Leslie Charteris - The Saint Bids Diamonds

After which perfunctory raising of the mental hat, he passed rapidly on to consider the next move. And nothing was more obvious than that it would have to be made quickly.

Graner's recovery was having a restorative effect on the others. Simon could feel their relaxation in the diminishing tension of the atmosphere. Aliston was regaining control of his jittered nerves. Palermo was pulling again at his unsavoury cigar, and the red lights in his one good eye were burning hotter. Only Lauber was still hunched stiffly over his gun, as though he could not quite convince himself that the alarming situation was well in hand.

"Perhaps you would like to sit down, Mr Templar," Graner said softly.

"That's quite an idea, Reuben, since we're booked for a conference. This position does get a bit tiring—"

"You can quit that line of talk, see?"

Palermo jumped out of his chair, with one clenched fist raised. Graner checked him.

"Wait a minute."

"I'll knock that grin off his face"

"I said wait a minute. There will be plenty of time for that."

"That's right, Art," said the Saint kindly. "Sit down and save what's left of your nasty little face. It's the only one you've got, and if you hit me I shall certainly hit you again."

"If you try to hit anyone," grated Lauber,"I'll—"

"You'll put your gun away and hope for the best. You're not going to shoot me if you can possibly help it, because you still want to ask me too many questions."

Graner drew up a chair.

"I should not advise you to rely too much on that," he remarked sleekly. "If you attempt to fight anybody you will certainly be shot."

Palermo subsided slowly into his chair. He was still shaking with passion. The Saint opened his cigarette case on the table and continued to smile at him.

"That's something for you to look forward to, Art. And believe me, It does the heart good to see you so full of virtue and esprit de corps again." He glanced back at Graner. "In a way, you disappoint me, Reuben. I told you I thought you'd be a mug to swallow all the tales these birds have been telling you, and I'm still thinking it."

"Seems to me that this proves we did the right thing," Aliston contradicted him aggressively.

Graner giggled — a queerly incongruous sound that was not at all comic to listen to.

"I think you are still wasting your time, Templar," be said.

The Saint shook his head reproachfully, although inwardly he was nodding. If you looked at it that way, the revelation of his identity did seem to have thinned away the chances of picking holes in Aliston's story. In fact, it must almost have made Aliston seem entitled to a medal of his own; but the Saint wasn't going to award it.

"You jump to too many conclusions, brother. Certainly I've been interfering with all of you. But I didn't start it. You were all so busy double-crossing each other that the obvious thing seemed to be to join in. Just because you've discovered that I wasn't the one dumb innocent in the party doesn't make the rest of you into a lot of little mothers' darlings. Now suppose you look at each other — if you can stand the strain for a few minutes."

"Suppose you let me do the talking," Graner put in acidly.

Simon spread out his hands.

"But my dear soul, I know it all so well. I've listened to it so many times that I've lost count of them. You're going to say that you want to ask me some questions."

"Which you are going to answer."

"Which I'm not going to answer if I don't feel like it. Then you look at me with an evil leer and say, 'Ha-ha, me proud beauty, but I have ways of making people feel like it!' The audience goes into a cold sweat and waits for you to bring on the trained cobras."

"I expect you will find our methods effective enough."

"I doubt it, Reuben. I take an awful lot of persuading. Besides, what are 'our' methods? Are you speaking as royalty, or who else is 'we'?"

"You can see us," snapped Aliston.

The Saint nodded without shifting his benign and patient smile. He was playing his last cards and he meant to make the most of them. With all of them united against him, he hadn't a chance; but he knew on what fragile foundations their newly recovered unity was based. He had to break them up again, quickly and finally, and hope that a loophole would open for himself in the break-up.

"I know, darling," he said nicely. "I can see all of you. And very beautiful you are. But four people have to have some good reason for calling themselves 'we.' And the question is, have you got it? Are you four minds with but a single thought, four hearts that beat as one?… We've already spoken about you, Cecil. Now suppose we speak reverently for a moment about Comrade Palermo. There he is, with his beautiful piebald face—"

Palermo started up again.

"You son of a—"

"Bishop is the word you want," said the Saint helpfully. "But you ought to have known my grandmother. She was a female archdeacon, and could she dead!"

"When I get at you," Palermo said lividly, "you're going to wish you hadn't been so funny."

"Sit down, Art." Simon's voice was coldly tranquil. "Uncle Reuben will spank you if you don't behave. We'll leave you alone for a while if you're so sensitive — you go under the same heading as Aliston, anyway. Let's talk about Comrade Lauber instead."

"I wouldn't," Lauber advised him grimly.

The Saint sighed.

"You see?" he said. "If you didn't have any secrets from each other, if you were just a happy band of brothers, you wouldn't be nearly so scared. But you aren't Even Uncle Reuben made me a proposition—"

"Only for one reason," Graner said stolidly.

"I know. But it was a proposition. And you put it over so earnestly that I can't help feeling you rather liked it, even if it was just supposed to be a stall. If things had gone differently—"

Graner rapped his knuckles on the table.

"I think you've talked long enough," he said. "You will now listen to what I have to say."

There was an audible tightness in his throat which had not been there before — it was hardly noticeable enough to define, but it told the Saint that his last shot had gone very near the mark. And other indications were reaching him at the same time from the surrounding atmosphere, like electrical vibrations impinging on a sensitive instrument. The tension which had started to relax was coming back. The other three, Aliston and Palermo and Lauber, were leaning unconsciously towards him, sitting stiffly from the tautness of their muscles, watching him as if they were watching a smouldering fuse that might explode a charge of dynamite at any instant.

The Saint shrugged contentedly.

"By all manner of means, Reuben," he said obligingly. "But who's going to listen?"

"We'll all listen," snarled Lauber.

"And will you all be quite sure that it's safe for the rest of you to hear? I'm not promising anything, but you might get some valuable information out of me; and then one of you might use it for himself."

Graner put the tips of his fingers together in his old-maidish way.

"That will not concern yon," he said ironically.

"But I think it concerns all of us," said the Saint. "Get your senses together and look at it. We've all been dashing about in different directions, trying to cut each other's throats. Now we seem to have got joined up again. Let's stay that way. You've got Christine. I've still got the other two. Let's put our cards on the table and see how the hand plays out."

Aliston's sharp falsetto laugh twittered across the room.

"You must think we're a lot of fools," he said scornfully.

"Would you be a bigger fool to trust me than to trust a little punk like Palermo? Would Graner be a bigger fool to trust me than to trust a thickheaded windbag like Lauber? You, Art — after the way Aliston ratted on you when he thought things were getting too hot — d'you still feel he's your soul mate? Have you forgotten that clout Lauber gave you on the kisser? Lauber — do you remember how Palermo and Aliston wanted to kiss you and put you to bed the first night I came here? And Graner — what has he done—"