Leslie Charteris The Saint 17 The Saint In Action

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"Because this Joshua Pond hasn't been out again since my men saw him come in.
And I'm going right next door to ring his bell and see if he's there. And if
he isn't there I'll have all the evidence I want 1"
"But suppose he is?" said the Saint anxiously. "I don't know anything about
him, but he might object to being disturbed "
"If he's there," Teal answered recklessly, "I'll admit that I'm raving mad.
I'll admit that I've been dreaming all night. But I shan't have to 1"
"Give Joshua my love," said the Saint softly. "Show him your tummy he might
like it."
He picked up another cigarette and glanced around at Patricia Holm and
Geoffrey Graham as Teal flung himself out of the room. And his smile had the
superb inimitable madness on which all his life was based.
Teal was already thumbing the bell of the next apart' ment. And the door
opened.
A very old man, in his shirt and trousers, with a voluminous growth of white
whisker almost covering his face, looked out at him.
Something insane and unprecedented took possession of Mr Teal something
which, if he had stopped to think about it, had already seized him on two
previous similar occasions during his long feud with the Saint. But Mr Teal
was not stopping to think. He was not really responsible for his actions. He
was no longer the cold remorseless Nemesis that he liked to picture himself as
he lurched forward with one wild movement, grasped a section of the old man's
beard with one hand and pulled to tear it off.
The only trouble was that the beard did not come off; and the next thing that
Mr Teal was aware of was that his face was stinging from a powerful smack.
"Well, dang me!" squalled the ancient. "I never did heeear of such a thing in
all my liiife. Haven't you got nothing better to do, young man, than come
around pulling respectable folks' beeeards? You wait till I fetch a policeman
to ye. I'll see that you learn some manners, danged if I doan't!"
Mr Teal stood there, hardly conscious of his tingling cheek, hardly hearing
the old man on the telephone inside the apartment as he upbraided the porter
for letting in "danged young fules to come and pull my beeeard." The exultant
delirium of a few seconds ago seemed to have curdled to a leaden mass in his
stomach. He knew without stirring another muscle that the supreme moment he
had dreamed of had not yet come. He knew that he was doomed to leave the Saint
free once again to organize more tragedies for him. He didn't know how this
one had been organized, but he knew that it had been done, and he knew that
his very own watchdogs were the best evidence against him. And Mr Teal knew
with the utter deadness of despair that it had always been fated to be the
same.
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Part Two
The Unlicensed Victuallers
I
Somewhere among the black hills to the southwest dawned a faint patch of
light. It moved and grew, pulsing and brightening, like a palely luminous
cloud drifting down from the horizon; and Simon Templar, with his eyes fixed
on it, slid his cigarette case gently out of his pocket.
"Here it comes, Hoppy," he remarked.
Beside him Hoppy Uniatz followed his gaze and inhaled deeply from his cigar,
illuminating a set of features which would probably have caused any
imaginative passer-by, seeing them spring suddenly out of the darkness, to
mistake them for the dial of a particularly malevolent banshee.
"Maybe dey got some liquor on board dis time, boss," he said hopefully. "I
could just do wit' a drink now."
Simon frowned at him in the gloom.
"You've got a drink," he said severely. "What happened to that bottle I gave
you when we came out?"
Mr Uniatz wriggled uneasily in his seat.
"I dunno, boss. I just tried it, an' it was empty. It's de queerest t'ing . .
." An idea struck him. "Could it of been leakin', woujja t'ink, boss?"
"Either it was, or you will be," said the Saint resignedly.
His eyes were still fixed on the distance, where the nimbus of light was
growing still brighter. By this time his expectant ears could hear the noise
that came with it, a faraway rattle and rumble that was at first hardly more
than a vibration in the air, growing steadily louder in the silence of the
night.
He felt for a button on the dashboard, and the momentary whirr of the starter
died into the smooth sibilant whisper of a perfectly tuned engine as the great
car came to life. They were parked on the heath, just off the edge of the
road, in the shadow of a clump of bushes, facing the ghostly aurora that was
approaching them from where the hills rose towards the sea. Simon trod on the
clutch and pushed the gear lever into first and heard a subdued click beside
him as Mr Uniatz released the safety catch of his automatic.
"Howja know dis is it?" Mr Uniatz said hoarsely, the point having just
occurred to him.
"They're just on time." Simon was looking down at the phosphorescent hands of
his wrist watch. "Pargo said they'd be leaving at two o'clock. Anyway, we'll
be sure of it when Peter gives us the flash."
"Is dat why you send him down de road?"
"Yes, Hoppy. That was the idea."
"To see de truck when it passes him?"
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"Exactly."
Mr Uniatz scratched his head, making a noise like wood being sandpapered.
"How does he know it's de right truck?" he asked anxiously.
"By the number plate," Simon explained. "You know that bit of tin with
figures on it."
Mr Uniatz digested this thought for a moment and relaxed audibly.
"Chees, boss," he said admiringly. "De way you t'ink of everything!"
A warm glow of relief emanated from him, an almost tangible radiation of good
cheer and fortified faith, rather like the fervour which must exude from a
true follower of the Prophet when he arrives in paradise and finds that Allah
has indeed placed a number of supremely voluptuous houris at his disposal,
exactly as promised in theQuran. It was a feeling which had become perennially
new to Mr Uniatz, ever since the day when he had first discovered the sublime
infallibility of the Saint and clutched at it like a straw in the turbulent
oceans of Thought in which he had been floundering painfully all his life.
That Simon Templar, on one of those odd quixotic impulses which were an
essential part of his character, should have encouraged the attachment was a
miracle that Mr Uniatz had never stopped to contemplate: he asked nothing more
than to be allowed to stay on as an unquestioning Sancho Panza to this
dazzling demigod who could Think of Things with such supernatural ease.
"Dis is like de good old days," Hoppy said contentedly ; and the Saint smiled
in sympathy.
"It is, isn't it? But I never thought I'd be doing it in England."
Suddenly the haze of light down the road flared up, blazed into blinding
clarity as the headlights of the lorry swung round a bend like searchlights.
It was still some distance away, but the road ran practically straight for a
mile in either direction, and they were parked in the lee of almost the only
scrap of cover on the open moor.
Simon held up one hand to shield his eyes against the direct glare. He was
not looking at the headlights themselves but at a point in the darkness a
little to the right of them, waiting for the signal that would identify the
lorry beyond any doubt. And while he watched the signal came four long equal
flashes from a powerful electric torch, strong enough for him to see the
twinkle of them even with the lorry's headlights shining towards him.
The Saint drew a deep breath.
"Okay," he said. "You know your stuff, Hoppy. And don't use that Betsy of
yours unless you have to."
He flicked his lighter and touched it to the end of the cigarette clipped [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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