Leslie Charteris - The Saint Bids Diamonds

Where had Lauber ridden when he was picked up the night before? If he had been in the front, where the Saint was now sitting, he could have done something about the ticket when he was driving down with Graner that afternoon. Or had he been too uncertain of his own position, too afraid that Graner might catch him, to take the risk?

Simon's hands explored all the hiding places which might have been reached by a man sitting in the same seat. He felt in the door pocket, under the floor mat, around the cushions.

He found nothing.

Therefore the ticket must be somewhere in the back, and Lauber had had to leave it there when he was putting Palermo in for fear that Palermo might see him take it.

The Saint stretched out his legs and relaxed comfortably as the car purred up the La Laguna road. It was pleasant to think that he was riding in company with two million dollars, which he could have transferred to his own pocket whenever he chose. He could have put one hand around Graner's scraggy neck, switched off the engine and choked him gently but firmly off the wheel; after which he could have dropped him in a ditch and taken the car away to dissect it at his leisure. But he had to get Christine out of the house first. He had to discipline himself, to make a virtue of spinning out the luscious anticipation.

Always assuming that the ticket was still there…

He tried not to think too much about that; and he was still diligently keeping his mind off such unwelcome complications when the car stopped outside the house. Graner held out a key.

"Will you open the gates?"

"What about the dogs?" said the Saint dubiously.

"I left them chained up. If you stay out of their reach you will be quite safe."

Simon went forward into the flare of the headlights, unlocked the big doors, and pushed them back. The car turned into the drive and flowed past him. He closed the gates again and rammed the bolts home with a series of thuds which Graner would be able to hear. What Graner would not notice was that the thud of each bolt sinking into its socket concealed the noise of another bolt being withdrawn again.

The car had gone on around the house when he finished, and the Saint walked after it. Behind him he heard the sinister snuffling of the dogs straining against the chains that held them to the electrically operated mooring post.

The lights were on in the living room which opened off the hall, and the door was open, but any conversation that might have been going on was silenced at the sound of their approaching footsteps. Simon sauntered in ahead of Graner and cast his blithe and genial glance over the three men who were already there.

"Good evening, boys," he murmured amicably. "It's nice to see all your smiling faces gathered together again."

Their faces were not smiling. There was something about their silent and menacing immobility which reminded him of the first time he had seen them, and the impression was heightened by the fact that they were grouped around the table in the same way as before. They sat facing the door, with their faces turned towards him, watching him like wild beasts crouched for a spring. One of Palermo's evil-smelling cigars polluted the atmosphere, and his one open eye was fixed on the Saint in a steady stare of venomous hatred. The scenic effects on his face had been augmented by a blackened bruise that spread over his chin beyond the edges of a piece of sticking plaster and a pair of painfully swollen lips for which the Saint was not really to blame. Aliston drooped opposite him, in his flabby way, with the pallor of anxiety making his aristocratic countenance look like a milky mask. Between them sat Lauber, with his heavy brows drawn down in a vicious scowl. He was the only one who moved as the Saint came in. He put a hand inside the breast of his coat and brought out a gun to level it across the table.

"Put 'em high," he said harshly.

Simon put them high. Aliston got up and undulated round the table to get behind him. His hands slid over the Saint's pockets.

The Saint grinned at Graner with conspiratorial glee.

"Is this the way you always receive your guests, Reuben?" he drawled.

Graner's eyes gave back no answering gleam of sympathy.

"I am not receiving a guest, Mr Tombs," he said, and there was just something about the way he said it that made the Saint's heart stop beating.

Graner might have been going to say something more, but whatever might have been on the tip of his tongue was cut off by Aliston's sudden exclamation.

The Saint looked round, and his heart started off again. It started so violently that his pulses raced.

Aliston was backing away from him, and he held an envelope in his hand. Simon recognised it at the first glance. It was the belated letter which had been handed to him at the hotel, which he had stuffed carelessly into his pocket and completely forgotten under the pressure of the other things that were on his mind. Aliston was gaping at it with dilated eyes, and his face had gone even whiter. With an abrupt jerky movement he flung it on the table in front of the others.

"Tombs!" he said hoarsely. "His name isn't Tombs! Look at that. His name's Simon Templar. You know what that means, don't you? He's the Saint!"

Simon could feel the ripple of electricity that quivered through the room, and was philosophical enough to recognise that there were advantages as well as disadvantages in possessing a reputation like his. Palermo and Lauber seemed to be clinging to their chairs as if the revelation had brought them a stronger feeling of apprehension than of triumph. Aliston was frankly trembling.

Graner stepped forward and peered closely into the Saint's face.

"You!" he barked.

Even he was shaken by the shock which had hammered the others back to silence. The Saint nodded imperturbably.

"That's right." He knew that it would be a waste of time to try and deny it. "I don't mind letting you in on the secret — I was getting tired of being called Tombs, anyway."

A moment went by before Graner recovered himself.

"In that case," he said, with his voice smooth and sneering again, "it only makes our success more satisfying."

"Oh yes," said the Saint. "Nobody's going to stop you collecting your medals. It was a nifty piece of work, Reuben — very nifty."

He needed no further confirmation of that. The intuitive comprehension of Graner's cunning which had cramped his intestines a few seconds ago was now settled into his understanding as one of the immutable facts of life.

He had been caught — very niftily. Graner had opened his parlour door, and the fly had walked in on its toes. Simon realised that he had underrated Reuben Graner's talents as a strategist. If he had been a little less sure of himself, he would have stopped to admit that a man whose plotting had amassed the collection of jewels which he had seen in the safe upstairs couldn't be the complete sucker which Graner had sometimes appeared to be. Graner had been on the wrong track, that was all. When he got moving in the right direction, he had a beautiful style. The Saint admitted it. Only a consummate tactician, a past master of the arts of psychology and guile, could have thought up the story which had led him so neatly into the trap — the one story in all the realms of unwritten fiction which could possibly have hooked an old fish like the Saint. It had been so adroitly put together that Graner hadn't even suggested going to the house, If he had shown the least sign of eagerness for that move, the Saint might have been put on his guard. But Graner hadn't needed to. The Saint had proposed the visit himself, which was exactly what a consummate psychologist and tactician would have known he would do; and Graner had even been able to raise a few halfhearted objections to the proposal… Oh yes; Graner was entitled to help himself to his medal. Simon bore no malice about it. It had been a grand story, and he still liked it.