Leslie Charteris - Alias The Saint

It was the one item of information that he lacked, and the revelation made his hair curl. "Up-to-date piracy," he had diagnosed without revving his brain up to any point where it would have been liable to seize, but that the subject of the piracy should be such a colossal sum, in the shape of such an easily negotiable metal, was a factor of which he had never dreamed.

And then he laughed.

"There's nothing much for you to know, old dear," he drawled. "It's only that the Professor has arranged to lift that little flock of ingots on the way."

Duncarry revolved his long-nosed face towards the Saint, and inhaled sibilantly.

"What's that?" he demanded.

"Exactly what I told you," murmured Simon, and passed on what he had seen and what he had overheard.

Now that he had all the threads in his hands, this did not take him long. Mysteries are long and complicated, but facts are always plain and to the point.

"The Professor has a few million cubic feet of compressed poison gas in his heavy luggage for the benefit of the strong-room guards. I'll bet any money he also has a cabin in a good strategic position for conferring the same benefit. There is also a quantity of tear gas to deal with minor disturbances. That's what they were manufacturing when I butted in--I got a whiff of it, and the mystery literally made me burst into tears. Crantor will come up in the ship we saw to take off the boodle. I can guess that, though I can't tell you how it's going to be arranged."

"And what do we do about it?" asked Duncarry, and the Saint grimaced.

"That depends upon the efficacy

If anything can be deduced from subsequent events, Duncarry was no mean intercessor. Or perhaps the Saint's magnificent luck was working overtime. At least it is a simple fact that they covered the eighty-five miles to Gloucester without a mishap, though it took them nearly five hours.

It was three o'clock on the Wednesday morning when the Saint entered the police station in Gloucester, and by some means best known to himself succeeded in so startling the sleepy night shift that they allowed him to use the official telephone for a call to Chief Inspector Teal's private address.

And the means by which he convinced Chief Inspector Teal that he was not trying to be funny may also never be known. But he passed on Teal's parting words to Duncarry verbatim.

"Leave this end to me," Teal had said, and for once in his life his voice was not at all drowsy. "I'll get through to the police at Portsmouth and tell them to be looking out for you; and after that I'll get on to the Admiralty, and make sure that they'll have everything ready for you when you arrive. You'll see the thing through yourself--it's hopelessly illegal, but I'm afraid you've earned the job."

"Does that mean we're temporary policemen?" inquired Duncarry, when the speech had been reported; and Simon Templar nodded.

"I guess it does."

A constable had already been sent round to waken the owner of the biggest local garage and commandeer the fastest car in stock, and at that moment a huge Bentley roared up and stopped outside the station. Simon took the wheel, and Dun-carry settled in beside him.

They were well on their way before the American voiced his opinion of the whole affair.

"This is a great day for a couple of outlaws," he remarked; and the Saint, remembering the almost grovelling farewell of the Gloucester police station personnel, could not find it in him to disagree.

Passengers on the Megantic who were up early for breakfast that morning were interested to see the low lean shape of a destroyer speeding towards them. As the destroyer came nearer, a string of flags broke out from the mast, and then the passengers were amazed and fluttered, for the Megantic suddenly began to slow up.

The destroyer also hove to, and a boat put out from its side and rowed towards the Megantic.

Betty Tregarth was one of the early risers who crowded to the side to watch the two men from the destroyer's boat climbing up the rope ladder which had been lowered for them. She saw the first man who clambered over the rail quite clearly, and the colour left her face suddenly, for it was the man whom she knew as Rameses Smith.

The Megantic had got under way again, and the destroyer was rapidly dropping astern, when she received the expected summons to the captain's cabin.

Besides the captain, Rameses Smith was there, and another man with an official bearing whose face seemed vaguely familiar. Marring was also there, an unsavoury and dishevelled sight in his dressing gown, and she saw that there were handcuffs on his wrists.

"This is the other one," said the Saint. "Miss Tregarth, I don't think I need to put you in irons, but I must ask you to consider yourself under arrest."

She nodded dumbly.

Simon Templar turned to his companion.

"Dun, you can take Marring below. Don't let him out of your sight. I'll arrange for you to be relieved later." Then he turned to the captain. "Captain Davis, may I ask you to allow me a few words alone with Miss Tregarth?"

"Certainly, Mr. Templar."

The captain followed Duncarry and Marring out of the room, and Simon Templar closed the door behind them, and faced the girl. She had never imagined that he could look so stern.

"Sit down," he said, and she obeyed.

Simon took a chair on the other side of the table.

"Betty," he said, "I'm giving you your last chance. Spill all the beans you know, and you mayn't do so badly. Stay in with the rest of 'em, and you're booked for a certain ten years. Which is it going to be?"

"I'll tell you everything I know," she said. "It doesn't matter much now, anyway."

She told him the story from the beginning, and he listened with rapt attention. She expected incredulity, but he showed none. At the end of the recital he was actually smiling.

"That's fine!" said the Saint, almost with a sigh --"that's the best thing I've heard for a long time!"

"What do you mean?" she asked dazedly.

"Only this," answered the Saint. "I guessed you were framed, but the police never knew anything about it. Raxel never bothered to try and deceive them. He just wanted to make sure of you. I don't know every single idea that waddles through the so-called brains of the police, but if you're wanted for murdering Inspector Henley you may call me Tiglath-Pileser for short."

She stared.

"But you're a detective youself---your name isn't Smith, of course, but--"

Simon smiled cherubically.

"The captain called me by my right name," he said. "I am Simon Templar."

She stared.

"Not--the Saint?"

"None other," said Simon; and it is the chronicler's painful duty to record that he said it as if he were very pleased about it. Which he was.

"Then--is all this--"

Simon shook his head.

"I'm afraid it isn't," he said, almost lugubriously. "This enterprise is catastrophically respectable. You may take it that the full power and majesty of the Law is concentrated in these lily-white hands. Is there anyone else you'd like arrested?"

"Do you mean that I'm free?" she asked, with a wild hope springing up in her voice.

"Well, that's a matter for Claud Eustace Teal. You're too deeply involved to be set free without a considerable flourishing of red tape; but within a week or so, say--Here, have a handkerchief."

The Saint pushed a gaudy square yard or two of silk into her hands, and went in search of Duncarry.

"Betty Tregarth is drenching the skipper's carpet," he said. "Would you like to go and lend a shoulder?"

The destroyer returned some hours later from the task of rounding up and capturing the cooperating vessel that was Crantor's charge; and it was Duncarry who escorted the girl on board and supervised the transshipment of Gregory Marring and the two expert safe smashers who were discovered among the passengers. The Saint himself seemed to have lost interest, and his interview with Professor Raxel was very brief. ''