Leslie Charteris - The Saint In Action

The Saint crossed the road.

He had no qualms about the enormity of what he proposed to do. What occupied his mind much more were the chances of being allowed to commit his crime. There seemed to be an entirely unnecessary number of street lamps clustered around that corner; and while they could never have competed with the noonday sun, they were bright enough to illumine the scene for the eyes of any passer-by who might tend to regard the sight of a man climbing over a wall as a spectacle to which the attention of the neighbourhood might justifiably be directed. But Cambridge Square is a quiet place, and at that hour it was sunk in its regular postprandial coma. The Saint slowed his steps to allow a lone prowling taxi to drag itself past him, and at the same time he measured the wall with his eye. It was not more than seven feet high, and the top was protected with curved iron spikes set in the brickwork — but they were spikes of an old-fashioned pattern which had been clearly designed for a day when burglarious agility was still an undeveloped art. To a wall-climber of the Saint's experience they were not much more of an obstacle than a row of feathers…

The prowling taxi had hauled itself wearily on, and the nearest other car was the limousine in which Peter Quentin was waiting. For the moment there was no other human being nearer than that. Simon Templar's glance swept once over the panorama, and he knew that it was no use waiting for a better opportunity. The rest was on the lap of the gods.

He made a leap for the top of the wall, caught the base of one spike with his right hand and the curve of another with his left and was over like a flash of dark lightning. A roving cat could hardly have cleared the obstacle with more silent speed.

His feet padded down with the same catlike softness on a paved path on the other side; and for a second he crouched there without movement, exactly as he had landed, listening for any trace of a disturbing sound in the world outside. But his straining ears caught nothing that stood out from the vague normal background of London noise, and in another moment he was darting across an open patch of grass like a fleeting shadow to the foot of one of the trees he had marked down in his survey.

Its branches grew so low down that his hands could reach the lowest of them with the help of an easy jump, and with only a moment's pause he was working himself up into the short young foliage with the swift suppleness of a trained gymnast. In less than a minute from the time when he had surmounted the wall he was poising himself for the short leap onto the terrace that was his first objective.

Until then he had been screened by the wall and the new leaves that partly clothed the tree; but now he was in the open again, plainly visible to anyone who looked up or looked out, even when he had crossed the terrace to the partial shelter of one of the dark window-doorways that opened onto it. He tried the handle cautiously, but it was fastened on the inside. For some time, which was probably a minute or two but which seemed like a week, he had to work on it with a slender tool which he took from his pocket, before the window opened and let him into the dark room beyond.

He closed the window after him and stood looking out through it, scanning the square below. Beside the limousine near the corner he saw a dark shape pacing to and fro and saw also the erratically fluctuating pin point of a lighted cigarette end; and the sketch of a smile touched his lips. Peter was doubtless collecting enough material to give a heart specialist a year's course of study, but there was the consoling thought that a few more repetitions of the same stimulus would probably give him a lifelong immunity of incalculable value… Otherwise there were no visible signs of commotion. If any stray wanderers in the vicinity had witnessed any excerpts from the recent unrolling of events they had apparently decided that such affairs were none of their dull and respectable business and had proceeded untroubled on their prosaic ways.

The Saint turned away from the window and undipped the pencil flashlight from his breast pocket. Its thin subdued beam swivelled once round the room — and snapped out again suddenly.

He was in some kind of formal reception room, a gaunt bare chamber with gilt-edged mirrors and velvet drapes and stuffy, uninviting chairs ranged around the walls to leave most of the floor clear. There was nothing remarkable about it except its monumental ugliness, which would have impressed the spiritual descendants of Queen Victoria as being delightfully respectable and dignified. Facing the Saint, as he stood by the window, was a door which presumably led out to a landing or corridor; and on his right was another door communicating with an adjoining room. It was through this communicating door that he had heard the sound of voices which had made him extinguish his torch with involuntary abruptness.

He had heard the answer to a muffled question quite distinctly, spoken in good English but with a strong foreign accent:

"I met him in Sevilla when he was visiting Jerez for his company."

A slow smile of deep contentment touched the Saint's lips, and he put his torch away with an inaudible sigh. If he had known all the inside geography of the house and had moreover been gifted with second sight he couldn't have organized his entrance more accurately and appropriately. It was one of those moments when his guardian angel seemed to have hooked him bodily onto the assembly line of adventure and launched him onto an unerringly triumphant sequence of developments like the routine of some supernal mass-production factory.

In a few swift noiseless steps he was at the door with his ear close to the panels, in time to hear the first thin grumbling voice say: "In a case like this you should have more sense. You say you work for what you think is good for your country, but you are as stupid as a little child. I am only working for money for myself, but even I am more careful. Or is that the reason why I cannot afford to be stupid?"

"My dear Urivetzky!" The second voice was conciliatory. "It was not so easy as you think. We had to find agents quickly, and at a time when we could take no risks, when everything had to be done in secret, when, if we made a mistake, we could have been imprisoned or even executed. Ingleston had many friends in Sevilla, expropriated aristocrats, and they assured me that he was in sympathy with our cause. I heard the highest recommendations of him before I spoke to him, and we wished to use foreigners whenever possible because they would arouse no suspicion. But every man can be tempted—"

"It is the business of a leader to choose men who are difficult to tempt," Urivetzky retorted sourly. "Anyone who was not stupid would know that when you entrust a man with bearer bonds which are not traceable, which can be used for any purpose by the man who possesses them, that you must take care how you choose him."

"I am not so experienced in these matters as yourself." The other's voice had an edge to it. "Unfortunately all the gold of Spain is held by the Banco de Espana, in Madrid, which is held by the Reds, and we shall never know what they have done with it. I regret the necessity for these tricks, but we have no choice."

"Pah! You have choice enough. How many thousand Germans and Italians are fighting on your side?"

"They are in sympathy with us, but even they would not help us for nothing."

Urivetzky grunted.

"I also regret your necessities, if they are necessities," he said. "And I shall regret them more if your other agents have been as badly chosen."

"They have not been badly chosen. At this moment I have nearly forty thousand pounds in American and English money in my safe, all of it paid over to me by our other agents. Ingleston was the only mistake we have made."