Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

There was silence for a moment. All he could see in the sunlit portion of the room visible to him was a huge fireplace and a corner of a desk... Then from within came a challenge in an accent that was unmistakable.

“Well?” Dr Spangler barked impatiently. “Come in!”

The Saint stood there a moment, looking into the triangle of the interior visible to him, estimating his chances of meeting a blast of gunfire if he showed himself. In the two seconds that he stood there, weighing the odds, he also realised that an unexpected diversion had taken place. What it was he didn’t know. But it did lend some excuse for hoping his presence might yet be miraculously undiscovered... It was a flimsy enough hope, but he decided to gamble on it. He signalled Hoppy to stay back and cover him as best he could, and stepped into the room.

Doc Spangler was seated at the desk, leaning forward, his arms on the desk, staring at him. Beyond him in a corner of the big room was Karl, down on one knee beside the prostrate body of a man whose head was concealed by the squat body of Spangler’s ursine lieutenant. There was a gun in his hand, pointed at the Saint from his hip, as if he had been interrupted in his examination of the man he had apparently just shot.

For one second it was quite a skin-prickling tableau, and then Simon took a quick step to one side which placed Spangler’s body between him and Karl’s gun muzzle.

“Better tell your baboon to lay his gun on the floor, Doc,” he suggested, and his smile was wired for sudden destruction. “You might get hurt.”

Spangler half turned in his swivel chair toward Karl.

“You imbecile!” he spat, his usual fat complacency temporarily disconnected. “I told you to put up that gun! It’s gotten me into enough trouble for one day. Put it on the floor as he says.”

Karl laid the gun down slowly, grudgingly, glooming balefully past Spangler at the Saint.

“Thank you,” said the Saint. “Now get up and stand away.” Karl rose to his feet slowly and shuffled aside as the Saint stepped around the desk and came to a startled halt. He was looking down incredulously at the face of the man lying on the floor. One side of it was caked with blood and the hair was red with it, but that presented no obstacle to recognising the owner. It was Whitey Mullins.

Mr Uniatz’s heavy breathing reverberated in Simon’s ear.

“Dey got Whitey!” His head jerked up suddenly at Karl and Spangler, his gun lifting. “Whitey was me pal!” he snarled. “Why you—”

Simon stopped him.

“Don’t shoot the Doc — yet. Whitey may need him.” The Saint’s eyes were cold blue chips. “Let’s have the score, Spangler, and make it fast.”

“He isn’t dead,” wheezed the fat man damply. “It’s only a graze. He brought it on himself, coming here to my home to assault me. Karl had to stop him, but he didn’t hurt him much. You can see that for yourself. The bullet just grazed his scalp and went into the wall there — see?”

He pointed a plump finger to a hole in the wall above Mr Mullins’s prostrate form.

Whitey moaned and opened his eyes.

“Saint!” he mumbled feverishly.

Simon pocketed his automatic and bent over him.

“Take it easy, Whitey. It’s okay.” He went on without turning his head, “Doc, I’ll bet you a case of Old Forester that Karl doesn’t live to draw that gun he’s trying to sneak out of his pocket.”

“Eh?” Spangler grunted blankly.

Hoppy’s attention flashed back to the danger on hand, swivelling his gun to the thug’s belly. One of Karl’s hairy paws had already dipped halfway into a coat pocket.

“Reach!” Mr Uniatz rasped.

“Hands empty, please,” Simon smiled pleasantly over his shoulder.

The squat gunman slowly dragged his hand out of his pocket and raised both arms over his head.

Simon stepped over to him and extracted a Colt automatic from his pocket. Then he proceeded to run his hands with expert deftness down Karl’s sides, under his arms, inside his thighs, and along his back. He patted his sleeves, paused, and plucked another gun from inside one of the gunman’s cuffs. It looked like a toy, no larger than a magnified watch charm, but it held a.22-caliber shell in its chamber.

“Forgive me for underestimating you, comrade,” he said. “You’re a walking arsenal, aren’t you?”

He pulled what seemed to be a fountain-pen from Karl’s breast pocket and examined it briefly. He chuckled, pushing Karl so that he stumbled backwards. Simultaneously, Simon exploded a capsule of tear gas from one end of the “fountain-pen” squarely into the gangster’s nose. Karl clutched his face with both hands and reeled halfway across the room, tripping over a chair and crashing to the floor.

“That stuff spreads!” Spangler gasped. “We’ll all get it—”

“Take it easy,” said the Saint. “The windows are open, and there isn’t enough in one of those pills to do much harm unless it’s shot straight at you.”

“What do you want?” Spangler demanded, a glisten of panic in his eyes. “Why did you come here?” He looked down at Whitey as the trainer gripped the edge of the desk for support and pulled himself to his feet with Hoppy’s quick aid. Spangler pointed at him, his eyes narrowing. “I understand. You’re working for him now!”

Simon lighted a cigarette.

“Don’t confuse yourself, Doc. Hoppy and I represent our own business only — the Happy Dreams Shroud and Casket Company. I’m sorry we weren’t able to accommodate your boy Karl last night. We’d have liked to give him a fitting, but he was in such a hurry...”

He glanced at Karl who, on all fours, was crawling blindly toward the door.

A leer of gargoyle delight transfigured Hoppy’s features as he observed the proffered target. He took three steps across the room and, with somewhat better form than the previous night, launched a thunderous drop kick that caught the unfortunate thug squarely, lifting his entire body off the floor in a soaring ballotade, and dropped him sprawling in a corner.

Spangler stared fascinated at his limp cohort, and then again at Hoppy. His gaze swung uncertainly back to the Saint. He cleared his throat.

“I fail to comprehend,” he began, with an attempt to regain his habitual pomposity, “why you should—”

“I’m quite sure you do comprehend,” the Saint broke in suavely, “why I should resent your sending that goon over to my apartment last night to kill me.”

Spangler opened and shut his mouth like a frog.

“ I sent him to your apartment?” he said in shocked tones.

“You hoid him! “ Hoppy growled.

“But my dear boy, I did no such thing!” Doc Spangler plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his shining pink brow. He frowned at Karl, who was beginning to stir again in the corner. “If he took it upon himself to... uh... visit you last night, it must have been a matter of personal inspiration. I had nothing to do with it, believe me.”

“Strangely enough,” said the Saint surprisingly, “I do.”

“He’s lying,” Whitey grated fiercely. “He was gonna knock me off if you hadn’t come when ya did.”

“That’s entirely untrue,” Spangler said. “Mullins forced his way in here; he was abusive and threatening, and when he tried to attack me physically Karl had to fire a shot in my defence.”

“However,” the Saint continued, “a repeat performance was staged less than an hour ago near Sixth Avenue, with three characters and a black sedan taking the chief roles in another attempt to reunite Hoppy and me with our illustrious ancestors.”

“I assure you, sir, that I—”

“Excuse me,” the Saint interrupted. “I’m willing to believe that Karl might attempt a solo mission on account of the kicking around we gave him in the dressing-room, but there were three men in the second try. I’m rather certain the driver was Karl. He might have done that to grind a private axe, but the other two must have had other inducements, Doc, old boy. Inducements supplied by you, perhaps.”