Leslie Charteris - Follow the Saint

The big man's eyes gave the same automatic reaction as Dolf's had given to the accuracy of the Saint's information, and hardened again into slits of unyielding suspicion.

"Who the hell are you?" he grated slowly. "You aren't a cop. Take that rag off your face and let's see who you are."

"When I'm ready," said the Saint coolly. "And then you may wish I hadn't. Just now, I'm asking the questions. What is this doublecross you're trying to find out about from Comrade Verdean?"

There was a silence. Morris Dolf's slight expression was fading out again. His mouth closed, and he readjusted his cigarette. Simon knew that behind that silent hollow-cheeked mask a cunning brain was getting back to work.

Kaskin's face, when he wanted to play tricks with it, could put on a ruddy rough-diamond joviality that was convincing enough to deceive most people who did not know too much about his criminal record. But at this moment he was making no effort to put on his stock disguise. His mouth was buttoned up in an ugly down-turned curve.

"Why don't you find out, if you're so wise?"

"I could do that," said the Saint.

He moved on the arc of a circle towards Verdean's chair, keeping Dolf and Kaskin covered all the time. His left hand dipped into his coat pocket and took out a penknife. He opened it one-handed, bracing it against his leg, and felt around to cut the cords from Verdean's wrists and ankles without shifting his eyes for an instant from the two men at the other end of his gun.

"We can go on with the concert," he explained gently. "And I'm sure Comrade Verdean would enjoy having a turn as Master of Ceremonies. Put the spoon back in the fire, Verdean, and let's see how Comrade Kaskin likes his chops broiled."

Verdean stood up slowly, and didn't move any farther. His gaze wavered idiotically over the Saint, as if he was too dazed to make up his mind what he ought to do. He pawed at his burned chest and made helpless whimpering noises in his throat, like a sick child.

Kaskin glanced at him for a moment, and slowly brought his eyes back to the Saint again. At the time, Simon thought that it was Verdean's obvious futility that kindled the stiffening belligerent defiance in Kaskin's stare. There was something almost like tentative domination in it.

Kaskin sneered: "See if he'll do it. He wouldn't have the guts. And you can't, while you've got to keep that gun on us. I'm not soft enough to fall for that sort of bluff. You picked the wrong show to butt in on, however you got here. You'd better get out again in a hurry before you get hurt. You'd better put that gun away and go home, and forget you ever came here—"

And another voice said: "Or you can freeze right where you are. Don't try to move, or I'll let you have it."

The Saint froze.

The voice was very close behind him — too close to take any chances with. He could have flattened Kaskin before it could carry out its threat, but that was as far as he would get. The Saint had a coldblooded way of estimating his chances in any situation; and he was much too interested in life just then to make that kind of trade. He knew now the real reason for Kaskin's sudden gathering of confidence, and why the big man had talked so fast in a strain that couldn't help centring his attention. Kaskin had taken his opportunity well. Not a muscle of his face had betrayed what he was seeing; and his loud bullying voice had effectively covered any slight noise that the girl might have made as she crept up.

The girl. Yes. Simon Templar's most lasting startlement clung to the fact that the voice behind him unmistakably belonged to a girl.

"Drop that gun," she said, "and be quick about it."

Simon dropped it. His ears were nicely attuned to the depth of meaning behind a voice, and this voice meant what it said. His automatic plunked on the carpet; and Morris Dolf stooped into the scene and snatched it up. Even then, Dolf said nothing. He propped himself back on the radiogram and kept the gun levelled, watching Simon in silence with sinister lizard eyes. He was one of the least talkative men that Simon had ever seen.

"Keep him covered," Kaskin said unnecessarily. "We'll see what he looks like."

He stepped forward and jerked the handkerchief down from the Saint's smile.

And then there was a stillness that prolonged itself through a gamut of emotions which would have looked like the most awful kind of ham acting if they had been faithfully recorded on celluloid. Neither Dolf nor Kaskin had ever met the Saint personally; but his photograph had at various times been published in almost every newspaper on earth, and verbal descriptions of him had circulated through underworld channels so often that they must have worn a private groove for themselves. Admittedly there were still considerable numbers of malefactors to whom the Saint was no more than a dreaded name; but Messrs Dolf and Kaskin were not among them. Recognition came to them slowly, which accounted for the elaborate and longdrawn detail of their changing expressions; but it came with a frightful certainty. Morris Dolf's fleshless visage seemed to grow thinner and meaner, and his fingers twitched hungrily around the butt of Simon's gun. Judd Kaskin's sanguine complexion changed colour for a moment, and then his mouth twisted as though tasting its own venom.

"The Saint!" he said hoarsely.

"I told you you might be sorry," said the Saint.

He smiled at them pleasantly, as if nothing had happened to disturb his poise since he was holding the only weapon in sight. It was a smile that would have tightened a quality of desperation into the vigilance of certain criminals who knew him better than Dolf and Kaskin did. It was the kind of smile that only touched the Saint's lips when the odds against him were most hopeless — and when all the reckless fighting vitality that had written the chapter headings in his charmed saga of adventure was blithely preparing to thumb its nose at them…

Then he turned and looked at the girl.

She was blonde and blue-eyed, with a small face like a very pretty baby doll; but the impression of vapid immaturity was contradicted by her mouth. Her mouth had character — not all of it very good, by conventional standards, but the kind of character that has an upsetting effect on many conventional men. It was a rather large mouth, with a sultry lower lip that seemed to have been fashioned for the express purpose of reviving the maximum amount of the Old Adam in any masculine observer. The rest of her, he noticed, carried out the theme summarized in her mouth. Her light dress moulded itself to her figure with a snugness that vouched for the fragility of her underwear, and the curves that it suggested were stimulating to the worst kind of imagination.

"Angela," said the Saint genially, "you're looking very well for your age. I ought to have remembered that Judd always worked with a woman, but I didn't think he'd have one with him on a job like this. I suppose you were sitting in the car outside, and saw me arrive."

"You know everything, don't you?" Kaskin gibed.

He was recovering from the first shock of finding out whom he had captured; and the return of his self-assurance was an ugly thing.

"Only one thing puzzles me," said the Saint equably. "And that is why they sent you to Dartmoor instead of putting you in the Zoo. Or did the RSPCA object on behalf of the other animals?"

"You're smart," Kaskin said lividly. His ugliness had a hint of bluster in it that was born of fear — a fear that the legends about the Saint were capable of inspiring even when he was apparently disarmed and helpless. But the ugliness was no less dangerous for that reason. Perhaps it was more dangerous… "You're smart, like Verdean," Kaskin said "Well, you saw what he got. I'm asking the questions again now, and I'll burn you the same way if you don't answer. And I'll burn you twice as much if you make any more funny answers. Now do your talking, smart guy. How did you get here?"