care to join.
Per
haps you’d like to be my halo?”

“So you
are
the Saint!”
crisped Harding alertly.

Simon lowered his eyelids, and his lips twitched.

“Touch
é
!
…
Of course, you didn’t know that definitely,
did you?
But you tumbled to the allusion pretty smartly.
You’re a bright
spark, sonny boy—I’ll tell the cockeyed
world.”

“It wasn’t so difficult. Teal’s told
everyone that he’d eat his
hat if Vargan didn’t turn out to be your show.
He said he
knew your work too well to make any mistake about it,
even
if it wasn’t signed as usual.”

Simon nodded.

“I wonder which hat Teal would have
eaten?” he mur
mured. “The silk one he wears when he goes to
night-clubs
disguised as a gentleman or the bowler with the
beer-stain? Or
has he got a third hat? If he has, I’ve never seen it.
It’s a fas
cinating thought… .”

And the Saint turned his eyes to the ceiling
as if he really
were fascinated by the thought.

But the Saint thought: “If Bertie and
Teal have been putting
their heads together, Bertie must know that
there’s likely to
be a third man on the premises. A man already proved
handy
with the battleaxe, moreover… . Now, why hasn’t Bertie
said
anything about him? Can it be that Bertie, our bright and
bouncing
Bertie, is having a moment of mental aberration
and overlooking
Norman?”

Then the Saint said aloud: “However—about
that halo job.
How does it appeal to you?”

“Sorry, old man.”

“Oh, not at all,” sighed the Saint.
“Don’t apologise… .
What else can we do for you? You seem to have
everything
your
own way, so we’ll try to oblige. Name your horse.”

“Yes, I seem to have rounded you up
fairly easily.”

So the cunningly hidden question was answered.
It was
true. Norman Kent, being for the moment out of sight, had
fallen for
the moment out of mind.

For a fleeting second the Saint met Roger
Conway’s eyes.

Then:

“What do we do?” asked the Saint
amiably. “Stand and de
liver?”

The youngster retired to the window and
glanced out.
Simon took one step towards him, stealthily, but there
was an
awkward distance between them, and Harding’s eyes were
only
turned away for an instant. Then Harding turned round
again, and the Saint
was serenely selecting another cigarette.

“Have you got Vargan here?”

The Saint looked up.

“Ah!” said the Saint cautiously.

Harding set his lips.

In the few minutes of their encounter Simon
Templar had
had time to appreciate in the younger man a quiet
efficiency
that belied the first impression of youthfulness, combined
with
a pleasant sense of humour that was after the Saint’s own
heart. And
at that moment the sense of humour was not so evident; but all the efficiency
was there, and with it went a
certain grimness of resolution.

“I don’t know why you took Vargan,”
he said. “In spite of
what we know about your ideas generally,
that’s still a mystery
we haven’t solved. Who are you working
for?”

“Our own sweet selves,” answered the
Saint. “You see, our
lawn’s been going all to hell, and none of
the weed-killers
we’ve tried seem to do it any good, so we thought perhaps
Vargan’s electric exterminator might——
”

“Seriously!”

Simon looked at him.

“Seriously, if you want to know,”
said the Saint, and he said
it very seriously, “we took Vargan so
that his invention should
not be used in the war. And that decision of
ours still stands.”

“That was Teal’s theory.”

“Dear old Teal! The man’s a marvel,
isn’t he? Just like a
blinkin’ detective in a story-book… .
Yes, that’s why we
took Vargan. Teal will get a letter from me in the morning
explaining ourselves at length.”

“Something about the good of humanity, I
suppose?”

“Correct,” said the Saint.
“Thereby snookering Angel Face,
who certainly isn’t thinking about the
good of humanity.”

Harding looked puzzled.

“This man you keep talking about—Angel
Face——
”

“Tiny Tim,” explained Simon.

A light of understanding dawned upon the
other.

“A man like an overgrown gorilla—with a
face accord
ing——
”

“How beautifully you put it, old dear!
Almost the very
words I used myself. You know——
”

“Marius!” snapped Harding.

The Saint nodded.

“It rings the bell,” he said,
“and your penny will be re
turned in due course. But you don’t surprise
us. We knew.”

“We guessed Marius was in this——
”

“We could have told you.”

Harding’s eyes narrowed,

“How much more do you know?” he asked.

“Oh, lots of things,” said the
Saint blandly. “In my more brilliant moments I can run Teal a close race
on some tracks.
For instance, I wouldn’t mind betting my second-best pair
of
elastic-sided boots that you were followed to-day—by one of
Marius’s
men. But you mightn’t have noticed that.”

“But I did!”

Harding’s automatic was still coolly and
steadily aimed at
the Saint’s stomach, as it had been throughout the
interview
—when the aim was not temporarily diverted to Roger Con-
way. But
now there was just a little more steadiness and rigid
ity in the hand that
held it. The change was almost imper
ceptible, but Simon Templar never
missed anything like that.
He translated the inflection in his own way;
and when he
. shifted his gaze back to Harding’s eyes he found the
interpre
tation confirmed there.

“I shook off my shadow a mile
back,” said Harding. “But I
don’t mind telling you that I
shouldn’t have come in here
alone without waiting for reinforcements if I
hadn’t seen that
somebody was a darned sight too interested in what I was
do
ing. And the same reason is the reason why I want Vargan
at
once!”

The Saint rested gracefully against the table
and blew two
smoke-rings
of surpassing perfection.

“Is—that—so!”

“That is so,” said Harding curtly.
“I’ll give you two minutes
to decide.”

“The alternative being?”

“I shall start shooting holes in you.
Arms, legs.
…
I think
you’ll tell me what I
want to know before that’s gone on very
long.”

Simon shook his head.

“You mayn’t have noticed it,” he
said, “but I have an im
pediment in my speech. I’m very sensitive,
and if anyone treats
me unkindly it makes my impediment worse. If
you started
shooting at me it’d make me stammer so frightfully that
I’d
take half an hour to get out the first d-d-d-d-damn—let alone answering
any questions.”

“And,” said Harding relentlessly,
“I’ll treat your friend in
the same way.”

The Saint flashed Roger Conway a smile.

“You wouldn’t breathe a word, would you,
old Roger?”

“Let him try to make me!” Conway scoffed.

Simon turned again.

“Honestly, Algernon,” he said
quietly, “you’ll get nothing
that way. And you know it.”

“We shall see,” said Harding.

The telephone stood on a small table beside
the window.
Still keeping the Saint and Conway covered, he took up the
receiver.

“Hullo… . Hullo… . Hullo…
.”

Harding looked at his watch, fidgeting with
the receiver-
hook.

“Fifteen seconds gone… . Blast this
exchange! Hullo… .
Hullo!”

Then he listened for a moment in silence, and
after that
he replaced the receiver carefully. He straightened up
again,
and the Saint read his face.

“There was another man in your
gang,” said Harding. “I
remember now. Is he here?”

“Is the line dead?”

“As pork.”

“No one in this house would have cut the
line,” said Simon.
“I’ll give you my word for that.”

Harding looked at him straightly.

“If that’s true——
”

“It can only be Marius,” said the
Saint slowly. “Perhaps
the man who followed you wasn’t so easy to shake off.”

Roger Conway was looking out of another
window from which he could see the lawn and the river at the end of the
garden.
Beyond the Saint’s motor-boat another motor-boat
rode in mid-stream,
but it was not the motor-boat in which he
had seen Teal. It
seemed to Roger that the two men in the
second motor-boat were
looking intently towards the bunga
low; but he could not be sure.

“Naturally,” he agreed, “it
might be Marius.”

It was then that Simon had his inspiration,
and it made him
leap suddenly to his feet.

“Harding!”

Simon cried the name in a tone that would
have startled anyone. Harding would not have been human if he had not
turned
completely round.

He had been looking through a window, with the
table be
tween himself and the Saint for safety, trying to discover
what
Conway was looking at. But all the time he had been there he
had kept
the windows in the corner of his eye. Simon had realised the fact in the
moment of his inspiration, and had under
stood it. Norman had
not been overlooked. But Harding ad
mitted that he had come alone, and he
had to make the best
of a bad job. He had to keep covering the two
prisoners he had
already taken, and wait and hope that the third man would
blunder
unsuspectingly into the hold-up. And as long as part
of Harding’s alertness
was devoted to that waiting and hoping,
Norman’s hands were
tied. But now …