Leslie Charteris - The Saint In Action

"What's he been doing since he came out?"

"He reported in the usual way, and as far as we knew he was going quite straight," replied Mr Teal. "He was doing some free-lance writing, I think. We've lost track of him during the last five or six months—"

"He's got a new job — as the Z-Man's assistant," said the Saint. "And, by the Lord, he's the very man for it! He knows the inside of the film business, and he must hate every kind of screen personality, from producers downwards, like nobody's business. It's a perfect setup… Have you seen Sentinel?"

"I'm seeing him this afternoon — he probably knows a lot more about Everill than we do. But you aren't usually interested in the small fry, are you?"

"When the small fry is in the shape of a sprat, yes," answered the Saint, rising elegantly to his feet. "You see, Claud, old dear, there might be a mackerel cruising about in the neighbouring waters… That's a good idea of yours. I think I'll push along and see Comrade Sentinel myself."

The detective's jaw dropped.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he yapped. "You can't—"

"Can't I?" drawled the Saint with his head round the door. "And what sort of a crime is it to go and have a chat with a film producer? Maybe my face is the face the world has been waiting for."

He was gone before Teal could think of a reply.

Mr Hubert Sentinel, the grand panjandrum of Sentinel Films, was not an aristocrat by birth or even a Conservative by conviction; but even he might have been slightly upset if he had heard himself referred to as "Comrade Sentinel." For he was considered a coming man in the British film industry, and obtaining an entry into his presence was about as easy as getting into Hitler's mountain chalet with one fist clenched and a red flag in the other.

But the Saint accomplished the apparently impossible at the first attempt. He simply enclosed his card in a sealed envelope with a request that it should be immediately delivered to Mr Sentinel, and he waited exactly two minutes.

Mr Sentinel was in conference. He took one look at the card, and during the next half minute one matinee idol, one prominent author, two script writers, a famous director and a covey of yes-men were swept out of the office like leaves before an autumn gale. When Simon Templar was admitted Mr Hubert Sentinel was alone, and Mr Sentinel was looking at the back of the Saint's card. On it were pencilled the words: Re the Z-Man.

"Take a pew, Mr Templar," he said, pushing forward a cigar box and inspecting his visitor out of bright and observant eyes. "I've heard about you of course."

"Who hasn't?" murmured the Saint modestly.

He accepted a cigar, carefully clipped the end, lighted it and emitted a fragrant cloud of blue smoke. It was merely an example of that theatrical timing which so pleased the Saint's heart. Sentinel waited restively, turning a pencil between his fingers. He was a thin bald-headed man with a birdlike face and an air of inexhaustible nervous vitality.

"If it had been anyone else I should have thought it was some crank with a bee in his bonnet," he said. "We get a lot of them around here. But you — Are you going to tell me that there's anything in these rumours?"

"There's everything in them," said the Saint deliberately. "They happen to be true. The Z-Man is as real a person as you are."

The producer stared at him.

"But why do you come to me?"

"For the very important reason that you once employed a man named Nathan Everill," answered the Saint directly. "I'm hoping you'll be able to tell me something useful about him."

"Good God, you're not suggesting that Everill is the Z-Man, are you?" asked the other incredulously. "He's such a poor specimen — a chinless, weak-minded fool—"

"But you employed him as your secretary for five years."

"That's true," confessed Sentinel hesitantly. "He was efficient enough — too damned efficient, as a matter of fact. But he always had a weak streak in him, and it came out in the end. He forged my name to some cheques — perhaps you know about that… But Everill! It doesn't seem possible—"

The Saint shook his head.

"I didn't say he was the Z-Man. But I know that he's very closely connected with him. So if you can help me to locate Everill you'll probably help me to get to close quarters with the Z-Man himself. And he interests me a lot."

"If you can get him, Templar, you'll not only earn my gratitude, but the gratitude of the whole film business," said Hubert Sentinel, rising to his feet and pacing up and down with undisguised agitation. "If he's a real person at least that gives us something to fight. Up to now he's just been a name that people have tried to stick onto something they couldn't explain any other way. But when we see our stars having mysterious breakdowns just when pictures are in their last scenes — getting hysterical over something you can't make them talk about — well, we have to put it down to something."

"Then you've had trouble yourself?"

"I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not," replied Sentinel carefully. "I'll only say that my production of Vanity Fair is held up while Mary Donne is recovering from a slight indisposition. She has said nothing to me, and I have said nothing to her. But that doesn't prevent me from thinking. As for the rest, Mr Templar, I believe I can tell you a great deal about Everill." He sat down again and rubbed his chin in earnest concentration. "You know, I've got some ideas of my own about the Z-Man. Can you tell me just what your interest in him is?"

"I have various interests," said the Saint, leaning back and making a series of perfect smoke rings. "The Z-Man must have collected a fair amount of boodle already, and that's always interesting. I take it that if I got rid of him nobody would mind me helping myself to a reward. And then I don't like his line of business. I think it would be rather a good idea if he was put out of the way — for keeps."

"Unless he puts you out of the way first," suggested the producer grimly. "If he's the sort of man he seems to be—"

The Saint shrugged.

"That's all in the game."

The other smiled appreciatively.

"I sincerely hope it won't be in your game," he said. "As for Everill — what do you want to know?"

"Anything you can remember. Anything that might give me a lead. What his tastes are — his amusements — his favourite haunts — his habits — why he started forging cheques—"

"Well, I suppose he's an extravagant little devil — wants to live like a rich playboy and so on. I suppose that's why lie had to increase his income. He was trying to run one of my actresses, and he couldn't keep pace with her. She had a big future ahead of her, and she knew it—"

It was as if the Saint's ears had closed up suddenly, so that he scarcely heard any more. All his senses seemed to have been arrested except the sense of sight, and that one filled his brain to the exclusion of everything else. He was staring at Hubert Sentinel's hands, watching the thin nervous fingers twiddling the pencil they held — and remembering another pair of hands…

The astounding import of it drummed through his head like the thunder of mighty waterfalls. It jeered at his credulity, and yet he knew that he must be right. It all fitted in — even if the revelation made him feel as if his mind had been hauled loose from its moorings. He sat in a kind of daze until a knock on the door brought him back to life.

Sentinel's secretary put her head in the door.

"Chief Inspector Teal is here, Mr Sentinel," she said.

"Oh yes." Sentinel stopped in the middle of a sentence. He explained: "Mr Teal made an appointment with me — is he interested in Everill too?"

"Very much," said the Saint. "In fact I was stealing a march on him. If there's any other way I can go out—"