Leslie Charteris - The Saint Steps In

"Daddy always wants to have his own way," she said rather vaguely. "Don't let him keep you here for ever."

"I won't," said the Saint, with a last upward glance. Then the door closed behind her, and he was alone with one last sudden disturbing question in his mind, but quite alone, like a fighter when the gong sounds and the seconds disappear through the ropes. He knew that this was the gong, and the preliminary routines were over; and he knew just what he was fighting, and all his senses were keyed and calm and ice-cold. He turned to Quennel just as easily as he had played every waiting line of the scene, and murmured: "Andrea did say you had something to tell me."

Quennel trimmed his cigar on the ashtray in front of him.

"Yes," he said. "Andrea told me you were taking an interest in Calvin Gray's synthetic rubber, so I thought you'd like to know. Gray showed me a sample of it not long ago, as I think Walter told you. I had a report on it from my chief chemist today." He settled even more safely and positively in his chair. "I'm afraid Calvin Gray is a complete fraud."

Simon's right hand rested on the table in front of him like a bronze casting set on stone, and he watched the smoke rising from his cigarette like a pastel stroke against the dark wood.

"You had a specimen analysed?"

"Yes. I don't know whether you know it, but that kind of analysis is one of the most difficult things in the world to do. In fact, a lot of people would say it was almost impossible. But I've got some rather unusual men on my staff."

"Did you ever see it made?" Simon asked slowly.

"No."

"I have."

"Can you describe the process?"

Simon gave a rough description of what he had seen. He knew that it was technically meaningless, and admitted it.

"That doesn't matter," said Quennel. "I'm sure you can see now where the trick was worked."

"You mean in the enclosed electrical gadget, I suppose."

"Naturally," Quennel chuckled. "I'm surprised that a fellow like you wouldn't have caught on to it at once. It's just a dressed-up topical version of all those old swindles where a man has a machine that prints dollar bills or a formula for making diamonds."

"But why should a man like Calvin Gray go in for anything like that?"

"Do you know Calvin Gray?"

"Not personally. But I've checked on him, and his reputation is quite special."

"But as I understand it, you haven't even seen him. All you've met is a pretty girl with a story."

"I've been to his house."

"How do you know it was his house? Because the girl took you there and told you it was?"

"Who's Who gives his residence as Stamford, Connecticut."

"I suppose that would be the only residence there."

The Saint's blue gaze was meditative and unimpassioned. He drew at his cigarette and set his wrist back on the table.

"Mind you," said Quennel, "I'm not necessarily suggesting that that's the answer. It could have been Gray's house. It could have been his daughter. It isn't impossible. It takes a big man to put over a big fraud."

"But why should Gray bother? I understood he was well enough off already."

"Who did you get that from? From the same source — from his daughter, or from the girl who said she was his daughter?"

"Yes," said the Saint thoughtfully.

Quennel trimmed his cigar again.

"Suppose it's what you were told from a good source. In business, that isn't always enough. A lot of men have had big reputations, and have been generally believed to be pretty well off, and have been well off — and still they've ended up in jail. I'm sure you can remember plenty of them yourself. Famous stockbrokers, attorneys, promoters… Not that I'm committing myself about this case. I don't know enough about it. Maybe Calvin Gray would be the most surprised man in the world if he knew about it. He might be away somewhere — lecturing, for instance — and his house might have been broken into and used by some gang of crooks. Even that's been done before. I don't have to tell you about these things. The only thing I think you ought to know is that this synthetic rubber story is a fraud."

Simon Templar took one more measured breath at his cigarette, and said: "I don't know how much you claim to know, but you may have heard that in Washington night before last there was an attempt to kidnap Madeline Gray, or the girl who calls herself Madeline Gray. Mr. Devan was there."

Devan nodded.

"That's right. Only I didn't know it was a kidnaping attempt, until Andrea gave us the idea after she'd talked to you."

"If it ever was a kidnaping attempt," said Quennel. "Or couldn't it have been part of the same build-up, staged for your benefit, to help make the case look important to you?"

The Saint had an odd ludicrous feeling of being a feed man, of offering properly baited hooks to fish who had personally chosen the bait. But he had to hear all the answers; he had to see the whole scene played through.

"You wouldn't have heard it," he said, "but it seems as if Calvin Gray really was kidnaped."

"Really?"

"At any rate, either he or the man who is being talked about is missing." Simon paused casually. "I've already called in the FBI about it.".

There was silence for a moment. It had a curious negative quality, as if it were more than a mere incidental absence of sound and movement, as if it would have absorbed and neutralised any sound or movement there had been. "What about the girl?" Devan asked; and Simon met his crinkly deep-set eyes.

"Since this afternoon," he said expressionlessly, "she seems to be missing too."

There was only a barely perceptible flicker of stillness this time, as if a movie projector had stuck on the same frame for two or three extra spins of the shutter. And then Hobart Quennel moved a little and drank some brandy, and raised one shoulder to settle his forearm more comfortably on the arm of his chair.

"Probably it was your calling in the FBI that did that," he said. "That would have been a complication they weren't expecting."

"Why?"

"You always had a reputation — forgive me, I'm not being personal, but after all we all read newspapers — for being a sort of lone wolf. So the last thing they'd have expected was that you'd take your troubles to any of the authorities. In fact, I'm a little surprised about it myself."

"These aren't quite the same times," said the Saint quietly. "And perhaps a few things have changed for me as they have for everyone else."

Quennel laughed a little, his sound sure confident laugh.

"Anyway," he said, "probably you scared them, and now they're organising a nice neat getaway. You can take it that the whole deal was crooked from the beginning anyhow, whatever the minor details were… Very possibly the real Calvin Gray will turn up in a day or two, and be as puzzled as anyone… It doesn't really make a lot of difference, does it?"

"It makes a difference," said the Saint; and his voice was as even as a calm arctic bay, and the same invisible chill nestled over it. He said: "I go after crooks."

Hobart Quennel's slight deep engaging chuckle came again, like a breath from the South, and now it was warmer and surer than ever, and there was no uncertainty at all left behind in it, and it could soothe you and blot the search and the questioning and the fight out of you like the breeze rustling through southern palms; and it was right, it had to be right, because nothing could be wrong that was so friendly and permanent and sure.

"I know," he said. "But you just said it yourself. These aren't the same times, and everybody changes. This Gray business will take care of itself now. If you've already called in the FBI, it's sure to. It's in good hands. It's none of my business, but I can't really see you wasting any more time on it. It wouldn't do you justice."