Leslie Charteris - Follow the Saint

"We ought to be there to give him a cheer," he said.

He took her up the stairs with him. From the upper landing he saw an open door and a lighted room from which came confused scurrying noises combined with Verdean's imbecile grunting and chattering. Simon went to the door. The room was unquestionably Mr Ebenezer Hogsbotham's bedroom. He would have known it even without being told. Nobody but an Ebenezer Hogsbotham could ever have slept voluntarily in such a dismally austere and mortifying chamber. And he saw Robert Verdean in the centre of the room. The bank manager had lugged a shabby suitcase out of some hiding place, and had it open on the bed; he was pawing and crooning crazily over the contents — ruffling the edges of packets of pound notes, crunching the bags of silver. Simon stood for a moment and watched him, and it was like looking at a scene from a play that he had seen before.

Then he stepped quietly in and laid his hand on Verdean's shoulder.

"Shall I help you take care of it?" he said gently. He had not thought much about how Verdean would be likely to respond to the interruption, but had certainly not quite expected the response he got.

For the first time since Hoppy had applied his remarkable treatment, the bank manager seemed to become aware of outside personalities in a flash of distorted recognition. He squinted upwards and sidelong at the Saint, and his face twisted.

"I won't give it to you!" he screamed. "I'll kill you first!"

He flung himself at the Saint's throat, his fingers clawing, his eyes red and maniacal.

Simon had very little choice. He felt highly uncertain about the possible results of a third concussion on Verdean's already inflamed cerebral tissue, following so closely upon the two previous whacks which it had suffered in the last twenty-four hours; but on the other hand he felt that in Mr Verdean's present apparent state of mind, to be tied up and gagged and left to struggle impotently while he watched his loot being taken away from him would be hardly less likely to cause a fatal hemorrhage. He therefore adopted the less troublesome course, and put his trust in any guardian angels that Mr Verdean might have on his overburdened payroll. His fist travelled up about eight explosive inches, and Mr Verdean travelled down…

Simon picked him up and laid him on the bed.

"You know," he remarked regretfully, "if this goes on much longer, there is going to come a time when Comrade Verdean is going to wonder whether fifteen thousand quid is really worth it."

Angela Lindsay did not answer.

He looked at her. She stood close by the bed, gazing without expression at Verdean's unconscious body and the suitcase full of money at his feet. Her face was tired.

Still without saying anything, she went to the window and stood there with her back to him.

She said, after a long silence: "Well, you got what you wanted, as usual."

"I do that sometimes," he said.

"And what happens next?"

"You'll get the share you asked for," he answered carefully. "You can take it now, if you like."

"And that's all."

"Did we agree to anything else?"

She turned round; and he found that he did not want to look at her eyes.

"Are you sure you're never going to need any more help?" she said.

He did not need to hear any more. He had known more than she could have told him, before that. He understood all the presentiment that had troubled him on the way there. For that moment he was without any common vanity, and very calm.

"I may often need it," he said, and there was nothing but compassion in his voice. "But I must take it where I'm lucky enough to find it… I know what you mean. But I never tried to make you fall in love with me. I wouldn't wish that kind of trouble on anyone."

"I knew that," she said, just as quietly. "But I couldn't help wishing it."

She came towards him, and he stood up to meet her. He knew that she was going to kiss him, and he did not try to stop her.

Her mouth was hot and hungry against his. His own lips could not be cold. That would have been hypocrisy. Perhaps because his understanding went so much deeper than the superficial smartness that any other man might have been feeling at that time, he was moved in a way that would only have been cheapened if he had tried to put word to it. He felt her lithe softness pressed against him, her arms encircling him, her hands moving over him, and did not try to hold her away.

Presently she drew back from him. Her hands were under his coat, under his arms, holding him. The expression in her eyes was curiously hopeless.

"You haven't got any gun," she said.

He smiled faintly. He knew that her hands had been learning that even while she kissed him; and yet it made no difference,

"I didn't think I should need one," he said.

It seemed as if she wanted to speak, and could not.

"That was your mistake," said the harsh voice of Judd Kaskin. "Get your hands up."

The Saint turned, without haste. Kaskin stood just inside the door, with a heavy automatic in his hand. His florid face was savagely triumphant. Morris Dolf sidled into the room after him.

They were tying the Saint to a massive fake-antique wooden chair placed close to the bed. His ankles were corded to the legs, and Kaskin was knotting his wrists behind the back of it. Dolf kept him covered while it was being done, The gun in his thin hand was steady and impersonal: his weasel face and bright beady eyes held a cold-blooded sneer which made it plain that he would have welcomed an opportunity to demonstrate that he was not holding his finger off the trigger because he was afraid of the bang.

But the Saint was not watching him very intently. He was looking most of the time at Angela Lindsay. To either of the other two men his face would have seemed utterly impassive, his brow serene and amazingly unperturbed, the infinitesimal smile that lingered on his lips only adding to the enigma of his self-control. But that same inscrutable face talked to the girl as clearly as if it had used spoken words.

Her eyes stared at him in a blind stunned way that said: "I know. I know. You think I'm a heel. But what could I do? I didn't have long enough to think…"

And his own cool steady eyes, and that faintly lingering smile, all of his face so strangely free from hatred or contempt, answered in the same silent language: "I know, kid. I understand. You couldn't help it. What the hell?"

She looked at him with an incredulity that ached to believe.

Kaskin tightened his last knot and came round from behind the chair.

"Well, smart guy," he said gloatingly. "You weren't so smart, after all."

The Saint had no time to waste. Even with his wrists tied behind him, he could still reach the hilt of his knife with his fingertips. They hadn't thought of searching for a weapon like that, under his sleeve. He eased it out of its sheath until his ringers could close on the handle.

"You certainly did surprise me, Judd," he admitted mildly.

"Thought you were making a big hit with the little lady, didn't you?" Kaskin sneered. "Well, that's what you were meant to think. I never knew a smart guy yet that wasn't a sucker for a jane. We had it all figured out. She tipped us off as soon as she left your house this afternoon. We could have hunted out the dough and got away with it then, but that would have still left you running around. It was worth waiting a bit to get you as well. We knew you'd be here. We just watched the house until you got here, and came in after you. Then we only had to wait until Angela got close enough to you to grab your gun. Directly we heard her say you hadn't got one, we walked in." His arm slid round the girl's waist. "Cute little actress, ain't she, Saint? I'll bet you thought you were in line for a big party."