Leslie Charteris - The Saint In Action

"You want me to come over to 319 Cambridge Square?" said Teal slowly.

"Yes, Pat. At once. Quintana insists on it, and I can't argue with him."

"Shall I bring some help?"

"Yes, bring the others. He wants you all to sign. You needn't send your names in — they'll be expecting you. Will you come on over?"

"They've got a gun on you, I suppose," Teal said intelligently.

"That's the idea," said the Saint. "As quick as you can, darling. Bye."

He dropped the microphone back and pushed the telephone away with a smile of satisfaction.

"They'll be here in a few minutes," he announced.

Urivetzky unlocked his fingers and leaned back; and Perez, who had sat down on the arm of the same chair, crossed his legs and took out a cigarette. Quintana nodded and put his gun down on the desk where it was still within easy reach. Every one of their individual reactions held an unspoken triumph that would have shrieked aloud its confirmation of the Saint's deductions — if he had wanted any confirmation. They were like three spiders waiting for the entrance of the flies.

None of them spoke. An atmosphere of guarded relaxation settled upon the scene, in which they waited in savoury anticipation for the logical outcome of their own ingenuity.

The Saint himself was not reluctant to be spared the trouble of making conversation. At ease in his chair, with an outward confidence and equanimity that was even more convincing than theirs, with his head thrown back so that he could build intermittent smoke-ring patterns towards the ceiling, he watched in his imagination the machinery that his telephone call had set in motion.

Now Teal was hanging up the receiver after another telephone call. Now he would be kicking off his carpet slippers and going quietly frantic over the obstinacy of his boot laces. And over in the gloomy soot-grimed building on the Embankment that was called Scotland Yard there would be a suppressed crescendo of traffic ir certain bare echoing corridors, and big heavy-footed men would be buttoning their prosaic and respectable coats and reaching down their prosaic and respectable hats; and a car or two would start up and swing round in the courtyard and stand there unexcitedly ticking over; and a man would hurriedly finish his beer in the canteen and stump up the stairs. Perhaps in his study in Hampstead an assistant commissioner would be frowning over the telephone and fiddling with his moustache and giving counsel in a worried Oxonian bleat. "Well, I don't know… Yes, but… ticklish business, you know… international complications… Home Secretary… Foreign Office… Yes, I know, got to do something, but… Bonds? Forgery? Murder?… I don't know… discretion… unofficial… tact… Well, for God's sake be careful…" And Teal would be waiting, fidgeting on his doorstep, till the cars drove up and he stepped in with a curt businesslike greeting and they went on, threading rapidly through the traffic, filled with stolid, unromantic, uncommunicative men. "Your policemen are wonderful." Now they would be well on their way — it wouldn't take them long to get to Cambridge Square via the modest lodgings in Victoria where Teal had his home. All these things happening in London between the drab narrow streets under the pulse of the city while seekers after excitement crowded into movie theatres and sleek men and shrill women danced on overcrowded floors and smug or frustrated nonentities paced under the bright lights or hurried through quiet squares. All this happening under the deep monotonous murmur of London which penetrated even through closed windows and solid walls, a continuous thrum of life of which one would be unaware unless it stopped, out of which an isolated squeal of brakes or the toot of a passing horn close by came sometimes like an abrupt reminder of its far-spread reality…

The time passed so quickly, Simon thought, and stole another glance at his watch. At any moment now they would be here. And then there would be trouble for himself, whoever else was in it. He had still been guilty of burglary, and there were several items of information which he had condoned or concealed. And on the desk in front of him there were still forty thousand pounds in ready cash, which any efficiently organized buccaneering concern could have used.

He had done the only thing he could have done, in the circumstances. And Chief Inspector Teal, not being completely solid ivory above the bowler hatbrim, had grasped enough of the idea to save the situation, as the Saint had known he would. But it didn't end there.

Even at that moment, probably, Teal was gloating over the fact that for the first time in his life the Saint had had to appeal to him and the majesty of the Law for help; and he was doubtless elaborating in his mind the various sarcastic comments with which he would rub home the unpleasantness that could be visited on the Saint impartially with any other malefactors who might be collected at the same time. On that visitation at least the assistant commissioner must have been insistent — if Mr Teal needed any encouragement.

But the Saint had done what Quintana wanted. And after he had done it the certainty of success had had its own demoralizing effect on the opposition. The' sharp edge of vigilance on which Simon had felt his life balancing had been dulled — little enough, he knew, but with a subtle definiteness.

Quintana was rocking his swivel chair backwards and forwards, his hands supporting him on the edge of the desk. Urivetzky was lounging back as the Saint was, his hands folded and his deep-set eyes lost in thought. Perez was sprawling, his cigarette drooping limply from the corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets. But in one of those same pockets, Simon knew, was a loaded automatic.

And at that moment in a complete silence the Saint heard the soft pad of footsteps outside that suddenly broke into the sharp rap of knuckles on the door.

It was one of the servants who looked in in answer to Quintana's summons.

"There are some people downstairs," he said in Spanish. "They will give no names, but they say you are expecting them."

"How many?" asked Quintana without ceasing his measured rocking in his chair.

"Four."

"Let them come up."

The tension was back in the room, under the surface, evident in the slight motions which Urivetzky and Perez made. Only the Saint did not stir from his reclining position; but his left hand, on the arm of the chair, imperceptibly tested the effort that would be necessary to raise him quickly out of it.

There was only one light in the room, he noted — a single bulb hung from the ceiling under a painted parchment shade. As he was lying back he could see under the shade straight to the bulb beneath.

Quintana turned to Perez.

"Search them before they come in," he said.

Perez's flat eyes hid a gleam of approval. He got up and slouched through the door as other footsteps approached along the passage.

Quintana looked at the Saint.

"A formality," he said, "but we must be careful. There are only three of us."

There were only two of them now, to be exact; and Quintana was still balanced with his fingers against the edge of the desk, in a position where it would take him a fraction of a second longer to recover himself than if he had been sitting up. The last vital difference in the odds had been adjusted when Perez left the room…

The Saint seemed to lounge even more lazily, while his left hand took a firmer grip of the arm of his chair. He waved his cigarette case back aimlessly, so that it was near his ear.

"Of course," he said very clearly, "I'm not worried about that. The only thing I'm bothered about is this bloke Graham. You know, the police might think he murdered Ingleston. We know that Perez did it—"

"I should hardly call it murder," answered Quintana, and although he was taking no pains to clarify his voice, it must have been lucidly audible through the open door. "Ingleston was a traitor, and traitors are executed. Perez was simply carrying out the sentence of the Fascist government as I interpreted it."