Leslie Charteris - Follow the Saint

Dr Quintus was getting to his feet.

"I'm feeling better now," he said. "I'll go for the police."

"Just a minute," said the Saint quietly. "I think I can have someone ready for them to arrest when they get here."

He turned to the girl and took her shoulders in his hands. "I'm sorry, Rosemary," he said. "You're going to be hurt now."

Then, without stopping to face the bewildered fear that came into her eyes, he went to the door and raised his voice.

"Send the butler along, Hoppy. See that the curtains are drawn where you are, and keep an eye on the windows. If anyone tries to rush you from any direction give 'em the heat first and ask questions afterwards."

"Okay, boss," replied Mr Uniatz obediently.

The butler came down the hall as if he were walking on eggs. His impressively fleshy face was pallid and apprehensive, but he stood before the Saint with a certain ineradicable dignity.

"Yes, sir?"

Simon beckoned him to the front door; and this time the Saint was very careful. He turned out all the hall lights before he opened the door, and then drew the butler quickly outside without fully closing it behind them. They stood where the shadow of the porch covered them in solid blackness.

"Jeeves," he said, and in contrast with all that circumspection his voice was extraordinarily clear and carrying, "I want you to go to the nearest house and use their phone to call the police station. Ask for Sergeant Jesser. I want you to give him a special message."

"Me, sir?"

Simon couldn't see the other's face, but he could imagine the expression on it from the tremulous tone of the reply. He smiled to himself, but his eyes were busy on the dark void of the garden.

"Yes, you. Are you scared?"

"No-no, sir. But—"

"I know what you mean. It's creepy, isn't it? I'd feel the same way myself. But don't let it get you down. Have you ever handled a gun?"

"I had a little experience during the War, sir."

"Swell. Then here's a present for you." Simon felt for the butler's flabby hand and pressed his own Luger into it. "It's all loaded and ready to talk. If anything tries to happen, use it. And this is something else. I'll be with you. You won't hear me and you won't see me, but I'll be close by. If anyone tries to stop you or do anything to you, he'll get a nasty surprise. So don't worry. You're going to get through."

He could hear the butler swallow.

"Very good, sir. What was the message you wished me to take?"

"It's for Sergeant Jesser," Simon repeated, with the same careful clarity. "Tell him about the murder of Mr Forrest, and the other things that have happened. Tell him I sent you. And tell him I've solved the mystery, so he needn't bother to bring back his gang of coroners and photographers and fingerprint experts and what not. Tell him I'm getting a confession now, and I'll have it all written out and signed for him by the time he gets here. Can you remember that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, Jeeves. On your way."

He slipped his other automatic out of his hip pocket and stood there while the butler crossed the drive and melted into the inky shadows beyond. He could hear the man's softened footsteps even when he was out of sight, but they kept regularly on until they faded in the distance, and there was no disturbance. When he felt as sure as he could hope to be that the butler was beyond the danger zone, he put the Walther away again and stepped soundlessly back into the darkened hall.

Rosemary Chase and the doctor stared blankly at him as he re-entered the drawing-room; and he smiled blandly at their mystification.

"I know," he said. "You heard me tell Jeeves that I was going to follow him."

Quintus said: "But why—"

"For the benefit of the guy outside," answered the Saint calmly. "If there is a guy outside. The guy who's been giving us so much trouble. If he's hung around as long as this, he's still around. He hasn't finished his job yet. He missed the balloon pretty badly on the last try, and he daren't pull out and leave it missed. He's staying right on the spot, wondering like hell what kind of a fast play he can work to save his bacon. So he heard what I told the butler. I meant him to. And I think it worked. I scared him away from trying to head off Jeeves with another carving-knife performance. Instead of that, he decided to stay here and try to clean up before the police arrive. And that's also what I meant him to do."

The doctor's deep-set eyes blinked slowly.

"Then the message you sent was only another bluff?"

"Partly. I may have exaggerated a little. But I meant to tickle our friend's curiosity. I wanted to make sure that he'd be frantic to find out more about it. So he had to know what's going on in this room. I'll bet money that he's listening to every word I'm saying now."

The girl glanced at the broken window, beyond which the Venetian shutters hid them from outside but would not silence their voices, and then glanced at the door; and she shivered. She said: "But then he knows you didn't go with the butler—"

"But he knows it's too late to catch him up. Besides, this is much more interesting now. He wants to find out how much I've really got up my sleeve. And I want to tell him."

"But you said you were only bluffing," she protested huskily. "You don't really know anything."

The Saint shook his head.

"I only said I was exaggerating a little. I haven't got a confession yet, but I'm hoping to get one. The rest of it is true. I know everything that's behind tonight's fun and games. I know why everything has been done, and who did it."

They didn't try to prompt him, but their wide-open eyes clung to him almost as if they had been hypnotized. It was as if an unreasoned fear of what he might be going to say made them shrink from pressing him, while at the same time they were spellbound by a fascination beyond their power to break.

The Saint made the most of his moment. He made them wait while he sauntered to a chair, and settled himself there, and lighted a cigarette, as if they were only enjoying an ordinary casual conversation. The theatrical pause was deliberate, aimed at the nerves of the one person whom he had to drive into self-betrayal.

"It's all so easy, really, when you sort it out," he said at length. "Our criminal is a clever guy, and he'd figured out a swindle that was so simple and audacious that it was practically foolproof — barring accidents. And to make up for the thousandth fraction of risk, it was bound to put millions into his hands. Only the accident happened; and one accident led to another."

He took smoke from his cigarette, and returned it through musingly half smiling lips.

"The accident was when Nora Prescott wrote to me. She had to be in on the swindle, of course; but he thought he could keep her quiet with the threat that if she exposed him her father would lose the sinecure that was practically keeping him alive. It wasn't a very good threat, if she's been a little more sensible, but it scared her enough to keep her away from the police. It didn't scare her out of thinking that a guy like me might be able to wreck the scheme somehow and still save something out of it for her. So she wrote to me. Our villain found out about that, but wasn't able to stop the letter. So he followed her to the Bell tonight, planning to kill me as well, because he figured that once I'd received that letter I'd keep prying until I found something. When Nora led off to the boathouse, it looked to be in the bag. He followed her, killed her, and waited to add me to the collection. Only on account of another accident that happened then, he lost his nerve and quit."

Again the Saint paused.

"Still, our villain knew he had to hang on to me until I could be disposed of," he went on with the same leisured confidence. "He arranged to bring me up here to be got rid of as soon as he knew how. He stalled along until after dinner, when he'd got a plan worked out. He'd just finished talking it over with his accomplice—"