Leslie Charteris - The Saint Around the World

“Gosh, this is a break, running into you here, Simon,” he said, still with that fixed and desperate grin. “If I could have picked anyone out of the whole world to run into now, I’d have asked for you.”

He looked up abruptly, and Simon looked up with him, as two other men loomed over them, crowding close to the table with unmistakable intent to be noticed.

“Oh,” Mr Usherdown said, as though he had momentarily forgotten them. “These are two friends of mine—”

The two men did not look like friends of anyone, except possibly some Middle Eastern Ali ben Capone. They were obviously Arabs of some kind and did not care who knew it, since although they wore conventional Western suits of fascinatingly inaccurate fit, with what appeared to be striped pajama tops taking the place of shirts and hanging gaily out below the hem-line of their coats, their heads were still shrouded in the traditional red-patterned cowls bound to their brows by what looked like two quoits of heavy black rope. But even making allowance for the fact that the typical seamed and aquiline Arab face, especially when bearded, has a cast of intolerant cruelty that only a Tuareg mother would have no misgivings about, the two specimens that Mr Usherdown introduced exuded less natural kindliness than any couple of their race that Simon had seen up to that date.

“This is Tâlib,” the little man said, indicating the taller and lankier of the two, whose suit was a couple of sizes too loose. “And Abdullah.” The other was shorter and broader, and his clothes were too tight. “This is Mr Templar, a very old friend of mine,” Mr Usherdown said, completing the introductions.

The two Arabs also sat down.

“I’m glad everyone’s so friendly,” murmured the Saint. “Who’s got the cards? Shall we cut for partners, Mortimer, or do you and I take these two on?”

‘Tâlib speaks English.” Usherdown warned him quickly.

“How you do?” said the tall lanky one, to prove it.

“Mr Templar is in the same business that I am,” Usherdown explained — or it was apparently intended for an explanation.

“Ah,” said Tâlib, with interest. “He is a hot dog, I bet.”

He leaned his elbows on the table with a solidity which not only underlined the impression that he was there to stay but added a certain air of possessiveness to his presence which spread out to include the Saint in its orbit.

Simon lighted a cigarette while he tried to make sure of his cue. Although Mr Usherdown had most of the conventional earmarks of a Milquetoast type, his current state of suppressed panic reached an almost psychopathic intensity. But Tâlib and Abdullah, for their part, had none of the reassuring air which might have been expected even of the local counterpart of the men in white coats. They were not actually as conspicuous as their description might sound to anyone who has not seen that cosmopolitan crossroads which shuffles together not merely the costumes and countenances of Europe and Arabia but also Afghans, Indians, Pakistanis, Burmese, Thailanders, Malays, Chinese, Japanese, and every sect and subdivision in between, in what is probably the maddest mixing-bowl of this airborne age; but the aura of self-confident menace about them was as internationally obvious as that of any two dead-pan goons in a gangster movie. Yet it seemed preposterous that they could reduce even such a mild-looking person as Mr Usherdown to something so close to quivering paralysis in such a crowded and brightly lighted modernism as the Cairo airport bar.

Simon glanced calculatingly around the swirling jabbering room, adding up a little knot of transient American GI’s, a trio of British officers identifiable even in mufti, and a couple of Egyptian policemen in uniform quietly studying everyone, and found it hard to believe that even such a frightened goblin as Mr Usherdown wouldn’t have dared to call the bluff of two goons who tried to crowd him in such a setting. But it was still a wild possibility that had to be methodically disposed of.

He estimated the extent of Tâlib’s idiomatic accomplishments with another blandly analytic glance, and said, “Spill it, Mortimer. Do you want me to clobber these fugitives from a road show of Beau Geste ?”

“Oh, no,” said the little man hastily. “Not on any account, please. Their religion doesn’t allow them to drink. But I’ll have a brandy, if I may.”

He was quite fast on the uptake, at any rate, or perhaps fear had lent wings to his wits as it might have to another man’s feet.

Simon stopped a passing waiter and relayed the order, along with another Peter Dawson for himself.

“What on earth are you doing here, Mort, old boy?” he asked, trying to offer another opening.

“I’ve just been up to Greece. For Hazel.”

“And how is the dear girl?”

“Who?” Mr Usherdown looked blank for a moment. “Oh, do you mean my wife? Violet?”

“Of course,” said the Saint. “How stupid of me. I knew the name was something vegetable.”

“She’s fine. I had to leave her in Qabat.”

“That’s too bad. Or is it? Does she know about Hazel?”

Light dawned at last on Mr Usherdown’s anxious face.

“Now I get it. You’re kidding. I was talking about hazel twigs .”

“Hazel Twiggs?” Simon repeated foggily. “I’m sorry, I still can’t seem to place her.”

“Stop pulling my leg, Simon,” pleaded the little man, with a nervous giggle. “You know what I’m talking about. Hazel twigs — for dowsing.”

“Nothing like ’em,” agreed the Saint accommodatingly. “Although I have heard that these new-fangled fire extinguishers—”

“People have tried a lot of new things,” said Mr Usherdown, with beads of perspiration standing out on his upper lip. “Down in Jamaica I’ve seen it done with branches of guava. I met a chap in South Africa who did it with a clock spring. And I’ve read about a fellow in California who uses a piece of bent-up aluminum. But I still say that for sound, consistent divining, there’s nothing to beat the old-fashioned hazel twig.”

It was Simon Templar’s turn to receive a glimmer of illumination as at least a part of the dialogue suddenly lost its resemblance to an excerpt from the Mad Hatter’s tea party and became startlingly rational and clear.

“I had to see if I could get a rise out of you, Mort,” he apologized. “But you didn’t even give me a chance to ask you ‘Witch Hazel?’  ”

Mr Usherdown cackled again with the giddiness of relief, and nudged Tâlib, whose piercing black eyes had been trying to follow the conversation from face to face like a tennis umpire watching a fast rally.

“Don’t let Mr Templar fool you. He’s one of the best dowsers in the business — perhaps even better than I am, and there’s no one else I’d say that about. But always making a joke of it, anything for a laugh.”

“I get you,” Tâlib said. “Very funny man. Very wise in cracks.”

He bared his teeth in what was doubtless meant to be an appreciative grin, and succeeded in looking almost as jovial as a half-starved wolf.

The arrival of the drinks, and the business of paying for them, gave the Saint a brief respite in which to digest the exiguous crumb of information which was all that he had to show for several minutes of mild delirium.

Mr Mortimer Usherdown, he had finally gathered, had a wife named Violet and was a water diviner by profession, and apparently wanted Simon Templar to pretend to be one too. But what this could have to do with Mr Usherdown’s life-and-death problem, or the scarcely disguised menace of the two Arabs, was a riddle that Simon preferred to spare himself the vertigo of attempting to guess.

He sipped his Peter Dawson, while Mr Usherdown took a large and evidently grateful gulp of brandy.