Leslie Charteris - The Saint In Action

"And now," he said through a veil of smoke, "what about this forty thousand quid?"

"That can be arranged fairly quickly."

Quintana had sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk. He leaned back in it, turning his gun between his hands as if he had ceased to regard it as a useful weapon; but Simon knew that he could bring it back to usefulness quicker than the distance between them could be covered.

"Mr Templar, you are a bold man. Let me point out that you are now inside the residence of the representative of the Spanish Nationalist party. If I shot you now and the fact was ever discovered I doubt whether anything very serious could ever happen to me."

"Except some of the things I was telling you about," murmured the Saint.

The other nodded.

"Yes, it would be very inconvenient. But it would not be fatal. I am only mentioning that to show my appreciation of your — nerve. And for some other reasons. Now the alternative to killing you is to pay you your price of forty thousand pounds. But we could not do that without satisfactory guarantees that your own side of the bargain would be kept."

"And what would they be?"

"Very simple. We have all heard of your reputation, and in your own way you are said to be a man of honour. I expect your associates are of the same type. Well, in diplomatic circles when such situations arise, as they sometimes do, it is customary to bind the agreement with a solemn written undertaking that it will be kept. I shall therefore have to require that undertaking not only from yourself but also from these other persons who you say are in your confidence. They will come here personally and sign it in my presence."

The Saint moved very little.

"When?"

"I should prefer it to be done tonight."

"And the money?"

"That will be yours as soon as the undertaking is signed." Quintana stopped playing with his gun at a moment which left its muzzle conveniently but inconspicuously turned in the Saint's direction. "I suggest that you should telephone them at once, since the time limit you left them was so short. You will say nothing to them except that you require them to come here at once. Provided that there are no — accidents, the whole thing can be settled within half an hour."

The Saint's deep breath took in a long drift of smoke. So that was the move. It was something to know, even if the knowledge made nothing any easier.

He said without a trace of perturbation: "How do I know that you've really got the cash to do your share?"

Quintana looked at him with the raised eyebrows of faintly contemptuous reproach, and then he got up from the desk and went to the safe and unlocked it. He came back with a heavy sheaf of bank notes bound together with an elastic band and threw it down on the blotter in front of him as he sat down again.

"There is the money. You can take it away with you as soon as the formalities are complete. And for your own sake it would be better to complete them quickly. That is a condition I cannot argue about. Either you will accept your price on my terms, or you will be shot before your friends communicate with Scotland Yard. In that case the trouble we shall be caused will be of no benefit to you. Choose for yourself."

He spread out his arms in a suave diplomatist's bow, gargled his tonsils and spat gracefully at the porcelain cuspidor beside the desk.

The Saint trimmed his cigarette end in an ash tray.

An immense calm had suddenly come over him, in strange contrast to the tension he had been under before. Now that his questions had been answered, everything had been smoothed out into a simplicity in which tension had no place. His bluff had gone over — up to a point. But Quintana's answer was complete and unarguable. Simon knew that it was a lie, that Quintana had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain, that he never meant to hand over the money in front of him, that to telephone the others to come over and sign fabulous undertakings would only be leading them into the same trap that he himself was in. But he also knew equally well that if he rejected the condition he would be shot without mercy — and that Quintana might get away with it. It was a trap that he was expected to walk into like the greenest of greenhorns; and yet to stand back and announce that he had heard better fairy tales at his nurse's knee would merely be making the preliminary arrangements for his own funeral service.

"You are lucky to get your price so easily," whined Urivetzky.

"The conditions are only reasonable," said Perez.

Simon looked from one to the other. They had grasped the trend of Quintana's strategy as quickly as he had himself, and they were hunched forward, taut with eagerness to see how he would respond. And the Saint knew that this was one occasion when his fluent tongue would take him no further — when the only response that would save his life would be the response they wanted. How long even that would save his life for was another matter, but the alternatives were instant and inexorable. They could be read like a book in the hollow-eyed intentness of Urivetzky's skull-life face and the savage vindictiveness of Perez's stare.

The Saint smiled.

"Why, yes," he agreed sappily. "That seems fair enough."

It was as if an actual physical pressure had been released from the room. The others drew back imperceptibly, and the air seemed to lighten, although the claws were still there.

Quintana opened a drawer of the desk and took out a telephone.

"This is a private line which cannot be traced," he said. "I am telling you that in case you should have any idea of going back on your bargain."

"Why should I?" Simon enquired guilelessly. "I want that money too much."

"I am only warning you. If in the course of this conversation you should say anything which might make us suspect that you were trying to evade our agreement you will be killed at once. If you have no intention of double-crossing us the warning can do you no harm."

He pushed the telephone across the desk, and Simon picked up the receiver.

Without a shadow of hesitation he dialled the private number of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.

The only thing left was to pray that Teal would be there. Simon glanced at his watch while he waited for the connection. Mr Teal was not a man who had many diversions outside his job, and at that hour he should have been peacefully installed beside his hearth, chewing spearmint and doing whatever homely things chief inspectors did when they were off duty. And while the Saint was holding his breath the answer, in a familiar sleepy voice, came on the line.

"Hullo."

"Hullo," said Simon. "This is the Saint."

There was a moment's pause.

"Well, what do you want?" Teal asked nastily.

"I'm okay," said the Saint. "Can I speak to Patricia?"

"She's not here."

Simon took a pull at his cigarette.

"Oh, hullo, Pat," he said. "How are you?"

"I tell you she isn't here," yowled the detective. "Why should she be? I've got enough to do—"

"I'm fine, darling," said the Saint. "I'm with Quintana now."

"Who?"

"Luis Quintana… at 319 Cambridge Square."

"Look here," Teal said cholerically, "if this is another of your ideas of a joke—"

"I've talked things over with him," said the Saint, "and he's ready to do business. I've told him that we'll keep everything quiet — about Urivetzky being alive, and about those forged American short-term loan bearer bonds, and about Perez murdering Ingleston — all for forty thousand pounds cash. It seems fair enough to me if it's all right with the rest of you."

There was another silence for a second or two, and then Teal said in a different voice: "Are you talking to me?"

"Yes, darling," said the Saint. "I'm in his study now, and he's ready to hand over the money at once. There's only one condition. He knows that you know all about these things, and he wants you all to come over and sign an undertaking to keep your mouths shut as well as mine. I guess we'll have to agree to that."