Leslie Charteris - Saint Errant

He went outside. Through the dusky stillness the far-off unseen feet pounded nearer.

The feet were four. The men, with mathematical logic, two. One might be a jockey, the other a weight lifter. They tore out of the forest and confronted the Saint.

“Did you see a kind of big dopey-lookin’ lug?” the jockey asked.

The Saint pointed to the other side of the clearing where the hill pitched down.

“He went that way — in a hell of a rush.”

“Thanks, pal.”

They were off, hot on the imaginary trail, and the sounds of their passage soon faded. The Saint went inside.

“They’ll be back,” he said. “But meanwhile we can clear up a few points. Could you down a brace of trout? They’ve probably cooled enough to eat.”

“What do you mean, they’ll be back?”

“It’s inevitable,” Simon pointed out as he put coffee on, set the table, and gathered cutlery. “They won’t find you. They want to find you. So they’ll be back with questions. Since those questions will be directed at me, I’d like to know what not to answer.”

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” the Saint countered.

“I’m — oh, blast it to hell and goddam. The guy you’re looking at is Big Bill Holbrook. But he’s only something I dreamed up. I’m really Andrew Faulks, and I’m asleep in Glendale, California.”

“And I am the queen of Rumania.”

“Sure, I know. You don’t believe it. Who would? But since you’ve got me out of a tight spot for the time being, I’d like to tell you what I’ve never told anybody. But who am I telling?”

“I’m Simon Templar,” said the Saint, and waited for a reaction.

“No!” Holbrook-Faulks breathed. “The Saint! What beautiful, wonderful luck. And isn’t it just like a bank clerk to work the Saint into his dream?” He paused for breath. “The Robin Hood of Modern Crime, the twentieth century’s brightest buccaneer, the devil with dames, the headache of cops and crooks alike. What a sixteen-cylinder dream this is.”

“Your alliterative encomia,” the Saint murmured, “leave me as awed as your inference. Don’t you think you’d better give out with this — er — bedtime story? Before that unholy pair return with gun-lined question marks?”

The strange man rubbed his eyes in a dazed helpless way.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he said conventionally.

But after a while, haltingly, he tried.

Andrew Faulks, in the normal course of events, weathered the slingshots and arrows of outrageous playmates and grew up to be a man.

As men will, he fixed his heart and eyes on a girl and eventually married her. As woman will, she gave birth in due course to a boy, Andy Jr, and later a girl, Alexandria.

He became a bank clerk, and went to and from home on an immutable schedule. He got an occasional raise; he was bawled out at times by the head teller; he became a company man, a white-collar worker, and developed all the political ills that white-collared flesh is heir to. And he dreamed. Literally.

This was what Big Bill Holbrook told the Saint in the mountain cabin to which Simon had retired to await the blowing over of a rather embarrassing situation which involved items duly registered on police records.

“In the first dream, I was coming out of this hotel, see. And whammo! Bumping into her woke me — Oh, the hell with it. Whoever was dreaming woke up, but it was me bumped into her. And I was sorry as hell, because, brother, she was something.”

Some two weeks later, Big Bill said, he bumped into her again. The dream started exactly as its predecessor, progressed exactly to the point of collision.

“But I didn’t awaken this time. We each apologized all over the place and somehow we were walking along together. Just as I was about to ask her to have dinner, I woke up again.”

“Or Andy did,” the Saint supplied.

“Yeah. Whoever. Now this is what happened. Every ten days or two weeks, I’d be back in this dream, starting out of the hotel, crashing into her, walking along, having dinner, getting to know her better each dream. Each one started exactly the same, but each one went a little further into her life. It was like reading the same book over and over, always starting back at the beginning, but getting one chapter further every time. I got so used to it that I’d say to myself, ‘This is where I woke up last time,’ and then after the dream had gone on a bit further I’d begin to think, ‘Well, I guess this must be getting near the end of another installment,’ and sure enough, about that time I’d wake up again.”

The accidental encounter began to develop sinister ramifications, picked up unsavory characters, and put Big Bill Holbrook in the role of a Robin Hood.

“Or a Saint,” he amended, “rescuing a beautiful dame from a bunch of lugs.”

And there was, of course, the jewel.

It had a history. The fire opal, which seemed to be eternal yet living beauty, had carved upon it the likeness of Dawn’s great-great-grandmother, of whom the girl was the living image.

The talented Oriental craftsman who had chiseled those features which were the essence of beauty — that wily fellow had breathed upon the cameo gem a curse.

The curse: It must not get out of the possession of the family — or else.

Death, deprivation, and a myriad other unpleasantries were predicted if the stone fell into alien hands.

The name of Selden Appopoulis sort of slithered into the tale. This was a fat man, a lecherous fat man, a greedy fat man, who wanted — not loved — Dawn, and who wanted — and loved — the cameo opal. In some fashion that was not exactly clear to the Saint, the fat man was in a position to put a financial squeeze on her. In each succeeding dream of Andrew Faulks, Glendale bank clerk, Dawn’s position became more and more untenable. In desperation she finally agreed to turn the jewel over to Appopoulis. The fat man sent for the jewel by the two henchmen whom the Saint had directed off into the Holbrook-bare woods.

“Now in this dream — this here now dream,” Holbrook said, “I took it away from him, see? Andy Faulks went to sleep in Glendale Saturday night and — say, what day is it now?”

“Tuesday.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it seems to me too. And that’s funny. If you’re really part of this dream you’d naturally think it was Tuesday, because your time and my time would be the same. But you don’t seem like part of a dream. I pinched you and — oh, nuts, I’m all mixed up.”

“Let’s try and be clear about this,” said the Saint patiently. “You know that it’s Tuesday here, but you think you’re dreaming all this in Glendale on Saturday night.”

“I don’t know,” said the other wearily. “You see, I never dreamed more than one day at a stretch before. But tonight it’s been going on and on. It’s gone way past the time when I ought to have woken up. But I don’t seem to be able to wake up. I’ve tried... My God, suppose I don’t wake up! Suppose I never can wake up? Suppose I never can get back, and I have to go on and on with this, being Big Bill Holbrook—”

“You could take a trip to Glendale,” Simon suggested gravely, “and try waking Faulks up.”

Holbrook-Faulks stared at him with oddly unfocused eyes.

“I can’t,” he said huskily. “I thought of that — once. But I couldn’t make myself do it. I... I’m scared... of what I might find... Suppose—”

He broke off, his pupils dilated with the formless horror of a glimpse of something that no mind could conceive.

Simon roused him again, gently: “So you took the jewel—”

Holbrook snapped out of his reverie.

“Yeah, and I lammed out for this cabin. Dawn was supposed to meet me here. But I guess I can’t control all these characters. Say,” he asked suddenly, “who do you suppose I am? Faulks or Holbrook?”