Leslie Charteris - Catch the Saint

“He’s in the gents’,” Arch whispered. “What’s the caper? Do you really ‘ave a job for us?”

Before answering, Simon went to the bar and returned with two pint tankards and a pink gin for himself, and then Mr Wilson himself emerged from the toilet and found his way over to the table. He had never, except possibly by his parents, been called anything but Mr Wilson. He was heavily built, with a fat stomach and the ponderous air of a retired alderman. His hair was greying a little, but his bottle-brush moustache was as black as shoe polish. He belched with surprise as he saw the Saint at his table, and there was a near verbatim repetition of the pleasantries that Simon and Arch had exchanged.

When Mr Wilson had been seated, and throats had been suitably lubricated from the pints of Bass, Simon stated his business.

“There’s a man I want tailed. I don’t want him lost for five minutes. I don’t want him to part his hair without my knowing about if. I want to know who he sees and what he says to them. It’s that simple. I know you two gentlemen have the talent it takes.” He placed a ten-pound note in front of each man. “And now you have some encouragement. There’s another twenty pounds apiece owing you at the end of the first twenty-four hours — or sooner, if you can produce some results before then. In fact, if you can get me what I want there’ll be a generous bonus anyway.”

Arch was already folding his ten-pound note into his trousers pocket.

“What is it you want, guv’nor?”

“Naturally whatever I tell you doesn’t go beyond the three of us,” the Saint said, with the faintest trace of threat in his cool voice.

“Naturally,” said Mr Wilson, and Arch nodded.

“This man you’re to follow is involved in a snatch. He or somebody working with him caused a certain person to become missing. He’s my only real lead, although he’s working with a group. I want him to take us to the missing person, or to take us to the people he’s working with. Preferably both.”

“Who do we tail?”

Simon did not speak Pargit’s name. He had already written it, along with the art dealer’s business and home addresses, on duplicate pieces of paper. He gave each of the men a copy, and then pushed a newspaper clipping between the two of them.

“That’s his picture, when he was attending some artistic tea party. He’s about six feet, speaks phoney Cambridge. I’ve got to warn you, by the way, that there may be a police tail on him too.”

“Righto,” Mr Wilson said, and belched again after draining the last of his Bass. “You can leave it to us.”

“When do we start?” Arch asked.

“You just did,” the Saint told them.

He was not by nature a patient man, although he had trained himself to wait when necessary. Since both Julie and his two hired bloodhounds had his home telephone number, he settled down there in Upper Berkeley Mews and spent what remained of the evening catching up on some reading. For a man with so little sedentary time, he was an omnivorous reader, and to that and a retentive memory he owed an encyclopedic knowledge of a fantastic range of subjects.

At about eleven o’clock he telephoned Julie.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said, letting his voice and the fact that Julie didn’t know anybody else in London identify him.

“No. I got in bed a little while ago, but I can’t sleep. I’m so worried.”

“I have two dependable men following our friend. If he’s working with professional crooks I can’t risk being spotted, and I hate wearing a false beard all day. Anyway, why should I do that kind of legwork when there are poor devils with beer-bellies to support who can’t do anything else?”

Julie sounded more cheerful.

“Then you really think there’s a chance of finding Adrian?”

“Of course. I’d enjoy seeing you while we’re waiting, but it could be that the ungodly are having you watched, and if they recognised me with you they’d correctly deduce that you’d been spilling the proverbial haricots. Why don’t you get out tomorrow and see some of the shops or go to a movie? It’ll give you something to do to pass the time, and if you are being followed it’ll help to convince your pals that you’ve swallowed their story and are just doing normal things for a girl who’s just come to London.”

“If I could pull myself together I should be out looking for a job,” Julie said tiredly.

“What can you do?”

“Not much. I’m not a secretary or anything like that. I could look for a job in a shop.”

“Julie, there is only one occupation for you. You were born to be a model.”

“A what?” she asked unbelievingly.

“A model. You know, a photographer’s model, or a fashion model.”

“Stop teasing me. I don’t have the looks for it.”

The Saint sighed.

“Julie, it’s always been a mystery to me how some women can be so unaware of what they really look like, but you take the prize. I can see that I’ll have to get a second opinion before you’ll take me seriously.”

“Well, of course I’d like to believe you,” Julie said, “but—”

“That’s a start, anyway. I’ll see if I can get in touch with somebody who can help you on the job front. Meanwhile, I’d better not stay on the phone too long, because my little helpers may get something on Pargit and want to call me. Give me a ring about one o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“I will.”

“Good night, then.”

“Simon,” she called quickly.

“Yes?”

Julie didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“Thank you. Good night.”

She hung up before he could reply.

The saint did not have to wait long for his investment in Arch and Mr Wilson to pay off. They had earned their full pay by eleven o’clock the next morning. At 11:15 Simon Templar’s telephone rang, and the voice of Arch came breathily to his ear.

“We got something for you,” he said. “You know about Sam Caffin?”

Simon knew about anybody who had been making a better-than-average living from crime for very long. As soon as a crook graduated into the upper income brackets it came to the Saint’s attention as surely as the accession of a Texas oil driller to the millionaire class reached the records of mail-order purveyors of leather-bound classics and stock-market advice.

“Black market,” Simon said, referring to Sam Caffin’s original short cut to wealth, assuring Arch that they shared a common knowledge of Caffin’s identity.

“Now he runs a mob in Soho,” Arch continued. “What he’s got to do with your friend, I don’t know, but Pargit is set to meet Caffin tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock at Caffin’s flat. One of Caffin’s boys met Pargit on a corner of King’s Road, and Mr Wilson got every word of it.”

“It’s definitely tomorrow at two?” Simon asked.

“Correct.”

“Where does Caffin live?”

Arch gave the address.

“You’ve earned your bonus,” said the Saint.”

The next morning, just before noon, a telephone repairman stood at the door of the flat of Samuel S. Caffin and pressed the bell button. The spaciousness of the corridor, with its royal-blue carpeting and Georgian wallpaper, gave rich promise of what the humble mechanic was to find when he entered the flat itself.

The door soon opened to him, and a burly man with pimples and thick black hair asked him what he wanted.

The repairman, a Cockney, replied, “Telephone engineer.” He consulted a slip of paper. “Mr Caffin?”

“No.”

“Well, is Mr Caffin ’ere? ’E’s supposed to know I’m coming.”

The black-haired man jerked his head as a signal for the repairman to enter, looked up and down the outside corridor, and locked the door. They were standing in an alcove which opened into a large living-room. The hand of the eclectic but classically minded interior decorator was evident in every expensive vista. There was great emphasis on floor-to-ceiling drapery (with tassels), Tiffany lamps, and the white sculptured shapes of Grecian nudes.