Leslie Charteris - The Saint in New York

"She hasn't done it yet," said the Saint.

Valcross was silent for a few moments; and then he said: "You've done your share. You've got five men out of the six names I gave you. In the short time you've been working, that's almost a miracle. The Big Fellow's your own idea — you put him on the list. If you fail — if you feel bound to keep your word and go back to Fernack — I can't stop you. But I feel that you've earned the reward I promised you. I've had a million dollars in a drawing account, waiting for you, ever since you came over. I'd like to give it to you, anyhow. It might be some use to you."

Simon hesitated. Valcross's eyes were fixed on him eagerly.

"You can't refuse," he insisted. "It's my money, and I think it's due to you. No one could have earned it better."

"All right," said the Saint. "But you can pay me in proportion. I haven't succeeded — why try to make out that I have?"

"I think I'm the best judge of that," said Valcross and let himself out of the cab with a quick smile.

Simon watched him go with a troubled frown. There was an unpleasant taste in his mouth which he had not noticed before. So the accounts of death would be paid according to their strict percentages, the blood money handed over, and the ledger closed. Six men to be killed for a million dollars. One hundred and sixty-six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents per man. He had not thought of it that way before — he had taken the offer in his stride, for the adventure, without seriously reckoning the gain. Well, he reflected bitterly, there was no reason why a man who in a few short weeks would be a convicted felon should try to flatter his self-esteem. He would go down as a hired killer, like any of the other rats he had killed…

Valcross was closing the door, turning away towards the bank; and at that moment another taxi flashed past the one in which Simon sat, and swung in to the curb in front of them. The door opened, and a woman got out. It was Fay Edwards.

Simon grabbed at the door handle and flung himself out onto the sidewalk. And then he saw that the girl was not looking at him, but at Valcross.

The Saint had never known anything to compare with that moment. There was the same curious constricted feeling at the back of his knees as if he had been standing with his toes over the edge of a sheer precipice, looking down through space into an unimaginable gulf; seconds passed before he realized that for a time he had even stopped breathing. When he opened his lungs again, the blood sang in his ears like the hissing of distant surf.

There was no need for anything to be said — no need for a single question to be asked and answered. The girl had not even seen him yet. But without seeing her face, without catching a glimpse of the expression in her eyes — he knew. Facts, names, words, events, roared through his mind like a turmoil of machinery gone mad, and fell one by one into places where they fitted and joined. Kestry's harsh voice stating: "Why did the guy that was phoning for you say 'This is the Big Fellow'?" He had never been able to think who could have given him away — except the one man whom he had never thought of. Fay Edwards saying: "The last I heard of Curly Ippolino, he was in Pittsburgh." Valcross had just returned from Pittsburgh. Fay Edwards saying: "All the profits were paid into one bank. It was agreed that the racket should run for three years… divide the surplus equally… Since you've been here, there aren't many of them left to divide… That means a lot of money for somebody." Valcross on his way to the bank — Valcross on his way back from Pittsburgh, where the last surviving member of the partnership had been. Fay Edwards saying: "He told me to try and make things easy for you." Naturally — until the job was finished. Valcross meeting him in Madrid. The list of men for justice — all of them dead now. The story of his kidnapped and murdered son, which it had never occurred to the Saint to verify. "I'll pay you a million dollars." With seventeen million at stake, the fee was very modest. You might clean up this rotten mess of crooks and grafters." Oh, God, what a blind fool he'd been!

In that reeling instant of time he saw it all. Jack Irboll dead. Morrie Ualino and Eddie Voelsang dead. The news flashed over the underworld grapevine, long before the newspapers caught up with it, that Hunk Jenson and Dutch Kuhlmann had also died. The knowledge that the Saint's sphere of usefulness was rapidly drawing to a close, and the bill would remain for payment. The trip to Pittsburgh and the telephone message to police headquarters. The last Machiavellian gesture of that devilish warped genius which had gone out and picked up the scourge of all secret crime, the greatest fighting outlaw in the world, bought him with a story and the promise of a million dollars, used him for a few days of terror, and cast him off before his curiosity became too dangerous. The final shock when Valcross saw the Saint that morning, alive and free. And the simple, puerile, obvious excuse to continue into the bank — and, once there, to slip out by another exit, and perhaps send a second message to the police at the same time. Simon Templar saw every detail. And then, as Fay Edwards turned at last and saw him for the first time, he read it all again, without the utterance of a single word, in that voiceless interchange of glances which was the most astounding solution to a mystery that he would ever know.

Æons of time and understanding seemed to have rocketed past his head while he stood there motionless, taking down into his soul the last biting, shattering dregs of comprehension; and yet in the chronology of the world it was no time at all Valcross had not even reached the doors of the bank. And then, as Fay Edwards saw the Saint and took two quick steps towards him, some supernatural premonition seemed to strike Valcross as if a shout had been loosed after him, and he turned round.

He saw Fay Edwards, and he saw the Saint.

Across the narrow space Simon Templar stared at Valcross and saw the whole mask of genial kindliness destroyed by the blaze of horrible malignity that flamed out of the old man's eyes. The change was so incredible that even though he understood the facts in his mind, even though he had assimilated them into the immutable truths of his existence, for that weird interval of time he was paralyzed, as if he had been watching a spaniel turn into a snake. And then Valcross's hand streaked down towards his hip pocket.

Simon's right hand started the hundredth part of a second later, moving with the speed of light — and the stiffness of his wounded shoulder caught it in midflight like a cruel brake. A stiletto of pain stabbed through his back like a hot iron. In the hypnotic grasp of that uncanny moment his disability had been driven out of his mind: he had used his right hand by instinct which moved faster than thought. In an instant he had corrected himself, and his left hand was snatching at Fernack's revolver in his coat pocket; but by that time Valcross was also holding a gun.

A shot smacked past his ear, stunning the drum like the blast of an express train concentrated twenty thousand times. His revolver was stuck in his pocket. Of the next shot he heard only the report. The bullet went nowhere near him. Then he twisted his gun up desperately and fired through the cloth; and Valcross dropped his automatic and clutched at his side, swaying where he stood.

Simon hurled himself forward. The street had turned into pandemonium. White-faced pedestrians blocked the sidewalk on either side of the bank, crushing back out of the danger zone. The air was raucous with the screams of women and the screech of skidding tires. He caught Valcross round the waist with his sound arm, swung him mightily off his feet, and started back with him towards the cab. He saw Mr. Lipski, his features convulsed with intolerable excitement, scrambling down from his box to assist. And he saw Fay Edwards.