Leslie Charteris - Saint Errant

“Thanks for the tip, chum,” he said gravely. “I just happened to pick her up in a restaurant, and she looked like fun. It only shows you, a guy can’t be too careful. Why, she might have stolen something from me!”

The detective made a noise something like a cement mixer choking on a rock.

“What you’d better do is get it through your head that you aren’t getting away with anything in this town. This is one caper that’s licked before it starts. You’re washed up, Saint, so get smart while you’ve got time.”

Simon nodded.

“I’ll certainly tell the girl we can’t go on seeing each other. A man in my position—”

“A man in your position,” Wendel said, “ought to pack his bags and be out of town tomorrow while he has the chance.”

“I’ll think that over,” Simon said seriously. “Are you free for dinner again tonight? — we might make it a farewell feast.”

He was not surprised that the offer was discourteously rejected, and went on to the bar with plenty to occupy his mind.

One question was whether Wendel would be most likely to challenge Jeannine Roger openly, as he had challenged the Saint, or whether in the slightly different circumstances he would try to expose her to Lady Offchurch, or whether he would pull out of the warning business altogether and go out for blood.

The other question was whether Jeannine knew the score already, and what was brewing in her own elusive mind.

At any rate, he had nothing to lose now by going openly to the Bienville, and he deliberately did that, after a leisured savoring of oysters Rockefeller and gumbo filé at Antoine’s, while the young officer who was following him worried over a bowl of onion soup and his expense account. The same shadow almost gave him a personal escort into the courtyard off St Ann Street, and Simon thought it only polite to turn back and wave to him as he went up the outside stairs to Number 27.

From the window, he watched the shadow confer with another shape that emerged from an obscure recess of the patio. Then after a while the shadow went away, but the established watcher sidled back into his nook and stayed.

Simon crossed the living room and peered down from a curtained window on the other side. The back overlooked an alley which was more black than dark, so that it was some time before the glimmering movement of a luminous wrist-watch dial betrayed the whereabouts of the sentinel who lurked patiently there among the garbage cans.

Simon put on the kitchen lights and inspected his casserole. He added a little more wine, lighted the oven, and put the dish in. He hummed a gentle tune to himself as he poured a drink in the dinette and settled down in the living room to wait.

The apartment was very effectively covered — so effectively that only a mouse could possibly have entered or left it unobserved. So effectively that it had all the uncomfortable earmarks of a trap...

The question now was — what was the trap set for, and how did it work?

It was a quarter to midnight when the girl came in. He heard her quick feet on the stone steps outside, but he only moved to refill his glass while her key was turning in the lock. She came in like a light spring breeze that brought subtler scents than magnolia with it.

“Hullo,” she said, and it seemed to him that her voice was very gay. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“Just long enough. There’s a bolt on the inside of the door — you’d better use it,” he said, without looking up. He heard the bolt slam, after a pause of stillness, and turned with an extra glass in his other hand. “Here’s your nightcap, baby. You may need it.”

He thought of a foolish phrase as he looked at her — “with the wind and the rain in your hair.” Of course there was no rain, and her hair was only just enough out of trim to be interesting, but she had that kind of young, excited look, with her cheeks faintly freshened by the night and her gray eyes bright and arrested. The incongruity of it hurt him, and he said brusquely, “We don’t have any time to waste, so don’t let’s waste it.”

“What’s happened?”

“The joint is pinched,” he said bluntly. “The Gestapo didn’t stop at me — they checked on you too, since you were Lady Offchurch’s mysterious pal, and they know all about you. Wendel told me. They’ve got both sides of the building covered. Look out the windows if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” she said slowly. “But — why?”

“Because Wendel means to catch somebody with the goods on them.”

It was only an involuntary and static reaction, the whitening of her knuckles on the hand that held her purse, but it was all he needed. He said, “You had the imitation necklace today. You pulled the switch tonight. You made a deal, but you kept your fingers crossed.”

“No,” she said.

Now there were heavy feet stumping methodically up the stairway outside.

“You were followed every inch of the way back. They know you haven’t ditched the stuff. They know it has to be here, and they know you can’t get it out. What are you going to do — throw it out of a window? There’s a man watching on both sides. Hide it? They may have to tear the joint to shreds, but they’ll find it. They’ve got you cold.”

“No,” she said, and her face was haggard with guilt.

A fist pounded on the door.

“All right, darling,” said the Saint. “You had your chance. Give me your bag.”

“No.”

The fist pounded again.

“You fool,” he said savagely, in a voice that reached no further than her ears. “What do you think that skin we love to touch would be like after ten years in the pen?”

He took the purse from her hand and said, “Open the door.” Then he went into the kitchen.

Lieutenant Wendel made his entrance with the ponderous elaboration of a man who knew that he had the last ounce of authority behind him and nothing on earth to hurry for. Certainty smoothed down the buzz-saw edges of his voice and invested him with the steam-roller impermeability of an entire government bureau on two feet.

“I’m from the Police Department, Miss Roger. I’m sure Mr Templar has told you about me. I’ve come to trouble you for Lady Offchurch’s pearl necklace.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Of course not.” His confidence was almost paternal. “However, it hasn’t gone out by the front since you came in, and I don’t think it’s gone out by the back. We’ll just make sure.”

He crossed the room heavily, opened a window, and whistled.

This was the moment that Simon Templar chose to come back.

“Why, hullo, Lieutenant,” he murmured genially. “What are you doing — rehearsing Romeo and Juliet for the Police Follies?”

Wendel waved to the night and turned back from the window.

“Ah, there you are, Mr Templar. I knew you were here, of course.” His eyes fastened on the purse that swung negligently in Simon’s hand. “This may save us a lot of trouble — excuse me.”

He grabbed the bag away, sprung the catch, and spilled the contents clattering on the dining table.

After a few seconds the Saint said, “Would anyone mind telling me what this is all about?”

“All right,” Wendel said grimly. “Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“You know what I’m talking about. The necklace.”

“The last time I saw it,” Jeannine Roger said, “it was on Lady Offchurch’s neck.”

The detective set his jaw.

“I work regular hours, Miss Roger, and I don’t want to be kept up all night. I may as well tell you that I talked to Lady Offchurch before you met her this evening. I arranged for her to give one of my men a signal if you had been suspiciously anxious to handle the necklace at any time while you were together. She gave that signal when she said good night to you. That gives me grounds to believe that while you were handling the necklace you exchanged it for a substitute. I think the original is in this apartment now, and if it is, we’ll find it. Now if one of you hands it over and saves me a lot of trouble, I mightn’t feel quite so tough as if I had to work for it.”