Leslie Charteris - The Saint and the People Importers

“Who is it?” she asked.

“I’d like to see Mr. Tam Rowan,” Simon said.

“Who are you?” the female voice enquired with something close to outright hostility.

“Not the big bad wolf,” Simon told her. “If you’ll open the door you’ll be reassured by my cleancut and well-groomed appearance.”

There was a pause, and then a key turned in the lock on the other side of the door. The Saint felt that the wariness of the key-turner was completely understandable, considering that Reporter Rowan had been threatened with death by people who had already shown themselves quite capable of carrying out such threats. He was a little surprised, in fact, that he was being let in after such a short period of persuasion. And then, as the door opened three inches, he realised that he had another barrier to get past: there was a chain-lock preventing the door from being pushed any farther.

A pair of bright turquoise eyes appeared cautiously above the chain, and as little else of a lightly freckled face as the girl could show.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I’ve told you. I want to see the journalist of the house.”

“What for?” she asked unblinkingly.

“I sell submarines,” said Simon.

“Very funny.”

“Not very,” the Saint said. “I also bargain for information, and I enjoy meeting people who share my interests — in things like smuggled immigrants. Why don’t you let me in so we can swap stories without all the neighbours getting an earful.”

“Because I don’t know who you are and I don’t trust you,” she said bluntly.

“My name is Simon Templar, and those who tread the paths of righteousness can trust me from here to the moon. Does that answer your questions?”

Her cold blue-green eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down and scrutinized his face.

“You say you’re Simon Templar... the Saint?” she asked.

“Bingo,” he said. “The very man.”

She squinted at his face again.

“I really think you are.”

“I’d be awfully disappointed to find out I wasn’t,” he replied. “Think of it: getting somebody else’s laundry all these years. And who are you — a Rowan or something else?”

“I am the Rowan,” she said.

“Tam Rowan of crime-busting fame?” he asked with a lift of his brows.

“Right.”

“Shades of Amos Klein,” said the Saint.

“What?” she said blankly.

“She was another lad who turned out not to be a lad,” Simon explained. “I wish you emancipated females would retain some identifying characteristics in your names.”

“It’s too dangerous,” she said. If there was any relaxation in her tone it was the relaxation of a lion trainer between acts. “Strange men find out a woman is living alone and knock on her door at night.”

“Well, now that it’s happened what are you going to do about it?” he asked her.

“I’m going to let you in because I know you are the Saint because now I remember I’ve seen your picture — but if you try to get close to me I’ll yell so loud they’ll have to replace every crystal chandelier in this woodworm palace.”

“I’ll try to control any romantic impulses and keep my distance,” Simon said with exaggerated regret.

She slipped the chain free and opened the door, standing well back as he stepped into the room. Her bearing, if not her shape, reminded him of a drill sergeant looking over new recruits.

“Now you go to the middle of the room while I close the door,” she instructed him in a voice whose toughness matched her wary stance.

Simon strolled to the centre of the flat. The sitting room was simply but well furnished, mostly in gold and green, with a well-stocked bookshelf and a Breughel winter landscape above the fireplace. He decided he liked the person who lived there. There was a lack of show or of self-conscious nonchalance, and a feeling of honest use.

“Is this all right?” he asked, indicating the portion of carpet he was occupying.

She nodded as she closed the door. One of her hands remained, as if by a series of casual accidents in her movements, behind her.

“I don’t know if it’s more dangerous to lock myself in here with you or to leave it open and take a chance on somebody else barging in,” she said without a smile.

She was reasonably pretty, but not beautiful. Her healthy broad-cheeked face had too much of a Nordic peasant quality for the latter adjective. Her nose was pertly small, and combined with the crescent lilt of her mouth it gave her a built-in saucy look. Her light hair was cut short and fell with a defiant jaggedness around her ears and forehead. She wore a plain blouse that she filled rather nicely, blue jeans, and no shoes.

Simon faced her easily, lean and dark, sizing her up with the disconcerting directness of his gaze.

“Who else are we expecting?” he asked.

She had locked the door and come a short distance towards him.

“Some chums who’ve promised to slice me up in little pieces if I don’t stop immortalising them in print,” she said.

“Then that wasn’t just artistic licence for spicing-up your story.”

“Of course not,” she said curtly. “You read the story, in the paper tonight? Is that why you’re here?”

“Mainly. I could discuss the whole thing more comfortably if you’d take that butcher’s knife out from behind your back, though.”

She flushed slightly, a reaction he was sure she detested, signalling that he had hit the mark.

“What knife?” she countered uselessly.

“Girls who turn red when rattled should never try to keep secrets,” said Simon. “It’s really rather foolish of you to think you’re hiding anything.”

She showed her concealed hand, and it did indeed contain a large kitchen knife.

“It may seem kinky to you,” she said, “but at least I’m safe.”

He smiled a little sadly.

“You really think so?”

Her eyes flashed and she stepped towards him, trying to give him a scare by poking the point of the knife to within a foot or so of his chest.

“Yes!” she said.

She never did know exactly what had happened just after her “yes.” Instead of flinching away from the knife as she had expected, the Saint stepped aside and towards her with the fluid grace of a matador. She was not aware of what his hands were doing, but suddenly she was standing open-mouthed without her knife and he was holding it and regarding it as if it had been an interesting shell he had picked up on a beach.

“You really shouldn’t play with things like this,” he said gently. “It belongs in the kitchen, after all, along with grapefruit and women.”

Her teeth were set with fury, and suddenly without a sound she exploded and grabbed for his knife hand. He effortlessly evaded the lunge and caught her hard up against him, pinning her strong upper arms against her ribs.

“You are a vicious bird, aren’t you?” he chided.

“You’re a pig!” she spat.

Wishing to get free, she managed to raise her left hand almost to the level of his face. Just in time he realised that she was consciously doing something with her thumb to the inner part of a massive golden ring on her fourth finger. As her hand flexed he tilted his head aside and pushed her wrist away from him with his free hand.

In that instant there was a barely audible fizzle, and an almost microscopic quantity of some gaseous vapour puffed feebly from the centre of the heavily wrought metal of the ring, most of it into the girl’s own eyes.

“Curse!” she exploded.

Then she was coughing and squeezing her eyelids tightly shut, and tears were streaming down the freckled, milk-smooth skin of her cheeks.