Leslie Charteris - The Saint and Mr. Teal

Simon dropped the shutter over it again and drew Patricia aside.

"We've had a visitor," he said. "I didn't think the fun would begin quite so soon."

There was nothing to show whether the visitor had taken his departure. Only one thing was certain — that someone or something had passed across the barrage of invisible alarms that Simon had arranged to cover every door and window in the place. The visitor might have left, but Simon was not disposed to bet on it.

He stood well to the side of the doorway, sheltered by the solid brickwork of the wall, while he reached round and slipped his key soundlessly into the lock at arm's length. Still keeping out of sight, he pushed the door softly back and felt under the jamb for the electric light switch. There was a flicker of fire and a deafening report; and then the light came on and Simon leapt through into the hall. He heard a patter of feet and the slam of a door, and raced through the kitchen to the back entrance on the mews. He got the door open in time to see a running figure fling itself into the back of an open car which was already speeding towards the street, and a second shot came from it before it turned out of the mews. The bullet flew wide and smacked into the wall; and Simon grinned gently and went back to Patricia Holm.

"There's one gunman in London who loses his nerve rather easily, which is just as well for us," he remarked. "But I wonder who it was?"

Curiously enough, he had almost forgotten the man named Jones, who had done such an unfriendly thing to Brian Quell that night in Paris.

THERE were no further demonstrations of disapproval that night, although the Saint paid particular attention to the setting of his gadgets before he went to bed, and slept with one ear cocked. He came down to breakfast late the next morning, and was confronted by a shining little cylinder of brass in the middle of his plate. For a moment he stared at it puzzledly, and then he laughed.

"A souvenir?" he murmured, and Patricia nodded.

"I found it in the hall, and I thought you might like to put it in your museum."

Simon spread his napkin cheerfully.

"More 'Weapons I Have Not Been Killed With'?" he suggested. "There must be quite a trunkful of them." He reached out a hand towards the cartridge case, and then drew it back. "Wait a minute — just how did you pick this thing up?"

"Why — I don't know. I—"

"Surely you can remember. Think for a minute. I want you to show me exactly how you took hold of it, how you handled it, everything that happened to it between the time when you saw it on the carpet and the time when it reached this plate… No — don't touch it again. Use a cigarette."

The girl took up the cigarette endways between her thumb and forefinger.

"That's all I did," she said. "I had the plate in my other hand, and I brought it straight in. Why do you want to know?"

"Because all clever criminals wear gloves when they open safes, but very few of them wear gloves when they're loading a gun." Simon picked up the shell delicately in his handkerchief, rubbed the base carefully where the girl's thumb had touched it, and dropped it into an empty matchbox. "Thanks to your fastidious handling, we probably have here some excellent finger-prints of a rotten marksman — and one never knows when they might come in handy."

He turned to a plate of sizzling bacon and eggs with the profound gusto of a man who has slept like a child and woken up like a lion. Patricia allowed him to eat and skim through his morning paper in peace. Whatever schemes and theories were floating through his mercurial imagination, he would never have expounded them before his own chosen time; and she knew better than to try and drag them out of him before he had dealt satisfactorily with his fast.

He was stirring his second cup of coffee when the telephone bell roused him from a fascinating description of the latest woman Atlantic flier's underwear. He reached out a long arm, lifted the receiver, and admitted fearlessly that he was Mr. Simon Templar. "I trust you are well," said the telephone. The Saint raised his eyebrows and felt around for a cigarette.

"I'm very fit, thanks," he said. "How are you? And if it comes to that, who are you?"

A deep chuckle reached him from the other end of the line.

"So long as you don't interfere with me, that need not concern you. I'm sorry that you should have had such an unpleasant shock last night, but if my envoy had kept his head you would have felt nothing at all. On the other hand, his foolishness might still encourage you to accept a friendly warning."

"That's very kind of you," said the Saint thoughtfully. "But I've already got someone to see that my socks are aired, and I always take care not to get my feet wet—"

"I'm talking about more dangerous things than colds, Mr. Templar."

Simon's gaze fell on the sheet of newspaper which he had been reading. Two columns away from the inventory of the lady aviator's wardrobe he saw a headline that he had not noticed before; and the germ of an inspiration suddenly flashed through his mind. "ANOTHER 'SAINT' THREAT," ran the heading of the column, in large black letters; and below it was an account of the letter that had been received by Mr. Ronald Nilder… Patricia was watching him anxiously, but he waved her to silence.

"Dear me! Are you such a dangerous man — Mr. Jones?"

There was a long pause; and the Saint's lips twitched in a faint smile. It had been a shot clear into the dark; but his mind worked like that — flashing on beyond the ordinarily obvious to the fantastically far-fetched that was always so gloriously right.

"My congratulations." The voice on the line was scarcely strained. "How much did Quell tell you?"

"Plenty," said the Saint softly. "I'm sorry you should have had such an unpleasant shock, but if you had kept your head…"

He heard the receiver click down at the other end and pushed the telephone away from him.

"Who was that?" asked Patricia.

"Someone who can think nearly as fast as I can," said the Saint, with a certain artistic admiration. "We know him only as Mr. Jones — the man who shot Brian Quell. And it was one of his pals who disturbed the peace last night." The gay blue eyes levelled themselves on her with the sword-steel intentness that she knew of old. "Shall I tell you about him? He's a rather clever man. He discovered that I was staying in the hotel that night — on Quell's floor, with my window almost opposite his across the well. But he didn't know that before he did his stuff — otherwise he might have thought up something even cleverer. How he found out is more than we know. He may have accidentally seen my name in the register, or he may even have come back for something and listened outside Quell's door — then he'd 've made inquiries to find out who it could have been. But when he got back to England he heard more about me—"

"How?"

"From the story of your noble assault on Wolseley Lormer. Brother Jones decided to take no chances — hence last night. Also this morning there was another dose for him."

Simon pointed to the headlines that he had seen. It was while Patricia was glancing over them that a name in an adjoining paragraph caught his eye, and he half rose from his chair.

"And that!" His finger stabbed at the news item. "Pat — he can certainly think fast!"

He read the paragraph again.

UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR MISSING

——

SEQUEL TO PARIS SHOOTING TRAGEDY

—

Birmingham, Thursday.

Loss of memory is believed to be the cause of the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Sylvester Quell, professor of electro-chemistry, who has been missing for twenty-four hours.

The professor's housekeeper, Mrs. E. J. Lane, told a Daily Express representative that Dr. Quell left his house as usual at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday to walk to his lecture room. He did not arrive there, and he has not been heard of since.