Leslie Charteris - The Saint Steps In

Jetterick had phoned the description and address through to New York for investigation. A police doctor had seen Angert, confirmed the Saint's diagnosis subject to a postmortem, and gone away again. The remains of Sylvester Angert had gone away too, riding in a closed van which arrived later. Photographs had been taken, and fingerprints. The laboratory had been gone over with powders and magnifying glasses. Even then, men were working meticulously through the rest of the house.

"You're quite sure about Mrs. Cook?" Wayvern asked.

"Absolutely," Madeline said. "We've known her for years and years, and I don't think she's ever been out of Stamford. It won't take you a minute to find out all about her."

Jetterick rubbed his clean hard chin and said: "There haven't been any threats before, Miss Gray?"

"No. Only the notes in Washington, that we told you about."

"You said that your father was pretty well off, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"But so far there hasn't been any demand for ransom."

"Kidnaping for ransom," Simon mentioned, "doesn't tie in with two or three attempts to sabotage a laboratory."

"Was the sabotage proved? Were the local police told about it?"

"Of course," said the girl. "But they didn't find anything."

"We did what we could," Wayvern said.

"Accidents do happen in chemical laboratories, don't they?"

"Sometimes. But—"

"Didn't your father ever stay out at night, Miss Gray? You understand, I have to be very practical about this. According to you, he was under fifty. That isn't so old, in these days. I don't want to suggest anything that might offend you, but he hasn't been gone very long. Why shouldn't he have gone to New York — met some friends — decided to stay over in town—"

"You know as much as we do," said the Saint. "I've told you the whole story as I have it. You still have to account for the attempt to kidnap Miss Gray in Washington, the shot that was fired at me in the Shoreham, Karl Morgen prancing in and out of the picture, and the very dead Mr. Angert. But you take it your own way from here."

Jetterick looked at him with philosophical detachment. "If it were anyone else but you," he said, "I'd have given you more trouble than I have. I admit you make it sound like a case. But I have to think of everything. I'm understaffed and overworked anyway. However, we are covering everything we can. We've got Morgen's description, and we'll get some of his fingerprints from the laboratory. We've got the gun you took from him to check on. We'll keep working on every clue there is."

"Isn't there anything I can do?" Madeline asked.

"Get me a photograph and give me a description of your father. We'll notify him as missing. If you do receive any communication about him, that'll give us something more to work on. Until then, I- can't make any promises. There's a lot of space on this continent, and if a man is deliberately being hidden he can take a lot of finding."

The FBI man didn't mean to be unkind. He was just sticking to his job, and his textbooks hadn't encouraged the emotional approach to criminology. But Simon could see the girl stiffen herself to take it, and liked the way she did it. She hadn't just been making talk; she was all right now.

"I'll get you a picture," she said very evenly, and went out of the room.

Jetterick leafed over the notes he had taken. Wayvern made another examination of Angert's wallet, which Simon had turned over. He picked out the snapshot of the young man in uniform, and shifted the long-dead stump of his cigar to the corner of his mouth. "Know anything about this, Ray?"

"Yes," Schindler said. "That's his son. Or was, rather. He was killed in the Solomons."

"No chance of Angert having had any queer sympathies, then?" Jetterick suggested.

"Not in a million years," Schindler said with conviction. "He was crazy about that boy. Besides that, Angert worked for me on and off over a period of ten years, and I'd vouch for him anywhere. He was just caught in the middle, the same as I was."

"That's what it seems like," admitted Jetterick. "But I still don't get it. If Morgen was working for the same outfit as this woman who hired you, what would he kill Angert for?"

The same riddle had been distracting the Saint's attention for a long time; but he still kept silent about his ace in the hole. No doubt it was most reprehensible of him, but he had always been rather weak on the ethics of such matters. He had called in the FBI for their obvious usefulness, and the local police out of necessity; but he had no idea at all of retiring into the background of the case. On the contrary, he felt that his own activity was only just beginning. And Andrea Quennel was an angle to which he felt he had a special kind of proprietary claim.

Madeline Gray came back and said to the other three: "You'd better have some lunch with us while your men are finishing up."

They were drinking coffee when there was a phone call for Jetterick from New York. When he returned to the table his pleasantly commonplace face was stoical.

"They're checked on that address," he said. "It's just one of those accommodation places. The girl's description fits.But she didn't leave any forwarding address. She said she'd call in for messages."

"I could have guessed that," Schindler said, "as soon as I heard the rest of the story."

"We're watching the place, of course. If she goes there, we'll pick her up."

Simon drew on his cigarette.

"If she hears that Sylvester was cooled off," he remarked, "she isn't likely to go there."

"That's true. But we can try."

"Does she have to hear about it?" Schindler asked.

Jetterick shrugged.

"I don't have to say anything. How about you, Chief?"

"I'll do what I can to keep it quiet," Wayvern answered. "But I don't promise more than twenty-four hours. These things always leak out somehow. Then the reporters are on my neck, and I have to talk."

"Twenty-four hours are better than nothing," said Jetterick.

"While we're keeping things quiet," said the Saint, "I wish we could pretend that Madeline hasn't been here. The Ungodly are still looking for her. But Morgen didn't see her, so far as I know; and I told him she was in New York. Madeline can ask Mrs. Cook to stay overnight, and make up some story for her husband, so that there's no gossip around the town. The more we can keep Madeline hidden, the less likely we are to lose her."

"I can tell my men they didn't see her," said Wayvern.

"Besides that," Simon went on, "she ought to have a guard. Just in case. I've got to go to New York this afternoon, and I can't promise to be back tonight."

Jetterick grimaced.

"If I had a man to spare," he said, "I could divide him into six pieces and need all of them."

"I can take care of that," said Wayvern.

They all looked at each other. They seemed to have reached the end of what they could do.

"I'm driving in to New York," Schindler offered. "I can give you a lift, Simon."

It was still a while before they got away.

They talked the case to pieces all the way to the city, but the Saint was guilty of keeping most of his conclusions to himself and only contributing enough to sound natural and stay with the conversation. He had had enough analysing and theorising to last him for a long time. And now he was even more restless to get his hands on the dossiers that should be on their way to meet him. Somewhere in them, he hoped, there would be a key to at least one of the puzzles that was twisting through his brain. In spite of his friendship for Ray Schindler, he was glad when the ride was over and he could feel alone and unhampered again for whatever came next.

He was at the Roosevelt at four-thirty, and he was down to the last drop of a studiously nursed Martini when a thin gray man say down at his table and laid a bulky envelope between them. Typed on the envelope was "Mr. Sebastian Tombs."