Leslie Charteris - Catch the Saint

As soon as he knew that all the cogs in his machinery were meshing smoothly, Teal left his office by another door, settled his bowler hat on his perspiring head, and clomped downstairs to the unmarked car that he had ordered to wait for him.

Although he could never have been called loquacious, his cohorts had seldom seen him so muted by his own tension. The detective-sergeant driver had to remind him that he had yet to give them their destination.

“We’re going to pick up Sam Caffin,” Teal said rigidly, and added a scrap of fingernail to the gum he was chewing.

“Caffin,” the sergeant repeated cautiously.

“Sam Caffin. You know him and where he lives.”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, and decided it would be wiser not to ask any more questions.

A plainclothes man in overalls, on a ladder, was assiduously fiddling with a street-lamp near Caffin’s apartment building when Teal’s equally unofficial-looking car parked near by. As Teal got out, the lamp-fiddler paused in his labours to pull out a green handkerchief and blow his nose, signalling that all instructions had been carried out. If there had been problems, the handkerchief, from another pocket, would have been white, asking for a discreet conference.

A husky young constable, in unobtrusively casual clothes, followed Teal into the building and towards the elevator. As they reached it, it discharged a stout matron and her poodle, and Teal noted with satisfaction that they were met at the street door and engaged on some pretext by his sergeant driver — a routine precaution against any of the intended objectives slipping through the cordon in disguise, improbable as that particular transmogrification might have seemed.

As the lift bore him and his junior colleague to Caffin’s floor, Teal clutched and turned his bowler like a racing driver manipulating the wheel of his car as he steered through a final chicane.

They arrived, uneventfully, at Caffin’s door. Teal knocked, wishfully hoping that it would be Caffin himself who looked out at him when the door opened — assuming that it was opened without resistance. In spite of all precautions, there was always a risk, with a man like Caffin, that some leak might have sprung an unforeseen weakness in the trap.

The door did open, but it was not the beefy countenance of Sam Caffin which met Chief Inspector Teal’s consternated stare.

He should long since have accustomed himself to these experiences, but somehow he never did. When he was confronted by the suave and smiling face of Simon Templar, he felt as if the entire building had suddenly evaporated, leaving him standing precariously fifty feet up in the air.

“Scotland Yard, I presume?” said the Saint, stepping back to let them enter. He was wearing a strangely formal outfit consisting of immaculate dark coat and striped trousers. “I’m afraid you’ve missed the party, but we still have some leftovers.”

When Teal entered, in a kind of ponderous daze, he saw that the leftovers consisted of Caffin, Pargit, and another man, sitting in a neat row on the sofa, arms and legs tied. Two small revolvers lay on the coffee table in front of them. With wildly disarrayed hair, rumpled clothing, and bruised faces, the trio looked like the survivors of a tornado.

“Boys,” said the Saint, “meet Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal of Scotland Yard. With his usual prompt efficiency, he’s arrived to take you away. You’re going to be having some long chats with him, so you might as well start getting acquainted. As for me, I’ll just be bumbling off. It was nice meeting you.”

He was on his way out when Teal caught up with him and followed him into the corridor outside the flat.

“Hold up there, Templar,” he commanded. “You’re not getting out of here without some explanations. I’ve got this place surrounded.”

“I’m overwhelmed by your gratitude,” Simon said humbly.

Teal calmed down a little. He tried to control his burning envy of this man who seemed to do more alone — defying the laws — than Teal could do with the whole of Scotland Yard behind him.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the way this has turned out,” the detective said, and for him that was a great and noble admission. “But what happened here? What are you doing in that suit?”

“Ah, the suit. Mr Pargit was kind enough to give me a lift to London and bring, me calling on his friend Caffin. But I wasn’t sure that Caffin would be so polite if I introduced myself as the notorious Saint, so I decided to seek an audience with him as an Inland Revenue man. The fact that Pargit and I happened to come up the lift at the same time would be sheer coincidence. I got in quite easily. For some inexplicable reason nobody ever seems to think of shooting an income-tax inspector.”

“And so you beat them all up singlehanded.”

The Saint’s eyebrows lifted innocently.

“They weren’t beat up. We just had what are known in diplomatic circles as frank and productive discussions. A vigourous bargaining session. It was really Pargit’s fault. He’s a born haggler.” Simon lounged against the corridor wall with exasperating nonchalance, looking as if he had just emerged from a session with his tailor rather than two thugs and an art shark. “Remember that old lady I told you about — the one Pargit took for a sucker when he sold her an eighth-rate painting for several times what is was worth? I was here as her representative. Pargit was reluctant to make restitution at first, but we talked it over at length and he finally saw the error of his ways. I have his personal check for the dear old dame. Even though he’s repented, I suppose it’s too late to keep him out of jail, but I’m sure his soul will benefit enormously.”

“Templar,” Teal smouldered. “All I can say is...”

And, in fact, that was absolutely all he could say.

That evening, Simon entertained Julie and Adrian Norcombe at one of London’s quieter and more admirable restaurants. While sole and duck underwent awesome transformations from their natural state, in a kitchen far removed from the crystal and candlelight of the dining room, the Saint raised his first glass of Bollinger.

“Dearly beloved,” he said, “we are gathered here not only to celebrate Adrian’s freedom and the general triumph of justice, but also something a little more tangible. Let’s drink to all three.”

When they had sipped, Adrian put forward his own glass and said shyly, “Thank you.”

He and his sister toasted the Saint. And Julie asked, “Tangible?”

Simon settled back in his chair, pulled a slip of tinted paper from his coat pocket, and placed it on the table in front of them. They studied its simple but eloquent words and numerals, and stared at him in astonishment.

“Ten thousand pounds?” Julie quoted hoarsely.

“For you to divide between you,” Simon said.

“But why should you write us a check like that?” she objected.

“I wrote the check, but the money isn’t from me,” Simon told her. “When I told Lord Oldenshaw that the painting he’d given Pargit was a true and actual Rembrandt, and that we’d saved it from being hijacked, and that I could return it to him immediately, he was so anxious to get his hands on it that he could hardly wait to show his gratitude. Fifteen thousand pounds’ worth. A small enough cut out of the half a million or more he’ll get for the painting if he decides to sell it. Of course if the experts he’s no doubt got swarming all over the painting tell him it isn’t a genuine Rembrandt, the check he gave me won’t be worth tuppence in the morning. It is genuine, isn’t it, Adrian?”

He said it mainly to draw Adrian out. The young man had so far proved incapable of putting more than three words together consecutively.