Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

Lieutenant Alvin Kearney of Chicago liked the Saint, admired him, respected him, envied him, and hated him with an inordinate bitterness that loaded stygian tints into his scowl as he rasped, “All right, wise guy, you tell me. What was the idea phoning me to meet you here tonight because there might be a riot?”

“I guess it was a form of stage fright,” said the Saint, with an aplomb which made Kearney feel as if he had two days’ growth of beard and a dirty neck. “I’m not very used to these personal appearances, and I felt nervous. You can’t tell what an audience like this might do, so I thought I should have some protection.”

What the detective thought would have been inaudible even in the volume of voice which his congested face portended, for at that moment Mrs Wingate’s vocal analysis of her heart attained a screeching fortissimo that almost scraped the paint off the walls.

As silence finally settled upon tortured eardrums, there was some perfunctory applause. It was rather nicely adjusted to show grateful appreciation without encouraging an encore. Since apparently the coffee and doughnuts would not be served until after the entertainment, the audience could not walk out, but it did not have to be hysterical.

Mrs Wingate panted and bowed twitteringly to the very last handclap, which naturally came from Stephen Elliott.

“Thank you, thank you, my dear friends... And now I see that our special guest of the evening has arrived, and I’m going to ask him to come up here and say a few words to you. It is a great privilege to be able to introduce — Mr Simon Templar.”

Simon stepped up on the platform to the resigned acclamation of the coffee-and-doughnuts claque. He raised Mrs Wingate’s ugly hand to his lips and ushered her off in giggling confusion. Then he made a sigh of dismissal to the piano player.

“I’m not going to sing,” he said.

While the accompanist withdrew, he waved cheerily to the gaping Lieutenant Kearney, and ran friendly blue eyes over the faces of the rest of the audience. A few of them looked like the respectable struggling poor, some were ordinary shiftless-down-and-outs; these would be bona fide beggars, helpless victims of the King’s racket; and undoubtedly there were others who worked directly for the King. Big Hazel Green was nowhere in evidence, but he saw Frankie Weiss sitting a few rows back from the dais.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and others,” Simon began. “Some of you may have heard of me. Some of you may not. I’m sometimes known as the Saint.”

He waited till the low, resultant buzz died down, and little dancing devils of mischief showed in his eyes.

“I won’t make a long speech,” he said. “I know you’re probably anxious to get at the refreshments. Anyway, I’m no good at speeches. I’d rather show you a few tricks which might come in useful, since it’s been brought to my attention that some of you have been victimised by unscrupulous extortionists, which is a polite name for some dirty racketeering rats.”

He ignored the dead silence that suddenly brimmed the room, and went blandly on:

“Now I’m sure it wouldn’t need Detective Lieutenant Kearney, who is also here with us tonight, to remind you that carrying concealed weapons is illegal. But it’s quite possible for a man to protect himself without carrying firearms. One good judo hold is often worth as much as a gun. So for the benefit of some of you who might want to defend yourselves one day, I thought I’d demonstrate a few for you. If I’m to show them properly, of course, I’ll need a volunteer to work with.”

There was no rush to volunteer. Mrs Wingate chirped brightly, “Come on, somebody!”

Stephen Elliott stood up and beamed around with vaguely schoolmasterish encouragement.

Simon pointed a finger.

“You. No, not you — I mean the gentleman with the moustache. You look able to defend yourself. How about giving me a hand?”

Frankie Weiss huddled deeper in his chair and shook his head.

“Oh, come now,” Simon insisted. “You never know when a little judo might come in handy. How do you know you won’t meet some goon with a gun one of these days? Here!”

He bounced down from the stage and hurried up the aisle. Frankie tried to ignore everything, but the Saint was as irresistible as a radio interviewer. His hand appeared to stroke lightly over Frankie’s arm and pause there. Only those in the immediate vicinity heard Frankie’s yelp of pain, immediately smothered by the Saint’s laughter.

“The man’s got muscle!” he announced jovially. “You’ll give me a fight, won’t you, my friend? Come on, don’t disappoint the audience.”

He practically yanked Frankie out of his chair and caught him in a hold that left the man completely helpless, his legs in the air and his neck imprisoned under the Saint’s arm.

“Just like that,” Simon proclaimed. “Let’s go up on the stage where the audience can enjoy it. We’ll try it again more slowly.”

He retraced his steps as resiliently as though he were not burdened with a tight-lipped, glaring assistant.

Lieutenant Kearney moved to get a better view. His face was a study in perplexed suspicion. Common sense told him that there was more in this than met the eye, but he couldn’t guess what it was; and Simon hoped the detective’s mind would continue, for a little while, to move slowly. He had his hands full with Frankie Weiss, who was struggling like a bear-cat and growling unprintable inarticulacies which were fortunately smothered in the Saint’s coat.

Laura Wingate gazed up in a glow of girlish eagerness, twisting her hands together in her overflowing lap. Stephen Elliott clung to a benign if somewhat nervous smile. The rest of the audience was divided between those who merely sensed a welcome variation in the schedule of innocent entertainment, those who derived personal gratification from the choice of the victim, and a smaller group of hard-featured hombres who seemed to be sweating out a purely private anguish of frustrated indecision.

“Let’s do it again,” Simon lectured, releasing his victim. “More slowly now. Watch!”

Frankie showed his teeth. He ducked away from the Saint, felt a long arm snake around his waist, and, turning swiftly, drove a vicious punch at Simon’s groin. The Saint evaded it easily.

“Fine!” he exclaimed. “That’s right. Fight me — make it look realistic. Now I’ll do it slowly.”

He did it slowly, and Frankie presently found himself involved in another excruciating posture from some manual of satanic yoga.

His mouth nearly touching Frankie’s ear, Simon breathed, “Where’s Monica Varing?”

“Let go of me! You goddam—”

“Shh! Lieutenant Kearney’s out in front, Frankie. Don’t give him any ideas.”

The Saint wrenched slightly, eliciting a howl of pain from Frankie, and brought him back to his feet with dislocating solicitude.

“Everyone get that?” he asked. “Now let’s try another one. This is harder.”

He collared Frankie and tied him in an even more complex knot.

“ What about Monica? ”

“You son of a — ”

“If you think I won’t break your arm,” the Saint whispered icily, “you’re crazy. I can say it was an accident. I can even break your neck.”

He proved this by applied pressure, with one hand gagging Frankie, though the audience could not see that.

It took three more holds, each a little more agonising than the last, with Frankie trying desperately to escape, while none of his putative allies dared lift a finger to help him because Kearney was watching.

“So we’ve got her. Let go!”