Leslie Charteris - Featuring the Saint

"To see you home, first," he answered briskly. "And then I have a little job of work to do."

"But why have you changed?"

The Saint adjusted a cheap black tie.

"The job might turn into a funeral," he said. "I don't seriously think it will, but I like to be prepared."

She was still mystified when he left her at the door of her apartment.

From there he drove down to Piccadilly, and left his car in St. James's Street, proceeding afterwards on foot. Here the reason for his change of costume began to appear. Anyone might have remarked the rare spectacle of a truly Saintly figure parading the West End of London at six o'clock in the morning arrayed in one of the most dazzling creations of Savile Row; but no one came forward to describe the soberly dressed and commonplace-looking young man who committed the simplest audacity of the season.

Nor could he ever afterwards have been identified by the sleepy-eyed porter who answered his ring at a certain bell in Jermyn Street; for, when the door was opened, Simon's face was masked from eyes to chin by a handkerchief folded three-cornerwise, and his hat brim shaded his eyes. So much the porter saw before the Saint struck once, swiftly, mercifully, and regretfully, with a supple rubber truncheon. . . .

The Saint closed the door behind him and unbuttoned his double-breasted coat. There were a dozen turns of light rope wound round his waist belt-fashion, and with these he secured the janitor hand and foot, completing the work with a humane but efficient gag. Then he lifted the unconscious man and carried him to the little cubicle at the back of the hall, where he left him-after taking his keys.

He raced up the stairs to the door of Lemuel's apartment, which was on the second floor. It was the work of a moment only to find the right key. Then, if the door were bolted . . . But apparently Lemuel relied on the security of his Yale lock and the watchfulness of the porter. . . .

The Saint passed like a cat down the passage that opened before him, listening at door after door. Presently he heard the sound of rhythmic breathing, and he entered Lemuel's bedroom without a sound, and stood over the bed like a ghost.

He was certain that Lemuel must have spent a restless night until the recent telephone call came through to calm his fears.

There were a bottle, a siphon, a glass, and an ash tray heaped with cigarette ends on a table by the bedside to support this assumption; but now Lemuel must be sleeping the sleep of the dead.

Gently Simon drew the edge of the sheet over the sleeping man's face; and onto the sheet he dripped a colourless liquid from a flask which he took from his pocket. The atmosphere thickened with a sickly reek. . . .

Five minutes later, in another room, the Saint was opening a burglar-proof safe with Lemuel's own key.

He found what he was expecting to find-what, in fact, he had arranged to find. It had required no great genius to deduce that Lemuel would have withdrawn all his mobile fortune from his bank the day before; if there had been no satisfactory report from Einsmann before morning, Lemuel would have been on his way out of England long before the expiration of the time limit which the Saint had given him.

Simon burned twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of negotiable securities in the open grate. There was already a heap of ashes in the fireplace when he began his own bonfire, and he guessed that Lemuel had spent part of the previous evening disinfecting his private papers; it would be a waste of time to search the desk. With about forty thousand pounds in Bank of England notes cunningly distributed about his person, the Saint closed the safe, after some artistic work on the interior, and returned to Lemuel's bedroom, where he replaced the key as he had found it. Before he left, he turned the sheet back from Lemuel's face; the bedroom windows were already open, and in a couple of hours the smell of ether should have dispersed.

"A couple of hours. . . ." The Saint glanced at his watch as he went down the stairs, and realized that he had only just given himself enough time. But he stopped at the janitor's cubicle on his way out, and the helpless man glared at him defiantly.

"I'm sorry I had to hit you," said the Saint. "But perhaps this will help to console you for your troubles."

He took ten one-pound notes from his wallet and laid them on the porter's desk; then he hurried down the hall, and slipped off his masking handkerchief as he opened the door.

Half an hour later he was in bed.

Francis Lemuel had arranged to be called early, in case of accidents, and the reassuring telephone message had come too late for him to countermand the order. He roused at half-past eight, to find his valet shaking him by the shoulder, and sat up muzzily. His head was splitting. He took a gulp at the hot tea which his man had brought, and felt sick.

"Must have drunk more whisky than I thought," he reflected hazily; and then he became aware that his valet was speaking.

"There's been a burglary here, sir. About six o'clock this morning the porter was knocked out--"

"Here-in this apartment?" Lemuel's voice was harsh and strained.

"No, sir. At least, I've looked round, sir, and nothing seems to have been touched."

Lemuel drew a long breath. For an instant an icy dread had clutched at his heart. Then he remembered-the Saint was dead, there was nothing more to fear. . . .

He sipped his tea again and chuckled throatily.

"Then someone's been unlucky," he remarked callously, and was surprised when the valet shook his head.

"That's the extraordinary thing, sir. They've been making inquiries all round, and none of the other apartments seem to have been entered either."

Lemuel recalled this conversation later in the morning. He had declined breakfast blasphemously, and had only just man aged to get up and dress in time to restore his treasures to the keeping of his bank.

He saw the emptiness of his safe, and the little drawing which the Saint had chalked inside it by way of receipt, and went a dirty gray-white.

The strength seemed to go from his knees; and he groped his way blindly to a chair, shaking with a superstitious terror. It was some time before he brought himself to realize that ghosts do not stun porters and clean out burglar-proof safes.

The valet, coming at a run to answer the frantic pealing of the bell, was horrified at the haggard limpness of his master.

"Fetch the police," croaked Lemuel and the man went quickly.

Chief Inspector Teal himself had just arrived to give some instructions to the detective-sergeant who had taken over the investigations, and he it was who answered the summons.

"Sixty-five thousand pounds? That's a lot of money to keep in a little safe like this."

Teal cast sleepy eyes over the object, and then went down on his knees to examine it more closely. His heavy eyelids merely flickered when he saw the chalkmarks inside.

"Opened it with your own key too."

Lemuel nodded dumbly.

"I suppose he warned you?" said Teal drowsily-he was a chronically drowsy man.

"I had two ridiculous letters--"

"Can I see them?"

"I-I destroyed them. I don't take any notice of threats like that."

Teal raised his eyebrows one millimetre.

"The Saint's a pretty well-known character," he said. "I should hate to have to calculate how many square miles of newspaper he's had all to himself since he started in business. And the most celebrated thing about him is that he's never yet failed to carry out a threat. This is the first time I've heard of anyone taking no notice of his letters."

Lemuel swallowed. Suddenly, in a flash of pure agony, he understood his position. The Saint had ruined him-taken from him practically every penny he possessed-and yet he had left him one fragile thing that was perhaps more precious than ten times the treasure he had lost-his liberty. And Lemuel's numbed brain could see no way of bringing the Saint to justice without imperilling that last lonely asset.