Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

“Who done it?” Mr Uniatz asked once more, his neanderthaloid countenance still furrowed with the remnants of rage.

The Saint grinned as he swung the convertible around a corner.

“Never mind, Hoppy,” he said. “It helps to tone down the pattern... Anyway, all I saw was two gentlemen with handkerchiefs over their faces in a black sedan with no rear licence plate.”

Hoppy scowled.

“I seen dat too,” he grumbled. “What I wanna know is, who wuz dey?”

“Did you notice the outside hand of the fellow driving the car? It flashed in the sun.”

Mr Uniatz blinked.

“Huh?”

“He was wearing a lot of finger jewellery.”

“Finger jewellery?”

“Rings — large flashy rings.”

For a long moment Hoppy strove painfully to determine the relation of the driver’s digital ornamentation to his identity.

“Ya can’t never tell about pansies,” he concluded despondently.

The car swung east to Fifth Avenue and then south, moving leisurely with the traffic.

The Saint was in no hurry. He wanted a breathing spell to summarise the situation.

So far, two attempts had been made to murder him since the affair in the dressing-room the previous night. An emotional thug might have found the Saint’s insolence sufficiently provocative to inspire an urgent desire for his death; and certainly a blow in the solar plexus would be regarded in some circles as an act of war, and worthy of an act of reprisal. But somehow the Saint could not conceive of Dr Spangler, even with that kind of provocation, taking the risk of a murder charge. For Spangler was neither emotional nor reckless. He was an operator who had learned from experience to be thrifty of risks, to allow as much a margin of safety as possible to every enterprise. An attempt to bribe Nelson was in line with that, but the only motive Spangler was likely to consider strong enough to justify an attempt at murder would be the fear that the Saint’s interference might affect the Angel’s chance of taking the title.

Would Spangler, even with a guilty conscience, have taken alarm so precipitately? Would he be afraid, on such scanty evidence, that the Saint had discovered the secret of the Angel’s victories?... For that matter, was there any secret more sinister than common chicanery and corruption? So far, he could only conjecture.

“And that,” said the Saint, “leaves us just one more call to make.”

“Who we gonna see now, boss?” asked Mr Uniatz, settling philosophically into the social whirl.

“That depends on who’s home.”

Simon swung the car towards Gramercy Park, and presently slowed down as he turned into a secluded side street lined with grey stone houses as conservatively old-fashioned in their way as the Riverside Drive brownstones were in theirs, but with a polished elegance that bespoke substantially higher rents.

“What home, boss?” Hoppy insisted practically.

The Saint peered at the numbers of the houses slipping by.

“Doc Spangler’s.”

Hoppy’s eyes became almost as wide as shoe buttons.

“Ya mean it’s de Doc what tries to gun us?”

“It was more likely one of the bad boys he chums around with,” said the Saint. “But he probably knew about it. Bad companions, Hoppy, are apt to get a man into trouble. Of course you wouldn’t know about that.”

“No, boss,” said Mr Uniatz seriously.

The Saint was starting to pull in towards one of the grey stone houses when he saw the other car. The rear licence plate was on now, but there was no doubt about the genesis of the neat hole with its radiation of tiny cracks that perforated the rear window. Simon pointed it out to Hoppy, as he kept the convertible rolling and parked it some twenty yards farther down the block.

“Chees,” Hoppy said in admiration, “I hit it right in de middle. Dey musta felt de breeze when it goes by.”

“I hope it gave them as bad a chill as theirs gave us,” said the Saint.

They walked back to the house and went up the broad stone steps and rang the bell. After a while the door opened a few inches. Simon leaned on it and opened it the rest of the way. It pushed back a long lean beanpole of a man with a sad horse face and dangling arms whose wrists stuck out nakedly from the cuffs of his sweater. And as he saw him, a gleam of recognition shot through the Saint’s memory.

The tall man’s recognition was a shade slower, perhaps because his faculties were slightly dulled by the surprise of feeling the door move into his chest. He exhaled abruptly, and staggered back, his long arms flying loosely as though dangling on strings. As he recovered his balance he took in Hoppy’s monstrous bulk, and then the slim supple figure of the Saint closing the door after him and leaning on it with the poised relaxation of a watchful cat, the gun in his hand held almost negligently... Slowly, the long bony wrists lifted in surrender.

The young pawnbroker’s description repeated itself in the Saint’s memory. Also he recalled Mike Grady’s office and a tall thin character among the loiterers in the reception. This was the same individual. The odyssey of the gun was beginning to show connections.

“Who are you, chum?” Simon asked, moving slightly towards him.

“I know him, boss,” Hoppy put in. “De name is Slim Mancini. He useta be a hot car hustler.”

“I work here,” the beanpole said in a whining nasal tenor that had a distinct equine quality about it. He sounded, the Saint thought, just like a horse. A sick horse. “I’m the butler,” Mancini added. He glanced back at a door down the hall and opened his mouth a fraction of a second before the Saint stepped behind him and clamped a hand over it.

“No announcements, please,” the Saint said, his other arm curving about Mancini’s neck like a band of flexible steel. “This is strictly formal. You understand, don’t you?”

The man nodded and gasped a lungful of air as the Saint removed the pressure on his throat.

“Slim Mancini — buttlin’!” Hoppy sneered hoarsely. “Dat’s a laugh.” He grunted suddenly as Simon jabbed a warning elbow into his stomach.

The muffled voices in the room down the hall had gone silent. “Walk ahead of us to that door,” the Saint whispered to Spangler’s cadaverous lackey, “and open it and go in. Don’t say anything. We’ll be right behind you. Go on.”

Mancini’s sad eyes suddenly widened as he stared over the Saint’s shoulder, apparently at something behind him.

Simon rather resented that. It implied a lack of respect for his experience, reading background, and common intelligence that was slightly insulting. However he was accommodating enough to start to turn and look in the indicated direction. It was only a token start, and he reversed it so quickly that Mancini’s hand was still inches from his shoulder holster when the Saint’s left exploded against his lantern jaw.

Simon caught the toppling body before it folded and lowered it noiselessly to the carpet.

Mr Uniatz kicked it carefully in the stomach for additional security.

“De noive of de guy,” he said. “Tryin’ a corny trick like dat. Whaddas he t’ink we are?”

“He’ll know better next time,” said the Saint. “But now I suppose we’ll have to open our own doors—”

Blam!

The stunning crash of a heavy-calibre pistol smashed against their eardrums and sent them diving to either side of the hallway.

The Saint lay there, gun at the ready, waiting. The shot had come from the room ahead, where they’d heard the voices, but he noticed that the door was still shut... Seconds passed... A weak moan, muffled by the closed door, punctuated the silence.

Simon signalled Hoppy with a lift of his chin, and they stood up again and advanced noiselessly. He motioned Hoppy back into the shadows as they reached the door. Then he turned the knob, kicked the door open, and stayed to one side, out of reach of possible fire.