Лесли Чартерис - Capture the Saint

“Knock on wood,” agreed Simon, pegging her legs as those of a dancer.

She regarded him seriously for a moment.

“You’re very charming, Mr Templar, but I didn’t come here for a high-school date. Besides, this place gives me the creeps. Where’s the loot?”

The Saint politely gave her the guided tour of Talon’s lair, concluding with a full inventory of cash, gems, and less attractive elements of the detective’s life-style.

“We both came here for the same reason, Saint,” stated Diamond with near corporate inflection, “and I hope we have the same plans for Talon’s ill-gotten gain.”

Simon divided the booty in half on the kitchen table.

“Ten percent for me, ninety percent becomes an anonymous donation to Viola Berkman’s humanitarian efforts,” explained the Saint, “I’ll trust you with half and expect that you’ll do the same.”

“Something along those lines,” responded Tremayne slyly as she filled her black bag with booty.

She turned towards the patio door as if she could exit as enigmatically and unhindered as she arrived. The Saint seized her arm firmly, but not roughly.

“I believe I’m entitled to a few more answers,” insisted the Saint, but he let loose her arm lest she fear his intentions.

She smiled with pride and studied his face for some time before responding.

“If you really want the complete story, keep that appointment at the Islands Airlines counter at Sea-Tac at 10am. Neah Bay is lovely this time of year.”

Simon was not about to be put off. For all he knew, Diamond Tremayne would never be seen nor heard from again.

“I’m taking a chance letting you leave as it is,” said the Saint, and everything about him confirmed that he was certainly capable of restraining her, and that was not lost on Ms Tremayne.

“You’re simply not used to friendly competition,” said Diamond, “and it was not even really competition. I needed you to arrange the one part of this caper that I couldn’t do myself — the one part I knew the Saint would handle perfectly, as I am sure you will. As I also wanted the opportunity to, shall we say, make your acquaintance, it was killing two birds with one stone.”

The Saint understood.

“The two dead birds being Talon and Alisdare.”

She nodded.

“At least those two, if not more. I could do everything else — manipulate, infiltrate, investigate, influence who got invited to your media party and even suggest the caterer — but wooing and winning, cajoling and controlling, is not the same as killing. I was after Talon and Alisdare with a vengeance.”

“What about Rasnec?”

She chuckled.

“He’s a sweetheart, with the emphasis on sweet, if you get what I mean. I made perfect window dressing for his personal life. Smart when it comes to real estate investment, dumb as a post when it comes to who he allows to be in business with him. The only real interest he has in Chesters or Elmo’s is the monthly profit and loss statements and how soon he can do something respectable with the property. He may put a good portion of his wealth in Karl Krogstad’s latest venture, among other things.”

“Lucky Karl,” murmured the Saint.

“The crooked real estate investor is one cliché you won’t find in this story, Simon.”

He regarded her thoughtfully, glanced at the clock above Talon’s television, and realized they didn’t have much time. Diamond shifted her weight and stepped closer to the patio.

“Alisdare believed I was going to keep you away from Berkman and Talon,” continued Tremayne, “He also believed there really was a valuable Costello Treasure, which, of course, there is. He was clueless about the name SeaQue — he wouldn’t know that you would recognize the name — so he went right along with my plan. But you and I know that the treasure isn’t in Neah Bay and there are no gems of inestimable value aboard the sunken Polaris.”

“Because the Polaris never sank,” asserted Simon, “and there was never a Norwegian cryptologist named Dagfinn Varnes. You tipped your hand early on to Viola Berkman, fabricated the Costello Treasure ruse for several inter-related reasons; (a) to con Alisdare into approaching me and giving me $10,000, (b) to have me take off to Neah Bay with, of all people, you to stay at a bed and breakfast owned by Arthur Rasnec. Was Arthur going to cook us eggs and sausage?”

“Be at Sea-Tac at ten in the morning and you’ll find out exactly what Arthur is cooking up,” answered Diamond cheerfully, “now, shouldn’t you be off doing something horrid to Alisdare and Talon?”

“It’s been done.” He said it with such icy finality that a shiver raced down Diamond’s spine and her scalp felt a size too small for her head.

“But you’re here and they’re meeting way up on Madison,” she stammered, her further objections stopped short of expression. She knew he was serious.

“How did you do it?”

She was obviously and honestly mystified. Simon realized at that moment that she had no idea that Roger and Peter’s SeaQue enterprise was, relative to the adventure, anything more than an oblique bit of arcane trivia.

Simon flashed his famous saintly smile, appearing as pure and innocent as his sobriquet could imply.

“The most simple explanation in the world.”

She waited to hear it, and it was worth the wait.

“I am the Saint,” said Simon Templar, and that settled that.

Detective Dexter Talon stood over the lifeless body of Salvadore Alisdare and admired his handiwork. He couldn’t afford to gloat, not with patrolmen standing around taking notes. It was good. Very good. The little weasel was greatly improved by death, and the gun clutched in his dead hand bore convincing testimony to Talon’s assertion of self-defense. An autopsy would confirm massive amounts of illegal intoxicants in Alisdare’s system — drugs known to stimulate aggressive, violent, and unpredictable behavior.

Talon’s sausage-like fingers fumbled their way into his tiny cigarette pack, extracted another plain-end length of nicotine, and stuffed it between his large leathery lips. He looked again at Alisdare, rejoicing in silence. There was paperwork and official explanations ahead of him, but they were gratifying closure to a repellent relationship. From whatever angle it was viewed, this episode was more cut and dried than a shoot-out during a convenience store robbery.

Salvadore’s little carcass was scooped into a black body bag, transported to the King County Morgue, and delivered as a matter of routine to Mr Surush Josi, the Nepalese lover of Broadway show tunes who whistled while he worked.

The Saint whistled as well — a melodic ditty of short duration distinguished by a lilting repetitive motif — as he drove his rented Chevrolet up Madison and past a bustling crime scene. There was no reason for Simon to slow down. He knew the perpetrator, the victim, and the eventual outcome. Simon Templar had other musicological items on his mind — according to authoritative KOL radio reporter George Garret intoning from the dashboard, Grand Theft was nearing their grand finale at the Concert of the Decade where, if one were to believe Mr Garret, the crowd was going crazy.

“Due, no doubt, to auditory discomfort,” said the Saint.

While Simon Templar amused himself with jest, Grand Theft set new standards in high decibel distortion before an acre of wildly flailing fans. The screaming multitudes — all sizes, a variety of ages from pre-pubescent to second childhood, and arrayed in overstated costumes revealing greater and lesser degrees of flesh and taste — seemed not only impervious to the ear splitting blare, but positively delighted by it.

The screaming crowd rolled in waves of manifest adrenalin, squealing and squirming, leaping and writhing, smashing themselves again and again against the hard wood of the high rise stage and the equally immovable barricade of beefy security guards. Above the band, a large screen pulsated with pinks and paisleys projected in combination with repetitive clips of public domain industrial films by Seattle’s famed Retina Circus Light Show.