Leslie Charteris - Catch the Saint

If the guard had something to be briefly puzzled about, the Saint had much more. As he walked out of the dark neighbour-hood of warehouses and loading ramps — noting that the place where he had been held was marked condemned — philadelphia fire department — his mind kept sifting the information he had so far, and getting nowhere. It didn’t make any sense at all that the group at The Pear Tree, who knew him as a man who had attacked a couple of their members the night before and burst into their communications centre demanding to see their Most High and Secret Leader, knew him as a potential if not a present danger, and had him in their clutches, would have tossed him casually back into the stream like a minnow not worth bothering about.

It was enough to wound a lesser man’s pride, but the Saint was already thinking of his next move. And that would be to backtrack and take up where he had left off a few hours before. Presumably he might be in an even better position now to negotiate as the representative of West Coast Kelly, or at least no worse. When he finally found a cab, he directed it straight back to The Pear Tree.

But even from the window of the taxi he could see that the place was dark.

“Do they usually shut down by one o’clock?” Simon asked the driver.

“Naw. More like four o’clock. Ain’t that a sign on the door?”

Simon got out, crossed the sidewalk, and looked at the card taped under the brass name plate.

THE MANAGEMENT REGRETS THAT THE PEAR TREE WILL BE CLOSED TEMPORARILY FOR REDECORATING.

He knocked on the door anyway, just in case somebody should still be round, but there was no response. When he got back to the New Sylvania, he phoned The Pear Tree’s number; there was no answer.

He walked to one of the windows of his room, looked out over the lights of the city, and pondered the enigma: closed for redecorating. Just like a prodded turtle drawing in its head and legs. And all because of one man? Had he been recognised as the Saint? Even if he had, it didn’t add up. Simon felt that somewhere he must have missed a pointer, a hint that would put some meaning into apparently senseless events. He felt that an embryonic answer was stirring somewhere in his subconscious, but he could not dredge it to the surface. He was too tired, still a little dopey from the drug. Tomorrow it would all be clearer.

He was checking the night latch on his door when his phone rang. Maybe this would be it, his mysterious opponent’s next move.

“Simon!” Carole cried. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. Are you all right? Didn’t you get my messages?”

“About five minutes ago, when I came in,” Simon said. “But I thought it was too late to call you. Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Asleep?” Carole said incredulously. “How on earth could I sleep? What happened to you?”

Simon chose his words carefully.

“I was detained. Unavoidably detained. Circumstances beyond my control. I’m just sorry you got upset.”

“Upset isn’t the word for it. I even had Daddy calling the police about you. Did they find you?”

“No. I found myself. Wasn’t that a little alarmist? What did you think had happened to me? You’re the potential kidnap victim, remember. Nobody would pay any ransom for me.”

“I didn’t know what had happened, but I was going crazy. What was it ‘detained’ you?”

“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Now you can call off the constabulary and we can all get some sleep.”

Her voice dropped with disappointment.

“Can’t you come up and tell me now?”

“I don’t think your papa would approve. Not at this hour of the morning. And I’m not feeling too bright right now. Some of these business conferences leave you with a thick head.”

“You’re mad at me,” she sulked.

“No. I’ll meet you for lunch tomorrow. How about that?”

She had to agree. They made the arrangements, but she was reluctant to hang up.

Her lingering gave Simon a chance to ask a question that was suddenly hammering for release.

“Your father really called the police?”

“Yes; I begged him to do it. He has a lot of friends there. He’s done a lot for them.”

“Who was it he called?”

“I don’t know,” Carole said. “I wasn’t in the room. Does it matter?”

“No,” he answered softly. “It doesn’t matter. Good night now.”

“Good night,” she said. “I love you.”

Simon settled the telephone slowly into its cradle and sat for a long time without moving. In his stomach there was a sinking, almost sick feeling.

Nobody knew that he had been missing last night, except the back-room boys at The Pear Tree... and Carole Angelworth. Therefore, nobody outside the Angelworth household could have ordered, or induced the Supremo to order his release. Therefore the Supremo had to be actually in the Police Department, or...

Angelworth. Even the name was too good to be true, just like its charitable possessor. Simon had tended to assume until now that the Supremo was a secluded figure, personally remote from publicity, working through front men. But the Supremo could just as well be a man known in public life, a man whose popular image was in sharp contrast to the secret sources of his power... a man like Hyram Angelworth.

Man... Of course he was consciously, even forcibly, confining his speculations to the conventional gender. Beautiful young girls didn’t lead secret double lives as the rulers of criminal empires, except in the. most extravagant kinds of fiction.

A likelier possibility flickered across the screen of the Saint’s imagination: Richard Hamlin, as Angelworth’s confidential secretary or whatever he was, would be in a unique position to exploit and manipulate Angelworth’s financial power and political influence. This might be a case of a power behind the throne... unknown even to the occupant of the throne? And Hamlin already had a criminal record. A lot of writers would go for that.

And just as many would trail him round as a red herring.

Certainly Hamlin wouldn’t be blinded by any romantic infatuation like Carole’s. Could he have some complicated idea of trading on that infatuation to ingratiate himself? That would also be one for the books; but people sometimes had strange weaknesses.

All right — what purely practical motive could the Supremo have had for letting the Saint go?

The only explanation that Simon could come up with along that line was that the Supremo, overruling The Pear Tree quorum, had decided that West Coast Kelly’s supposed proposition should at least be given a hearing, and without the prejudicial factor of a maltreated ambassador. Which meant that West Coast Kelly had not yet disowned the Saint — or that the accreditation would take longer to obtain. Meanwhile the situation would be left in the suspended animation of “don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you.”

With a corollary that the Saint, unlike the Supremo, could only be the loser in that kind of waiting game.

But even the fascination of those mental jigsaw puzzles could not keep him from sleep much longer.

When Simon Templar got out of bed a little later that morning, he had added one more theory to his entanglement of teasers. It was almost as bizarre as the others, and yet he found it the hardest to eliminate.

What his conscious mind had not been able to accept the night before, his subconscious had relentlessly and impersonally crystallised while he slept. His surface thinking had been blurred and distorted by what he wished to be true. It had trodden gingerly, picking its way like a mountain climber crossing a snowfield. But in the relaxed transition back to wakefulness he had felt the white glaze give way beneath his feet, and he had plunged into the crevasse.