Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Pursuit

“I’m delighted,” he said. “It is by far the best way to handle this business. I shall now escort you out the front door of the hotel, according to my instructions.”

“And into a waiting Black Maria supplied by the same firm that made your Swiss police identity card?” Simon asked.

“One must improvise.” Uzdanov shrugged. “We can take a taxi.”

“Where to?”

They were all on their feet now, and Uzdanov looked at his pocket watch.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We can think of a way to shake off anyone who is following me once we are out of the hotel.”

Simon shook his head.

“It might be easier if we take my car. It’s parked in front of the hotel already.”

“That would be even better,” said Uzdanov.

“Fine. Let’s get the chain gang on the road, then.”

The Saint opened the door of his room cautiously, saw that there was nobody in the hall, and motioned for Uzdanov and Vicky to go out ahead of him.

“You must go first,” Uzdanov said. “An arresting officer cannot walk in front of the parties he is arresting.”

“Quite right,” Simon assented reluctantly.

He put his arm around Vicky’s waist and ushered her into the corridor ahead of him.

“And how does an arrested party walk?” she whispered.

“With a worried expression,” he replied helpfully.

“I can guarantee that,” she said.

“There is no need to be nervous,” Uzdanov assured them. “I am the one who will end up with a lump on the head. It is better than a bullet in the back of the neck, which is what I would get if my idealistic and peace-loving comrades knew what I was doing.”

They had reached the elevator, which responded quickly to the Saint’s push of the down button. The cabin, like the corridor, was unoccupied, and the swift ride to ground level took place in silence.

“Now,” Simon said as the door slid open. “Look possessive, Detective Uzdanov, and Miss Kinian and I will look obedient.”

He took Vicky’s arm, and the two of them preceded the Russian across the lobby and through the main doors without attracting any attention among the few other people in the area. Outside, the sidewalk was deserted. The doorman had retired for the night, and the taxi drivers who earlier in the evening had waited in their cabs outside the hotel had now either gone off duty or moved to more lively parts of town.

“My car’s over there,” Simon said, taking Vicky’s arm.

“I don’t see anybody watching us,” she said in a low voice.

“In that doorway,” the Saint indicated, in a similar undertone.

Vicky’s eyes followed the direction of his glance and picked out the shadowy forms of two men, one in a beret, conversing on the steps of a building across the street.

“They don’t seem at all interested in us,” she said.

“And maybe they aren’t,” Simon conceded noncommittally. “But they may be a couple of little droplets in the Wave of the Future.”

They had reached his hired car.

“I will get in the back,” Uzdanov said. “I suggest that Mr Templar drive and you sit next to him, Miss Kinian.”

“Correct procedure again,” the Saint approved.

A moment later they were all inside the car.

“So far so good?” Vicky asked.

Uzdanov darted a look in the direction of the men in the doorway.

“Yes,” he said. “It should look as if I have been able to follow my instructions exactly. This, of course, is how we would sit if I were trying to control two possibly dangerous prisoners.”

“A thoroughly professional job, up to this point,” the Saint said. “Now what?”

“Drive,” Uzdanov suggested simply.

Simon started the engine.

“I don’t suppose anybody cares which way I go?” he inquired.

“How about Iowa?” Vicky proposed with a nervous shiver.

“Straight ahead,” Uzdanov said. “We must make it appear that we are going to the rendezvous where I was told to bring you.”

“Clear enough,” said Simon. “Straight ahead it is.”

He put the car into gear and accelerated away from the curb. He was so quickly out of the circle in front of the Hotel Portal that he had no chance to see whether the ostensible loafers in the doorway had moved or not.

“Which of your nursemaids is likely to follow us?” he asked.

“I would like to know that myself,” Uzdanov answered.

He was leaning forward, looking between Vicky and Simon at the road ahead.

“If I keep on going straight ahead well end up in the lake,” the Saint said mildly. “Are your pals in a submarine?”

“Turn left at the next corner,” Uzdanov said humourlessly. “Then take the next fork on the left and follow that road for some time.”

Simon obeyed the instructions. They merged into a major thoroughfare leading out of town, but at that hour of the night there was little concentrated traffic, and as far as he could tell in the rear-view mirror there were no cars within a hundred yards or more behind him.

“Your chums don’t seem to be very efficient,” he remarked to the Russian in the back seat.

“How do you mean?” Uzdanov asked.

“That was the easiest job of losing a tail I’ve ever been through.”

Uzdanov turned and studied the road through the back window.

“Perhaps we have lost them. Perhaps not. Perhaps they are now satisfied that we are going to the place where I was ordered to take you. In any case, I would never underestimate them. By letting a man know that he may be watched all the time they can afford to cut corners occasionally and let fear do the job for them.”

“It does save on petrol,” Simon acknowledged. “What now?”

“Continue,” said Uzdanov.

After another eight or ten minutes, while he was still turned away from the front seat of the car pretending to watch the road for followers, he surreptitiously closed the strong short fingers of his right hand around the curved handle of his cane and gave it a twist. With an almost imperceptible click it loosened, and with deliberate precaution against any rasp of metal he drew the handle away from the cane. The slim metal shaft of the hidden dagger emerged, inch by inch, its polished steel flaring in the light of street lamps passing overhead.

Vicky Kinian suddenly turned and looked back over her shoulder, and Uzdanov hunched to hide the detached dagger below the back of the front seat.

“Is there anybody behind us that you can see?” she asked.

To Uzdanov’s relief she was looking past his head and through the rear window at the road, where traffic was becoming more and more sparse as the Volkswagen moved out of the city towards the hill country to the northeast.

“I see nobody,” Uzdanov said. He pretended to scrutinize the receding highway, all the while huddling over the hollow and the lethal halves of his cane. “I think we can assume we are alone. In a minute we will make another turn.”

Vicky faced front again.

“Now all we have to do is think of how we overpower you,” she said.

Uzdanov turned forward.

“That will not be a problem,” he said comfortably. He raised his needle-pointed stiletto to the level of the nape of Vicky’s neck. “I have changed my mind about being overpowered.”

“You will continue to obey my orders,” Uzdanov said, “or I shall be forced to cut Miss Kinian’s throat.”

He suddenly leaned a little farther forward, and Vicky screamed and automatically jerked away from the point of the knife that touched her neck, shrinking against the door on her side. The Saint, steering a small car that was zipping along a dark highway at seventy miles an hour, could only continue to keep a steady hold on the wheel and try desperately from the corners of his eyes to see what was happening beside and behind him.