Leslie Charteris - The Saint Abroad

“I’ll have to take care of our patriot,” Simon said. “Cut the engine down and make a circle or something before we dock.”

He hurried below to the cabin, where Benson lay trussed on the floor. He stopped shouting and stared with open fear at the Saint.

“What are you going to do to me?” he whimpered. “Where are we?”

“You don’t happen to have any more chloroform among your stores, do you?” Simon asked him. “You used to be rather partial to it, I remember.”

Benson could only gape as Simon pulled out a knife and then did not use it on the thin man’s scrawny neck but on one of the bunk sheets.

“Open wide and take your medicine,” Simon said to him.

“What do you mean?” Benson quavered.

“Open your mouth,” Simon repeated harshly.

Benson opened, and the Saint shoved a generous wad of cloth into his mouth, then wrapped a long strip of the sheet around his head several times to cover his mouth.

“Now try to yell,” Simon said.

“Mmp!” grunted Benson unhappily.

The Saint tore a flyleaf out of a book from one of the shelves and wrote a brief message on it: “I am a bad man. Please hand me over to the police.”

He folded the note and tucked it into Benson’s shirt so that most of the paper would be plainly visible to anybody entering the cabin.

“I hope nobody will come and find you before Claud Eustace Teal can send somebody out to pick you up, but I can’t take you with me and I’m afraid Miss Mary wouldn’t approve of my throwing you overboard. You can wait for your pals in jail. Nighty-night.”

Simon left the cabin in darkness and rejoined Mary Bannerman at the helm.

“Now,” he said, “let’s bring her in.”

He steered the cruiser to the landing stage and skillfully brought her to rest without the slightest bump. Before the current could start to affect the craft he cut the power and made fast to shore. Three men — two with drinks in their hands — were already coming out of the cottage toward the river to see what was happening.

“Stay here, Mary, and just follow my lead,” he told her, and went to meet them.

“Come to join the party?” one of the men asked.

They were young, well-dressed, and obviously well along in the process of enjoying themselves. A girl came to the door of the cottage and looked out, sipping from a tall glass.

“We’re not party-crashing,” Simon said. “I’m afraid we have a bit of an emergency. My wife is ill and I must get her to our doctor in London. Could I use your phone to call a taxi?”

“Oh, the poor thing,” said the girl in the doorway. “We can’t let her just... pop off or something.”

“None of us here going to London,” mumbled one of the young men drunkenly.

“Would twenty pounds make the trip worth your trouble?” Simon asked.

The tipsy one who had spoken just before the girl was the first to answer.

“It jus’ happens I have to go London! It jus’ happens!”

“You’re not going anywhere,” one of his soberer companions said. Then he spoke to Simon. “Of course we’ll help. I’m the only one fit to drive. Is she really bad — your wife, I mean?”

“Not terribly, yet,” Simon answered. “It’s a sort of attack she gets sometimes, and only her own doctor knows what to do about it.”

He went back to get Mary, who made a face at him as he helped her out of the boat. She sagged against him as he walked with her toward the cottage.

“Now’s your chance to do some more acting,” he said under his breath. “Just moan in a spartan sort of way occasionally and don’t say anything. If anybody asks you questions just shake your head and close your eyes.”

The sober young man came to help.

“Shall we get right to the car or would she like to rest here first?” he asked.

“It’s best to go straight to town,” Simon answered. “If you have a telephone I’d like to make a call, though.”

“Go right ahead. It’s in the bedroom on the left. I’ll help your wife into the car.”

Simon made his way through the front door of the cottage and the girl who had come out to see him showed him to the telephone. He dialed Scotland Yard as soon as he was alone behind the closed door.

“Hullo,” he said when he received an answer. “This is Simon Templar... Yes... Exactly. I have a message for Inspector Teal... Yes... There’s a man named Jeff Peterson he’ll want to take into custody immediately because he’s a threat to the Prime Minister of Nagawiland — Prime Minister Liskard. Do you have that clear?”

The functionary at the other end of the line had it clearly enough, but he was skeptical.

“Just get the message to Teal and make sure he knows who sent it,” said the Saint. “Peterson should be at the flat of a Mary Bannerman in Chelsea. You can get her address from the directory. It’s very urgent. Secondly, I’ve another present for him out here — wait just a minute.”

He put down the phone and went to the door of the bedroom.

“Where are we, please?” he asked the girl in the adjoining living room.

“Forty-eight Meadow Road.”

Simon went back to the phone and gave the address.

“It’s somewhere between Bray and Windsor on the south bank of the Thames,” he said. “If you’ll have some men sent out you’ll find one of Peterson’s cronies tied up in the cabin of a boat just in front of the cottage.”

“And how did all this happen?” the Scotland Yard man asked.

“I don’t have time to talk now. I’ll tell Teal later.”

He left the phone and hurried out to the car.

“I’ll sit in back and let her stretch out with her head in my lap,” Simon said. “And if you don’t mind it would be best if we don’t talk. Here’s your twenty pounds.”

The young man protested, but took the money. Then, as Simon cradled Mary’s head and comforted her, the driver pulled his sports sedan into the road and aimed it toward London.

Less than an hour later they pulled up to the entrance of Nagawi House. The pickets had exhausted their zeal and gone home; the gate was closed, and a lone uniformed guard spoke through its bars when Simon got out of the car.

“Have you any sort of official pass?” he asked.

“We’re coming to the party,” Simon said.

The driver of the car, meanwhile, gaped as Mary Bannerman sat up, blinked her eyes brightly, and stepped out on to the sidewalk next to the Saint.

“The party’s over long since,” the guard said.

“As a matter of fact it’s urgent business,” Simon told him. “The Prime Minister knows me. I have information he’ll want immediately.”

“Have you telephoned for an appointment?” the guard asked.

Mary Bannerman began quietly explaining some of the true situation to the driver of the car.

“I have a very particular reason for not telephoning,” Simon said. “And I’m sure Prime Minister Liskard doesn’t make appointments in the middle of the night.”

“I know he doesn’t. You’d best come back tomorrow.”

“I’m telling you it’s urgent,” Simon said angrily. “The Prime Minister’s life literally may depend on it.”

Only then did the guard look particularly interested.

“I’ll call his secretary, then,” he said.

“No,” Simon insisted.

“Why not? I’ll do it now.”

Simon looked desperately toward the lighted windows on the ground floor of the big house. Behind him the driver of the car was saying a puzzled good night. He turned his car back in the direction from which he had come and drove away.

The sound of a shot cracked out through the night from one of the rooms of Nagawi House. The guard stiffened and then started running toward the front door. Lights flashed on inside the house. Simon grabbed Mary’s hand and hurried with her around the corner of the wall away from the gate.