Лесли Чартерис - The Saint in Trouble

“It has to be somewhere between Grays Inn Road and Kings Cross Road. Beyond the Royal Free Hospital and to the east of the church, but not as far as Bryant Street, or the tower would appear much larger.”

He was talking more to himself than to Leila, and as he spoke he shaded in more of the map, gradually making the triangle smaller and smaller until only three or four streets remained. Finally he lowered the glasses and rubbed the water from his eyes.

“We’re getting closer,” he told her. “The trouble is that from this height all the blocks of houses look roughly the same size, but you can see from the photograph that behind the roof they were standing on there’s a street of buildings a storey taller. If we can use the telescope to locate one of these roads where the houses are lower than those they back onto, then we’ve scored a bull’s-eye.”

Leila was staring out across the skyline, concentrating on the area the Saint had been scanning a few moments before. Her eyes were half closed against the sun, and he could almost feel the tautness of her body. She reminded him of an eagle hovering in the air before swooping on its prey. Her fist clenched, but without crumpling the photograph.

“We must find it,” she said. “There is no time to lose.”

She turned and led the way back down the stairs, walking around the Whispering Gallery without stopping to admire the view it offered. He followed more slowly, and she was already standing beside the telescopes by the time he again came out into the daylight.

A rapid change had come over her with the prospect of getting closer to her quarry. The sharpness had returned to her voice, and the light he had found so unsettling at their first meeting shone again from her eyes. On the drive from his home, she had mellowed from being a soldier to being a woman; now, just as quickly and unpredictably, she had switched back again. He sensed that there was something more behind her dedication than mere patriotism and a hatred of her country’s enemies, something that verged on the fanatical. He had hunted many men, but only a few of them had he truly hated; more than most men he understood the subtle difference between crusade and personal vendetta. At that moment he found Captain Leila Zabin a more interesting enigma than the man they were pursuing.

He angled the telescope and pressed a coin into the slot. The lens cleared to give a needle-sharp view over the rooftops. He was aware of Leila pacing impatiently behind him as he moved the telescope by fractions of a degree until he had studied every inch of the unshaded area on the map.

“Not Caxton Street,” he said, letting her share his thoughts as they came to him, “because they’re five-storey tenements. And it can’t be Swans Court, because they are only two. All the buildings in Alma Street have pitched roofs, so therefore that only leaves Little Claymore or one of the alleys running from it. Yes, that’s it, Little Claymore Street. It’s got to be.”

He straightened and stretched away the cramp from his shoulders. Leila took the map and located the street for herself.

“Are you sure?” she insisted.

The Saint shrugged.

“No, I’m not absolutely sure, but I’d lay odds on it.”

“Good. Let us see if you would win your bet,” she said briskly, and tamed on her heel to lead the way back.

While it may appear on the map as a sprawling metropolis with no clear-cut boundaries except the river that divides north from south, London is really only a collection of villages that have been squashed together. Like a giant amoeba the city has flowed around and absorbed them but never quite managed to crush their separate identities. Although to the visitor it may seem that only the names remain — Kensington, Camberwell, Hackney, Hampstead and the rest — something of the original still exists in each. Consequently extremes are never far apart, with streets of tenements running into avenues of mansions. Only the villagers are aware of the dividing lines, although they are as real as any national frontier.

Clerkenwell lies on the northern doorstep of the City. It begins less than a mile from the Bank of England, yet for all the resemblance the two districts bear to each other they might as well be on opposite sides of the country.

It is an area of back streets, of small shops and factories. Little Claymore Street is the same as the roads that surround it, a narrow backwater running between banks of decaying terraces. The Victorian villas designed for large middle-class families and their maids have long since been converted into warrens of tiny bed-sitters that mainly provide a cheap roof for the ever shifting population of students and immigrants. The iron railings that line the front steps are rusted and bent, the plaster cracked, and the paint peeling from windows and doors.

“The other face of London,” Simon observed as they turned Into the street and he slowed the car to a crawl.

Leila made no reply. She was sitting eagerly forward in her seat, her eyes sweeping the buildings on either side. They were halfway along the street when she grabbed his arm.

“Look!” she exclaimed.

At the far end, a group of men and women were staring up at a third-floor window. Most were Pakistanis, a few West Indians, and whatever was going on behind the drawn curtains had obviously upset them.

“Don’t raise your hopes, Leila,” he cautioned her. “Lots of things happen every day in an area like this. It could just be an eviction. And if it’s not, we may already be too late.”

She turned to him, her eyes blazing with irrational anger.

“Can you think of a better place to start?”

“No,” he admitted, and eased the car into the kerb.

He had come to find the scene in the photograph and was quite prepared to force his way into every house if necessary. At least this one had its front door already open.

The group of bystanders fell silent and backed away as he and Leila climbed out of the car and ran up the steps and into the hall. The Saint leapt nimbly up the uncarpeted stairs with Leila at his heels. From outside came the prolonged sound of a car horn, and he remembered the new station wagon that had been parked farther along the street and wondered.

As they gained the top landing a woman screamed. Simon reached the door in a single stride and did not bother trying the handle but launched his whole body forward, twisting as he did so. His shoulder smashed into the worm-eaten wood, shattering the lock and sending the door crashing open. His momentum carried him a yard into the room before he could recover his balance. He straightened and stopped in his tracks, his arms held out from his sides to prevent Leila from passing.

A girl sat facing him. Her long black hair was dishevelled, her eyes wide with fear. On her cheek the dark skin still showed the imprint of the hand that had slapped it, and there was an ugly swelling on the side of her chin.

Two dark-skinned men stood on either side of her. Both wore roll-necked jumpers and jeans, army flak jackets stretched tight across their shoulders. If it came to a fight they would each concede him a couple of inches in height and reach, but would be at no obvious disadvantage as far as weight and muscle were concerned. The Saint looked down the muzzles of the two automatics levelled at his chest and seemed to find something amusing there.

“If you use those popguns,” he said calmly, “you’ll have to shoot your way out floor by floor. My men are on every landing.”

With no way of checking the bluff, the two men hesitated. And then, as if to underline his warning, came the tramp of feet on the stairs as some of the crowd from outside summoned enough courage to find out what was happening.

The smaller and heavier of the two jerked his head towards an open door at the far end of the room, through which the Saint could see the flat rooftop pictured in the photograph. Still keeping their guns trained on the Saint and Leila, they backed towards it. Simon waited until they had reached the roof and disappeared from view around the corner of the house before moving.