Leslie Charteris - The Saint and Mr. Teal

"You foul, slimy—"

Osman's fist smacked the last word back into his teeth.

"If you had remembered your manners, Halidom, your fate might have been very different," he said; and it was obvious that he was only controlling himself momentarily, by an effort of will that brought beads of perspiration to the whiteness of his forehead. "But that is one word you cannot use. There was another man who used it many years ago — perhaps you would like to see him?"

He spoke to Ali purringly, in Arabic, and the man disappeared. Halidom was struggling like a maniac.

"You can't get away with this, you ugly swine—"

"No?"

Osman struck him again; and then, after a moment's pause, deliberately spat in his face. Laura cried out and flung herself forward, but one of the men caught her instantly. Osman sauntered over to her and tilted up her chin in his bloated hands.

"You're a spitfire too, are you, my dear? That makes it all the more interesting. I'm good at taming spitfires. In a moment I'll show you one of my tamed ones.

You shall see me tame Halidom in the same way — and you too."

He looked round as the seaman returned with his secretary. Clements was in a pitiful state — Osman had withheld the needle from him all that day, as he had threatened to do, and the slavering creature that tottered into the room made even Halidom's blood run cold.

The man fell on his knees at Osman's feet, slobbering and moaning unintelligibly; and Osman caught him by the hair and dragged him upright.

"Do you see this, Halidom? This is a man who used to call me a dirty nigger. Once upon a time he was just like you — strong, straight, insolent. He feared nothing, and despised me because I wasn't another stupid Englishman like himself. But then, one day, someone introduced him to the needle — the little prick that brings so much courage and cleverness for a while. Have you ever tried it, Halidom? You haven't even thought of it. You've been too busy playing cricket and being called a fine fellow because you could play it well. But you will try it. Oh, no, not voluntarily, perhaps — but the effects will be just the same. You will feel big, strong, clever, a fine fellow, until the drug wears off, and then you will feel very tired. Then I shall give you some more, and again you will feel fine and big and strong. And so we shall go on; you will want a little more each time, but I shall give you just the right amount, until" — in a sudden spasm of savagery he shook Clements by the handful of hair that he was still holding — "until you are bigger and stronger than ever — a finer fellow than you have ever been — like this thing here!"

He thrust the man away; but Clements was back as soon as he had recovered his balance, clutching Osman's hand, kissing it, fawning over it in a trembling abjectness that was nauseating.

"That will be pleasant for you, Halidom, won't it?"

Toby was staring at Clements with an incredulous loathing that turned his stomach sick.

"You filthy swine—"

"I have found, Halidom," said Osman, staring at him steadily, "that the needle is an excellent help for taming your kind. But my little whip also does its share — especially in the beginning, when there are moments of open rebellion. Would you like to see that as well?"

He touched a concealed spring, and a section of the panelling sprang open. Clements darted forward as he saw it, but Osman pushed the enfeebled body away easily with one hand and sent it sprawling. Inside the cupboard that was disclosed they could see a couple of hypodermic syringes set in gleaming nickelled racks, with a row of tiny glass phials beside them; but Osman left those alone. He took out a short leather whip, so thick at the base that it was difficult to see where it joined the handle, and tapering to a point in which there was a thin hard knot.

"An excellent instrument," Osman said, "which has helped to drive a proper sense of respect into the man you see."

He ran the lash through his fingers thoughtfully, gazing down at the grovelling creature by his feet. Something in the sight of that last triumph of his, that living completeness of humiliation, seemed to snap the thread of his gloating self-control. With his thick lips twisting back wolfishly, he leapt at Halidom and slashed twice at his face; then he turned and dragged Clements up again, holding him pinned against the wall with a hand grasping his throat.

"Look at them, Clements!" he screamed. "Look at them!" He forced the man's livid face round towards Toby and Laura. "Can you see them — or are you too hungry for the needle? They're white — white — the colour you were so proud of! And you're not ashamed, are you? I've thrashed you often enough before my blacks — you're used to that — but how do you like your own people to see what you've sunk to? Look at them, I tell you. A white man and a white girl — staring at you — despising you — and even that doesn't give you enough self-respect to stand up for yourself. Bah!"

He stepped back and sent the whip hissing about the man's thin shoulders; and then he came close to Halidom again.

"And that," he said hoarsely — "that is what you will be like, Halidom."

His mouth was drooling at the corners, his fingers twitching with the intensity of his passion. Toby looked him in the eyes.

"You'll never get away with this," he said, as quietly as he could. "Stride knows we're here, and as soon as he gets worried about Laura—"

Abdul Osman laughed harshly.

"My dear Halidom, you're mistaken. Stride sent Laura to me — to stay! He did not send you, but I imagine your disappearance will be a relief to him — if you had been left on his hands he might not have known what to do with you. By this time he is making his preparations to leave."

"I don't believe it!" cried the girl. "Toby — it can't be true — he's lying—"

Osman looked at her.

"It doesn't matter to me what you believe," he said silkily. "Doubtless you will be convinced in course of time."

"It's a lie!" she protested again, but a chill fear had closed on her heart. "He'll go straight to the police—"

"The police?" Osman's sinister chuckle whispered through the room. "They would be delighted to see him. You little fool! Didn't you know where his money came from? Didn't you know that all his life he's done nothing but trade in women and drugs — that I hold enough evidence to send him to prison for twenty years? You, my dear Laura, are the price of his liberty: you and — er — his retirement from business. A price that he was glad to offer, and that I was very happy to accept."

She could not think properly, could not comprehend the whole hideous significance of what he was saying. She could not believe it; and yet, from the manner in which he said it, either it must be true or he must be mad And neither alternative opened out a gleam of hope. But she remembered the strangeness that she had seen in Galbraith Stride's eyes when he insisted that she must deliver his message herself, and she was frozen with dread before that unspeakable explanation.

Beside her, Toby Halidom was struggling again in a blind fury of helplessness; and Osman looked at him again.

"I shall commence your treatment very soon, my friend," he said; and then he spoke again to Ali. "Take him away and bind him carefully — I shall ring when I wish to see him again."

Almost before he could speak, Halidom was hustled out of the room, with the girl's wild pitiful cry ringing in his ears. Rough brown hands forced him down a dark alleyway, tightened ropes round his wrists and ankles, and hurled him into an evil-smelling unlighted cabin. He heard the door locked on the outside, and was alone with a despair such as he had never dreamed of in his life, a despair haunted with visions that verged on sheer shrieking madness. There was only one hope left for him — a hope so small that it was almost worse than no hope at all. They had not troubled to search him, and there was a penknife in his pocket. If he could reach that, saw at the ropes on his wrists… then there would still be the locked door, and a hostile crew to break through unarmed… But he was trying to get at that knife, with strange futile tears burning under his eyelids.