Leslie Charteris - Send for the Saint

“Then Instrood is—”

“A fake — a plant. Like most of the rest of the cast. Instrood was bait. He was put here to tempt you — and incidentally I think there was another reason, too — one that doesn’t directly concern you or The Squad.”

“Then who is — was — my real client?”

The Saint saw the realisation dawning in Rockham’s eyes even while he was speaking the question; and he saw how those eyes dilated and quivered like a jungle animal’s when the net first falls; and he knew then beyond any kind of doubt that the man before him would never be taken alive — that he would strangle himself in the toils of the net rather than submit. And for that at least the Saint saluted Rockham, even as he went on inexorably with what he had to say.

“Your client?” he echoed lazily. “You remember I said I’d give you ten to one the girl was working for your client? I meant just that. She’s an intelligence agent — British, not Chinese — and the man responsible for this whole elaborate charade is her boss. Hers, and for just a little while longer — mine. You won’t know his name, but I think you should hear it at least once. It’s Pelton, David Pelton.”

Rockham was still standing immobile on the stairs, holding his empty revolver. The Saint, who was keeping his own gun pointed steadily at the same button of Rockham’s uniform tunic and never relaxing his vigilance for an instant, knew that Rockham’s efficient brain had already come to terms with his desperate situation. There was only the slightest tensing and twitching of the muscles in his jaw to betray the struggle it must have cost him to reach that hard accommodation with reality.

“I’m afraid you’re done for,” the Saint said almost sympathetically. “The trap’s closed. Your king’s in a corner.”

Rockham’s pale eyes had steadied. He nodded just once, curtly, to acknowledge the facts as Simon had so starkly put them.

“Then I’m going to have to go out in a blaze of glory,” he said, “and take at least one enemy piece with me if I can. I’m going to have to take that gamble on your empty gun.”

He tossed his own gun on the floor with a clatter. Then, very slowly and gracefully, his lethal karate-calloused hands began to weave confusing preparations patterns in the air, as he glided a step closer to the Saint.

“Be sure of this,” Rockham said. “If I hit you, I can break any of your bones like a twig.” He paused, and added: “So if there’s a bullet left in that gun after all — you’d better shoot to kill.”

With that final statement, Rockham had come close, Simon knew, to asking for quick deliverance as a favour. And as Rockham suddenly leapt towards him, he honoured that last request, and shot him accurately through the heart.

Ruth Barnaby appeared soon after the slam of the shot had detonated into silence.

For a few moments she took in the scene impassively. Rockham was lying face down and unmoving, with the blood oozing from under him.

“It’s the kind of end destiny must have marked out for him a long time ago,” said the Saint quietly. “And it was self-defence for me, technically — even if he did prefer death to whatever the authorities would have done with him.”

Ruth eyed him sharply.

“Don’t say you’re sorry for him?”

The Saint looked at her, and saw again that coolness in her eyes which was almost like the coldness that had stared out of Rockham’s.

“No,” he said. “I’m not sorry for him. He killed a lot of people — or caused a lot of people’s deaths, it comes to the same thing. He deserved to die like this. But he had a kind of integrity.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, somehow I didn’t imagine you would. Maybe it’s the people you’ve been mixing with.”

She looked puzzled for a second, and then she said: “I know you don’t like Pel ton’s methods. But they work.”

Simon assessed her dispassionately.

“Ruth,” he said gently. “Maybe it’s not too late for you. You’ve been in this game long enough to see how dirty it can be, but maybe not quite long enough to accept the dirtiness as a way of life.” He gripped her by the shoulders and looked searchingly into her face. “It’s too late for Pelton; it’s part of his existence. But not for you — I hope. Why not get out now, while you still can?”

She stared at him in amazement.

“But the service is my career. I enjoy it. And I’m ambitious, I want to get on. I’m still only on a low grade, but I’m going to move up.”

“And all this blood-letting — the unnecessary along with the necessary — doesn’t bother you?”

“Frankly, no. Not much. You can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. You may not like Pelton’s methods — our methods — but as I’ve said, they work.”

“Oh yes — they work, all right.” The Saint’s manner held no trace of his usual banter, and for once his eyes were not mocking at all but shadowed with a fury of slow-burning disgust. “A few people may incidentally get trampled on, in the course of Pelton’s grand strategy, but what the hell? So two or three of Yates’s men die needlessly. So what? You won’t be the one to scrape their guts up off the grass or break the news to their families, and neither will Pelton!”

She shrugged.

“Whatever forces we’d had lined up, there’d probably have been a battle in which some men got killed or wounded.”

“That may be so,” Simon agreed. “But Pelton holds other people cheaper than just about anybody else I’ve met — and I’ve met some real stinkers. And I’m sorry to think of you studying under such a master.”

She had never seen the Saint in such a mood of grim anger, and for a moment she seemed taken aback.

Then he asked: “What about the guards — upstairs?”

“Both unconscious,” she said. “They’ve been clouted hard on the head. But I think they’re OK, apart from the lumps.”

“And Instrood?”

“I couldn’t find him at all. He seems to have gone.”

Simon Templar nodded slowly.

“I was afraid of that,” he said. “And Nobbins, I guess, will have gone with him.”

Colonel David Pelton inspected his fingernails, made a minute and unnecessary adjustment to the alignment of a folder on his desk, and smiled with thin-lipped satisfaction.

“All in all,” he said briskly to Simon Templar and Ruth Barnaby, “a highly successful operation.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said the Saint curtly.

“Rockham’s men at Kyleham didn’t put up much of a fight against the Paras we sent in there,” Pelton went on. “For the time being, they’ve taken the place over and they’re holding the Squad men there, rather than overcrowd the police cells for miles around.”

The Saint eyed him coldly.

“You’ve no real worries then — about the whole affair?”

Pelton shook his head.

“No. It’s a rough game we’re in. I knew that when I started in this line. My only real concern at the moment is the expense of the whole affair. Our budgeting is — well, Civil Service. And apart from all the other costs, Rockham insisted on having a very substantial down payment for the Instrood job, and incidentally in a highly unorthodox form of currency. The Ministry treasurers weren’t at all amused at having to put that sort of stake on the table. I near enough had to swear my life away to get them to play along. There’ll be hell to pay if they don’t get it back. That’s why I shall be going down to Kyleham tomorrow with a man from Chubb’s — to get into Rockham’s safe.”

There was no hint of a smile on the Saint’s dark and now clean-shaven face, and his eyes were hard chips of blue ice.