The Saint vs Scotland Yard (15 page)

“But what
is
the story about Beppo?”

Simon
embarked upon his second egg.

“Oh, yes! Well, Beppo …”

He told her what he knew, and it is worth noting that she
believed
him. The recital, with necessary comment and dec
oration, ran out with
the toast and marmalade; and at the end
of it she knew as much as he did, which
was not much.

“But in a little while we’re going to know a whole lot
more,” he said.

He smoked a couple of cigarettes, glanced over the headlines
of a
newspaper, and went upstairs again. For several minutes he swung a pair of
heavy Indian clubs with cheerful vigour;
then a shave, a second
and longer immersion in the bath with
savon and vox humana accompaniment,
and he felt ready to
punch holes in three distinct and different
heavy-weights.
None of which being available, he selected a fresh outfit
of
clothes, dressed himself with leisurely care, and descended once
more upon
the sitting-room looking like one consolidated ray
of sunshine.

“Cocktail at the Bruton at a quarter to one,” he murmured,
and
drifted out again.

By that time, which was 10:44 precisely, if that matters a damn to
anyone, the floating population of Upper Berkeley
Mews had increased by
one conspicuous unit; but that did not
surprise the Saint.
Such things had happened before, they were
part of the inevitable
paraphernalia of the attacks of virulent
detectivosis which periodically afflicted
the ponderous lucubra
tions of Chief
Inspector Teal; and after the brief but comprehensive exchanges of
pleasantries earlier that morning, Simon
Templar would have been more disappointed than otherwise
if he had seen no symptoms of a fresh outbreak of
the disease.

Simon was not perturbed… . He raised his hat politely to
the sleuth,
was cut dead, and remained unperturbed… .
And he sauntered
imperturbably westwards through the
smaller streets of Mayfair until, in
one of the very smallest
streets, he was able to collar the one and
only visible taxi, in
which he drove away, fluttering his
handkerchief out of the
window, and leaving a fuming plain-clothes man
standing on
the kerb glaring frantically around for another cab in
which to
continue the chase—and finding none.

At the Dover Street corner of Piccadilly, he paid off the driver and
strolled back to the Piccadilly entrance of the
Berkeley. It still
wanted a few minutes to eleven, but the
reception clerk,
spurred on perhaps by the Saint’s departing
purposefulness, had a
doctor already waiting for him.

Simon conducted the move to the patient’s room himself,
and had his
first shock when he helped to remove the man’s
shirt.

He looked at what he saw in silence for some seconds; and then the
doctor, who had also looked, turned to him with his
ruddy face gone a
shade paler.

“I was told that your friend had had an accident,” he said
bluntly, and the Saint nodded.

“Something unpleasant has certainly happened to him. Will
you go on
with your examination?”

He lighted a cigarette and went over to the window, where
he stood
gazing thoughtfully down into Berkeley Street until
the doctor rejoined
him.

“Your
friend seems to have been given an injection of scopolamine
and morphia—you have probably heard of ‘twilight
sleep’. His other injuries you’ve seen for
yourself—I haven’t
found any
more.”

The Saint nodded.

“I gave him the injection myself. He should be waking up
soon—he had
rather less than one-hundredth of a grain of
scopolamine. Will you
want to move him to a nursing-home?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, unless he wishes it
himself,
Mr.——
”

“Travers.”

“Mr. Travers. He should have a nurse, of course——
”

“I can get one.”

The doctor inclined his head.

Then he removed his pince-nez and looked the Saint di
rectly in
the eyes.

“I presume you know how your friend received his
injuries?” he said.

“I can guess.” The Saint flicked a short cylinder of ash from
his
cigarette. “I should say that he had been beaten with a
raw-hide whip, and that
persuasion by hot irons had also been
applied.”

The doctor put his finger-tips together and blinked.

“You must admit, Mr. Travers, that the circumstances are—
er—somewhat
unusual.”

“You could say all that twice, and no one would accuse you of
exaggerating,” assented the Saint, with conviction. “But if that fact
is bothering your professional conscience, I can only
say that I’m as much
in the dark as you are. The accident story was just to satisfy the birds below.
As a matter of fact, I found
our friend lying by the roadside in the small
hours of this
morning, and I sort of took charge. Doubtless the mystery
will
be cleared up in due course.”

“Naturally, you have communicated with the police.”

“I’ve already interviewed one detective, and I’m sure he’s
doing
everything he can,” said the Saint veraciously. He
opened the
door, and propelled the doctor decisively along the
corridor. “Will
you want to see the patient today?”

“I hardly think it will be necessary, Mr. Travers. His dress
ing should
be changed tonight—the nurse will see to that. I’ll
come in tomorrow
morning——
”

“Thanks very much. I shall expect you at the same time.
Good-bye.”

Simon shook the doctor warmly by the hand, swept him
briskly
into the waiting elevator, and watched him sink down
wards out of view.

Then he went back to the room, poured out a glass of
water, and
sat down in a chair by the bedside. The patient was
sleeping easily; and
Simon, after a glance at his watch, pre
pared to await the
natural working-off of the drug.

A quarter of an hour later he was extinguishing a cigarette
when the
patient stirred and groaned. A thin hand crawled up
to the bare throat,
and the man’s head rolled sideways with his
eyelids flickering. As
Simon bent over him, a husky whisper of
a word came through
the relaxed lips.

“Acqua… .”

“Sure thing, brother.” Simon propped up the man’s head
and put the
glass to his mouth.

“Mille grazie.”

“Prego.”

Presently the man sank back again. And then his eyes
opened, and
focused on the Saint.

For a number of seconds there was not the faintest glimmer
of
understanding in the eyes: they stared at and through their
object like
the eyes of a blind man. And then, slowly, they
widened into round
pools of shuddering horror, and the
Italian shrank away with a thin cry
rattling in his throat.

Simon gripped his arm and smiled.

“Non tema. Sono un amico.”

It was some time before he was able to calm the man into a
dully
incredulous quietness; but he won belief before he had
finished, and at last
the Italian sank back among the pillows
and was silent.

Simon
mopped his brow and fished out his cigarette-case.

And then the man spoke again, still weakly, but in a
different
voice.

“Quanti ne abbiamo quest’ oggi?”

“Eil due ottobre.”

There was a pause.

“Vuol favorire di dirmi il suo nome?”

“Templar—Simon Templar.”

There was another pause. And then the man rolled over and
looked at
the Saint again. And he spoke in almost perfect
English.

“I
have heard of you. You were called——”

“Many things. But that was a long time ago.”

“How
did you find me?”

“Well-—I rather think that you found me.”

The Italian passed a hand across his eyes.

“I remember now. I was running. I fell down. Someone
caught me.
…” Suddenly he clutched the Saint’s wrist. “Did
you see—
him?”

“Your gentleman friend?” murmured Simon lightly. “Sure I
did. He
also saw me, but not soon enough. Yes, we certainly
met.”

The grip of the trembling fingers loosened slowly, and the
man lay
still, breathing jerkily through his nose.

“Voglia scusarmi,”
he said at length.
“Mi
vergogno.”

“Non ne val la pena.”

“It is as if I had
 
awoken
from a terrible dream. Even
now——
” The Italian
looked down at the bandages that
swathed the whole of the upper part of his
body, and shivered
uncontrollably. “Did you put on these?” he
asked.

“No—a doctor did that.”

The man looked round the room.

“And
this ——
?”

“This is the Berkeley Hotel, London.”

The Italian nodded. He swallowed painfully, and Simon
refilled his glass and passed
it back. Another silence fell, which
grew so
long that the Saint wondered if his patient had fallen
asleep again. He rose stealthily to his feet, and
the Italian
roused and caught his sleeve.

“Wait.” The words came quite quietly and sanely. “I must
talk to
you.”

“Sure.” Simon smiled down at the man. “But do you want
to do it
now? Hadn’t you better rest for a bit—maybe have
something to eat——
”

The Italian shook his head.
“Afterwards. Will you sit down
again?”
And Simon Templar sat down.

And he listened, almost without movement, while the minute
hand of
his watch voyaged unobserved once round the
dial. He listened in a
perfect trance of concentration, while
the short precise
sentences of the Italian’s story slid into the
atmosphere and built
themselves up into a shape that he had n
ever even dreamed of.

It was past one o’clock when he walked slowly down the s
tairs with
the inside story of one of the most stupendous c
rimes in history
whirling round in his brain like the armature o
f a high-powered
dynamo.

Wrapped up in the rumination of what he had heard, he
passed out like a sleep-walker
into Berkeley Street. And it so h
appened that
in his abstraction he almost cannoned into a m
an who was at that moment walking down towards
Piccadilly. He
stepped aside with a muttered apology, absent-
mindedly
registering a kind of panoramic impression of a
brilliantly purple suit, lemon-coloured gloves, a gold-mounted cane, a
lavender shirt, spotted tie, and ——

Just for an instant the Saint’s gaze rested on the man’s face.
And then
they were past each other, without a flicker of
recognition, without
the batting of an eyelid. But the Saint
knew …

He knew that that savagely arrogant face, like a mask of black marble,
was like no other black face that he had ever
seen in his life
before that morning. And he knew, with the
same certainty, that
the eyes in the black face had recognised
him in the same moment
as he had recognised them—and with
no more betrayal of their knowledge.
And as he wandered up
into Berkeley Square, and the portals of the
Bruton Club received him, he knew, though he had not looked back, that
the black
eyes were still behind him, and had seen where he
went.

Chapter IV

But the smile with which the Saint greeted Patricia was
as gay and carefree a smile as
she had ever seen.