Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Pursuit

He could not afford to stop his car too near the cemetery gate. He cut its lights and coasted to a stop as near the entrance as he dared. Running the rest of the way to the memorial would have been the most efficient but not the safest course. He could risk a sprint only as far as the gate. Then, avoiding the noisy gravel paths in favor of the damp grass, he walked unerringly through the dark maze of tombstones towards the German shrine.

When he came within sight of it he saw something that brought him to an abrupt halt. Bent low in the darkness, he could make out the form of a woman on the ground and a man getting to his feet from beside her. The man was turning his attention to something else on the ground nearby, and the Saint, as stealthily silent as a Mohican, raced forward across the uneven turf.

A few yards behind the man he stopped, and then moved forward more slowly. When he was within striking distance, he cupped his hands to his mouth and gave a shout that might conceivably have caused some alarm even six feet below the graveyard’s surface.

“Boo!”

The object of his salutation gave an unrehearsed standing high jump that would have won the admiration of an Olympic coach. Simon made no move to attack. He stood with his hands on his hips as his victim scrambled for new footing that would let him see and face the threat that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The metal box the man had been holding when he was surprised had clattered to the ground. Now he was fumbling a weighted leather bludgeon out of his pocket as he stared around frantically for a way of escape. But the Saint, tall and confident in the darkness, had him with his back to the center of the concave memorial.

“Come now,” Simon said, “don’t you believe in ghosts? You can’t hurt me with that little bean-bag or anything else.”

His opponent was apparently the skeptical type. He squared off, raising his leather cosh threateningly.

“You’ll give yourself a heart attack if you don’t calm down,” the Saint cautioned. “Why don’t you put that thing away and tell me a few true ghost stories — such as how a zombie like you managed to get out of his crypt before Hallowe’en.”

In reply, the bludgeon lashed out, hissing in the air as its owner swung it at Simon’s head. The Saint, with an almost imperceptible leaning back and to one side, avoided the blow and let it whistle harmlessly past his chin.

“I warned you about ghosts,” he said.

The other man had thrown all his weight into the swing, and it was ridiculously easy for Simon to reach out, help his opponent to continue the motion beyond its intended limit, and hurl him off balance across an outstretched leg. The forced pirouette came to an abrupt and ungraceful conclusion when Simon’s flat stiffened hand chopped down like a guillotine on the back of his enemy’s neck and sent him sprawling unconscious on the paved path.

In the vacuum of silence that followed, Simon strode to the woman on the ground, knowing before he knelt and turned her face to the moonlight that it would be Vicky Kinian. His only immediate worry was whether she would be alive or not. With an eye out for any other night owls who might decide to crash the party, he turned the girl on to her back and reached for her wrist.

At first he could not find her pulse, and she was horribly white in the moonlight. Then, as he took a tentative new searching grip on her limp wrist she heaved a deep sigh and exhaled with the moan of a child having a bad dream.

“I guess you’ll live,” Simon murmured. “Though I can’t say you really deserve to.”

She could not have heard him, and he saw no need to rush her into consciousness. He lowered her head gently to the ground again and moved back to the man he had laid to temporary rest a short while before. Inside his jacket pocket was a Soviet passport, which Simon examined by the cupped light of a pencil flashlight.

“Mischa Ruspine,” the Saint read, and failed to fit either the name or the face into his private rogues gallery. “Mischa Ruspine of euphonious name, how do you fit into this Bald Mountain lawn-fête?”

Mischa, instead of answering, gave every indication of having sacked out for the night. Simon left him to go to the metal box that the other had flung to the ground in his moment of sudden terror. It had landed upside down and open. When the Saint lifted it, a single thin packet wrapped in oilcloth fell to the cement. There was nothing else in the container — not even a dust-particle of the chemical constituents of one Josef Meier whom the box’s name-plate advertised as resting therein.

Before the Saint could unfold the oilcloth, however, there were new signs of life from Vicky Kinian. She took several quick breaths, gave a little cry, and tried to sit up. Then she saw Simon’s face clearly in the moonlight.

“You!”

“Well, good evening,” he said soothingly. “Don’t look so scared. I’m not the guy who mugged you.”

She answered groggily.

“I... guess you weren’t. I saw him...” She suddenly was frightened. “Is he—”

“He’s still with us,” Simon told her, “but he’s had a visit from the Sandman and is now relaxing in relative peace. His name is Mischa Ruspine. Do you know him?”

With a helping arm from the Saint, Vicky sat up, propping herself with one hand.

“No,” she said. “Who is he?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, except that he hails from Moscow. You’re lucky to be alive, you know, playing around in dark places with characters like him. You must be more lucky than clever.”

As dazed as she was, she managed to put some fire into her voice.

“And you’re the most aggravating man I’ve ever had butting into my business. I’d be a lot luckier if I’d never seen you!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Simon returned calmly. “If I hadn’t surprised Mischa while he was glomming on to this, you might have been short one clue in your treasure hunt. Or is this the summum bonum we’ve all been cracking heads to get at?”

He held up the thin package that had fallen from the metal box.

“You give me that!” cried the girl.

Simon held it out of her reach, and when she tried to get to her feet dizziness overcame her and he had to help her back to the ground again.

“Easy, now,” he said. “Wait till you’re a bit stronger before you start getting rambunctious.”

“You’ll steal it,” she mumbled.

“So will you if I let you,” said Simon. “We can discuss ethics in a better place than this, though. Take a few deep breaths and let’s get out of here, as they say at least once in every television show.”

While she recovered from her vertigo he reached for the metal box which had held the oilcloth packet and made sure there was nothing else in it, nor any markings in its interior. Then he closed the lid and put the little casket reverently back in its place on the shrine’s upper shelf.

“Alas, poor Josef! I never knew him well, and I suspect he was strictly an imaginary refugee. It would’ve been no problem to get permission to add another urn to the collection here.”

“What is it?” Vicky asked anxiously. “What’s in the package?”

“Something very light,” Simon informed her carelessly. “And knowing your father, probably something absolutely useless, like an envelope full of coded nursery rhymes giving complete instructions for finding the Matterhorn.”

“I don’t think that’s funny.”

“I do,” Simon said unblushingly. “Let’s see just what dear old dad really is up to next — back at the hotel. I’d like to get moving before Mischa wakes up or somebody else comes along.”

He helped her to her feet and supported her at his side as they walked slowly back to the cemetery gate and his car.