Leslie Charteris - The Saint in New York

"Buon Dio! And where have you been for so many years?"

A bolt was drawn, and the portal was swung inwards. The Saint's hand was taken in an iron grip; another hand was slapping him on the back; his ears throbbed to a rich, jovial laughter.

"Where have you been, eh? Why do you stay away so long? Why didn't you tell me you were coming, so I could tell the boys to come along?"

"They aren't here tonight?" asked the Saint, spinning his hat dexterously onto a peg.

Chris shook his head.

"You ought to of telephoned, Simon."

"I'm just as glad they aren't here," said the Saint looking at him; and Chris was serious suddenly.

"I'm sorry — I forgot… Well, you know you will be all right here." He smiled, and his rich voice brightened again. "You are always my friend, whatever happens."

He led the Saint down the passage towards the kitchen, with a brawny arm around his shoulders. The kitchen was the supplement to the one small dining-room that the place boasted — it was the sanctum sanctorum, a rendezvous that was more like a club than anything else, where those who were privileged to enter found a boisterous hospitality undreamed of in the starched expensive restaurants, where the diners are merely so many intruders, to be fed at a price and bowed stiffly out again. Although there were no familiar faces seated round the big communal table, the Saint felt the reawakening of an old happiness as he stepped into the brightly lighted room, with the smell of tobacco and wine and steaming vegetables and the clatter of plates and pans. It took him back at one leap to the ambrosial nights of drinking and endless argument, when all philosophies had been probed and all the world's problems settled, that he had known in that homely place.

"You'll have some sherry, eh?"

Simon nodded.

"And one of your steaks," he said.

He sat back and sipped the drink that Chris brought him, watching the room through half-closed eyes. The flash of jest and repartee, the crescendo of discussion and the ring of laughter, came to his ears like the echo of an unforgettable song. It was the same as it had always been — the same humorous camaraderie presided over and kept vigorously alive by Chris's own unchanging geniality. Why were there not more places like that in the world, he began to wonder — places where a host was more than a shopkeeper, and men threw off their cares and talked and laughed openly together, without fear or suspicion, expanding cleanly and fruitfully in the glow of wine and fellowship?

But he could only take that in a passing thought; for he had work to do that night. The steak came — thick, tender, succulent, melting in the mouth like butter; and he devoted himself to it with the wholehearted concentration which it deserved. Then, with his appetite assuaged, he leaned back with the remains of his wine and a fresh cigarette to ponder the happenings of the day.

At all events he had made a good beginning. Irboll was very definitely gone; and the Saint inhaled with deep contentment as he recalled the manner of his going. He had no regrets for the foolhardy impulse that had made him attach his own personal signature uncompromisingly to the deed. Some of the terror that had once gone with those grotesque little drawings still clung to them in the memories of men who had feared them in the old days; and with a little adroit manipulation much of that terror could be built up again. It was good criminal psychology, and Simon was a great believer in the science. Curiously enough, that theatrical touch would mean more to a brazen underworld than anyone but an expert would have realized; for it is a fact that the hard-boiled gangster constitutes a large proportion of the dime novelette's most devoted public.

At any rate, it was a beginning. The matter of Irboll had been disposed of; but Irboll was quite a minor fish in the aquarium. Valcross had been explicit on that point. The small fry were all right in their appointed place: they could be neatly dismembered, drenched in ketchup and tabasco, exquisitely iced, and served up for a cocktail — on the way. But one million dollars of anybody's money was the price of the leaders of the shoal; and apart from the simple sport of rod and line, Simon Templar had a nebulous idea that he might be able to use a million dollars. Thinking it over, he had some difficulty in remembering a time when he could not have used a million dollars.

"If you offered me a glass of brandy," he murmured, as Chris passed the table, "I could drink a glass of brandy."

There was a late edition of the World-Telegram abandoned on the chair beside him, and Simon picked it up and cast an eye over the black banner of type spread across the front page. To his mild surprise he found that he was already a celebrity. An enthusiastic feature writer had launched himself on the subject with justifiable zeal; and even the Saint was tempted to blush at the extravagant attributes with which his modest personality had been adorned. He read the story through with a quizzical eye and the faintest suspicion of a smile on his lips.

And then the smile disappeared. It slid away quite quietly, without any fuss. Only the lazy blue gaze that scanned the sheet steadied itself imperceptibly, focusing on a name that had cropped up once too often.

He had been waiting for that — searching, in a detached and comprehensive way, for an inspiration that would lead him to a renewal of the action — and the lavish detail splurged upon the circumstances of his latest sin by that enthusiastic feature writer had obliged. It was, at least, a suggestion.

The smile came back as he stood up, draining the glass that had been set in front of him. People who knew him said that the Saint was most dangerous when he smiled. He turned away and clapped Chris on the shoulder.

"I'm on my way," he announced; and Chris's face fell.

"What, so soon?"

Simon nodded. He dropped a bill on the sideboard.

"You still broil the best steaks in the world, Chris," he said with a smile. "I'll be back for another."

He went down the hall, humming a little tune. On his way he stopped by the telephone and picked up the directory. His finger ran down a long column of N's and came to rest below the name in the newspaper story that had held so much interest for him. He made a mental note of the address, patted the side pocket of his coat for the reassuring bulge of his automatic, and strolled on into the street

The clock in the ornate tower of the old Jefferson Market Court was striking nine when his cab deposited him on the corner of Tenth Street and Greenwich. He stood at the curb and watched the taxi disappear round the next corner; and then he settled his hat and walked a few steps west on Tenth Street to pick up the number of the nearest house.

His destination was farther on. Still humming the same gentle breath of a tune, he continued his westward stroll with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette slanting up between his lips, with the same lithe, easy stride as he had gone down Lexington Avenue to his dinner — and with precisely the same philosophy. Only on this journey his feeling of pleasant exhilaration had quickened itself by the exact voltage of the difference between a gesture of bravado and a definite mission. He had no plan of action, but neither had the Saint any reverence for plans. He went forth, as he had done so often in the past, with nothing but a sublime faith that the gods of all good buccaneers would provide. And there was the loaded automatic in his pocket, and the ivory-hilted throwing knife strapped to his left forearm under his sleeve, ready to his hand in case the gods should overdo their generosity…

In a few minutes he had found the number he wanted. The house was of the Dutch colonial type, with its roots planted firmly in the late Victorian age. Its broad flat façade of red brick trimmed in white was unassuming enough; but it had a smug solidity reminiscent of the ancient Dutch burghers who had first shown their business acumen in the New World by purchasing the island from the Indians for twenty-four dollars and a jug of corn whisky — Simon had sometimes wondered how the local apostles of Temperance had ever brought themselves to inhabit a city that was tainted from its earliest conception with the Devil's Brew. It was an interesting metaphysical speculation which had nothing whatsoever to do with the point of his presence there, and he abandoned it reluctantly in favour of the appealing potentialities of a narrow alley which he spotted on one side of the building.