Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

“At least,” Spangler agreed genially, “I know I can trust you .”

He bent over and signed the other cheque with a flourish and held them both out to Grady. “If you please, Mike.”

Grady took them reluctantly.

“Nothing would please me more,” Spangler gurgled, “than to have your cheque bounce, Mr Templar. I should enjoy sending you to jail for something like that. It would certainly look well in the newspapers.” He licked his lips as if already tasting the Saint’s ignominy. “ ‘Famous Adventurer Sentenced to a Year and a Day in County Hoosegow!’ ”

“That wouldn’t be nearly so embarrassing,” the Saint said imperturbably, “as twenty years in Sing Sing for second-degree murder. I don’t think you really wanted to kill Torpedo Smith. But nevertheless he died on account of you.”

Spangler’s jaw fell open. He started to speak.

“Now look here,” Grady tried again. “I don’t like this a bit, Saint. I just don’t want to be mixed up in any—”

“Just the same, you’re going to hold those bets,” said the Saint. “And you want me to drive you back to your office — now. Come along.”

“I warn you,” Spangler said bleakly, “that I shall hold both of you to the exact terms of that bet. If you try to welsh on it, the Betting Commissioner—”

“Your fadder’s moustache!” Mr Uniatz quoted delicately.

He spread a large horny hand over Spangler’s beefy face, and pushed with the force of a locomotive piston. Doc Spangler crashed backwards against his chair and toppled thunderously to the floor, chair and all. He was still lying there as Simon and Hoppy conducted Grady firmly out of the room and out of the house.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am,” the Saint said as they drove northward up Fifth Avenue, “to know that you’re not in cahoots with Spangler, Mike. That was the thing that bothered me most of all.”

“Thanks for the bill of health,” Grady responded caustically. “It’s that relieved I am.” He scowled. “But I can’t say I go for the high-handed way you have of ordering me about at the point of a gun!”

“Forgive me,” the Saint apologised, “but I couldn’t take any chances of being deprived of your company for lunch.”

“I got too many things to do, Saint. No time for lunch. Just get me back to the Arena as quick as you can.”

“It won’t take much time,” Simon smiled dreamily. “I’ve got a table at the Brevoort...”

Grady frowned. “Well — I’ll see if I can make it.”

They parked in front of the Arena and Simon accompanied Grady inside to his office.

The girl at the switchboard called out as they entered Mike’s office, “There’s been several calls from your daughter, Mr Grady, and from Mr Mullins...”

“Okay,” Grady grunted, and picked up the stack of letters and messages piled upon his desk. “Wonder what Whitey Mullins wants,” he muttered, thumbing through the sheaf. “According to this pile of call notes, he’s phoned about six times.”

The telephone rang. Grady lifted the receiver.

“Who?... Okay, put him on... Hello, Whitey?...” Mike Grady suddenly stiffened as he listened. He paled visibly and for a few seconds listened in silence. Presently he asked, “In the Saint’s apartment? What was he doing there?... Yes, of course. I’ll be down as soon as I possibly can.”

He hung up and turned to the Saint.

“Steve Nelson has been shot,” he said. “In your apartment.”

The Saint’s whole being seemed to stand still in the same timeless stasis that affected the expansion of his ribs.

“Karl,” he said slowly and bitterly. “Waiting for me in my apartment...”

Grady looked stupidly at him.

“No... At least Whitey says the police don’t think it was anyone layin’ for you at your place. Whoever did it they think was waitin’ for you on the roof of the apartment house across the street. There’s a bullet hole in the window of the room where Connie found him.”

“Connie?” the Saint repeated, knowing even as he said it how it must have happened.

“She was waiting for him in the car while he went up to your place to leave his things. He was going to stay with you, wasn’t he?”

Simon nodded.

“Where is he?”

“Bellevue. They got the bullet out of him. Whitey says they think he’s got a fifty-fifty chance.” Grady’s face furrowed with pain. “The poor kid... He’s a helluva fine boy, Saint. I’ve just been a damn fool, and that’s a fact!”

He glared at Simon defensively.

“Listen, Mike.” The Saint gripped his arm. “Whoever did it must’ve thought it was me. It could only have been one of Spangler’s men. It was my fault that this happened.”

“But why should Spangler want to do you in?”

“He’s afraid that I’ll find out what he’s been up to. I started the whole thing by butting in after the Torpedo Smith fight. Now I’ve got to finish it. Listen — I’ve to take Steve’s place tomorrow night.”

Grady’s eyes bulged.

“What?”

“You heard me! You’ve got to put me in against the Angel!”

The Saint’s steely fingers tightened about Grady’s arm. “You’ve got to, Mike!”

“Bu... but...”

Grady stopped short and looked at him for a long moment. He stepped backwards and eyed him up and down critically. He said finally, “Well, you look big enough. And hard enough, I guess. I’ve heard how you can hit...”

“I’ve been working with Steve,” said the Saint. “I’m in as good condition as a man ever was, Mike. And I can take Bilinski, believe me!”

“But it’s ridiculous!” Grady exploded. “There’s never been such a fight—”

Simon said swiftly, “Make an announcement in the ring. Tell them about my bet with Spangler. If they want their money back, they can have it. If they just want to see a fight — even if it’s only the Saint—”

“ Only the Saint!” Grady’s eyes took fire. A luminous inspired glow spread over his round, freckled face. “Holy mackerel! Maybe it won’t be a championship fight as advertised, but with you in it—”

“Come on, then.” Simon pulled him towards the door. “Let’s go — I’ve got to get hold of Whitey right away!”

The opening preliminary was already under way when the Saint, with Hoppy and Patricia Holm, strode through the tag-end of the crowd of street urchins who eddied about the “artists’ ” entrance of the Manhattan Arena.

Whitey met them in the doorway.

“I was gettin’ worried,” he said anxiously. “What happened to ya? The show’s started.”

He started them down the corridor that turned off to the dressing-room section. The Saint stopped him.

“Whitey, will you show Miss Holm to her seat? I don’t think she can find her way up front from this part of the Arena.”

The tempting curve of Miss Holm’s red mouth drew to a pout.

“You mean I’ve got to spend the next hour or so in solitary refinement?”

“Well, you certainly can’t spend it in my dressing-room,” said the Saint. “It’s not exactly a ladies’ boudoir.”

Whitey nodded to Patricia, in visible awe of her golden-blonde beauty.

“Sure, just follow me,” he said. He turned to Simon. “I’ll check on the Angel’s hand-wraps on my way back.”

They disappeared round a turn from where the roar of the crowd was flowing like the muted roar of distant surf.

The Saint went on with Hoppy to his dressing-room, feeling the ghostly fingers of peril once more playing their familiar cadenza along his vertebrae and up through the roots of his hair... He knew, his every instinct told him, that tonight he was fighting for greater stakes than glory or dollars. Tonight would be more than a mere encounter with padded gloves. Tonight he would be fighting for his life.