Leslie Charteris - Featuring the Saint

It was some time before the policeman was able to soothe him; and he faded out of the picture still fuming vitriolically, to the accompaniment of a gobble of applause from the assembled populace.

And a few minutes later he was leaning helplessly against the door of his flat, his ribs aching and the tears streaming down his cheeks, while Patricia implored him wildly to open the door and take his hilarity into decent seclusion.

"Oh, but it was too beautiful, sweetheart!" he sobbed weakly, as at last he staggered into the sitting room. "If I'd missed that chance I could never have looked myself in the face again. Did you see Miles?"

"I did."

"He couldn't say a word. He didn't dare let on that he knew me. He just had to take it all. Pat, I ask you, can life hold any more?"

Half an hour later, when he was sprawled elegantly over an armchair, with a tankard of beer in one hand and the last cigarette of the evening in the other, she ventured to ask the obvious question.

"He was waiting for us, of course?" she asked; and the Saint nodded.

"My prophetic report of the police-court proceedings would still have been correct," he drawled. "Miles Hallin has come to life."

He did not add that he could have prophesied with equal assurance that Chief Inspector Teal would not again be invited to participate in the argument-not by Miles Hallin, anyway. But he knew quite well that either Miles Hallin or Simon Templar would have to die before the argument was settled; and it would have to be settled soon.

Nevertheless, Teal did participate again; and it may be said that his next intrusion was entirely his own idea.

He arrived in Upper Berkeley Mews the very next evening; and the Saint, who had seen him pass the window, opened the door before Teal's finger had reached the bell.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," Simon murmured cordially, as he propelled the detective into the sitting room. "Still, you needn't bother to tell me why you've come. A tram was stolen from Tooting last night, and you want to know if I did it. Six piebald therms are missing from the Gaslight & Coke Company's stable, and you want to know if I've got them. A seventeen-horse-power saveloy entered for the St. Leger has been stricken with glanders, and you want to know--"

"I didn't say so," observed Mr. Teal-heatedly, for him.

"Never mind," said the Saint peaceably. "We won't press the point. But you must admit that we're seeing a lot of you these days." He inspected the detective's water-line with a reflective eye. "I believe you've become a secret Glaxo drinker," he said reproachfully.

Teal gravitated towards a chair.

"I heard about your show last night," he said.

Simon smiled vaguely.

"You hear of everything, old dear," he remarked; and Teal nodded seriously.

"It's my business," he said.

He put a finger in his mouth and hitched his chewing gum into a quiet backwater; and then he leaned forward, his pudgy hands resting on his knees, and his baby blue eyes unusually wide awake.

"Will you try not to stall, Templar-just for a few minutes?"

The Saint looked at him thoughtfully. Then took a cigarette and sat down in the chair opposite.

"Sure," he said.

"I wonder if you'd even do something more than that?"

"Namely?"

"I wonder if you'd give me a straight line about Miles Hallin-and no fooling."

"I offered you one yesterday," said the Saint, "and you wouldn't listen."

Teal nodded, shifting his feet.

"I know. But the situation wasn't quite the same. Since then I've heard about that accident last night. And that mayn't mean anything to anyone but you and me-but you've got to include me."

"Have I?"

"I'm remembering things," said the detective. "You may be a respectable member of society now, but you haven't always been one. I can remember the time when I'd have given ten years' salary for the pleasure of putting you away. Sometimes I get relapses of that feeling even now."

"So you do," murmured the Saint.

"But this isn't one of those tunes," said Teal. "Just now I only want to remember another part of your record. And I know as well as anyone else that you never go after a man just because he's got a wart on his nose. Usually, your reason's fairly plain. This time it isn't. And I'm curious."

"Naturally."

"Hallin's right off your usual mark. He doesn't belong to any shady bunch. If he did, I'd know it. He isn't even a border-line case, like I knew Lemuel was."

"He isn't."

"And yet he tried to bump you off last night."

The Saint inhaled deeply, and exhaled again through a Saintly smile.

"If you want to know why he did that," he said, 'I'll tell you. It was because he's always been terribly afraid of death."

"Do you mean he thought you were going to kill him?"

"That's not what I said. I certainly did say I was going to kill him; but whether he believed me or not is more than I can tell you at present."

"Then what do you mean?"

Simon raised his eyebrows mournfully, but he checked the protest that was almost becoming a habit. After all, Teal was only a detective. One had to make allowances.

"Miles Hallin thought no one in the world knew the truth about him," said the Saint. "And then he found that I knew. So he wanted me to die."

Teal compressed his lips.

Then he said: "And what was this truth?"

"Simply that Miles Hallin is a coward."

"Would he try to kill you for that?"

The Saint gazed at the ceiling.

"Did you take my tip about that Brooklands affair?" he asked.

"I made some inquiries," Teal shrugged. "I'm afraid it wasn't much use. I'm told no one could prove anything."

"And yet you've come back to see me."

"After that business last night. On the level, Templar, I'd be glad of a tip. You know something that I don't know, and just this once I want you to help me. If it had looked like one of your ordinary shows, I wouldn't have done it."

"Where is the peculiar difference between this show and what you call my 'ordinary shows'?"

"You know as well as I do--"

"I don't!"

The Saint uncurled from his chair like a steel spring re leased, and his eyes were of the same steel. The detective realized that those eyes had been levelled unwinkingly at him for a long while; but he had not realized it before. Now he saw his mistake.

"I don't know anything of the kind," snapped the Saint, with those eyes of chilled steel; and the laziness had vanished altogether from his voice. "But I do know that I can't swallow the joke of your coming to see me just because you want to take one of my feathers and put it in your own cap. I've got a darned good swallowing apparatus, Teal, I promise you, but it simply won't sink that one!"

Teal blinked.

"I only wanted to ask you--"

"Shucks!" said the Saint tersely. "You've told me what you wanted to ask me. My yell is that you haven't told me the real reason. And that's what I'm going to know before we take the palaver any further. You asked me not to stall: now I'm telling you not to stall. Shoot!"

For a space of seconds they eyed one another in silence; and then the detective nodded fractionally, though his round, red face had not changed its expression.

"All right," he said slowly. "I'll come clean-if you'll do the same."

The Saint stood tensely. But he hesitated only for a moment. He thought: "Something's happened. Teal knows what it is. I've got to find out. It may or may not be important, but--"

The Saint said curtly: "That's O. K. by me."

"Then you start," answered Teal.

Simon drew breath.

"Mine's easy. I suspect that the story of Hallin's luck in Australia is a lie. I know that Hallin's crazy about the same girl that Nigel Perry's in love with. I know that Hallin tried to push Perry out of the running by persuading him to put the little money he'd got into a mine that Hallin thought was a dud. I know that Teddy Everest told Hallin the mine was a dud, and later told him it wasn't a dud after all. I know Hallin faked that crash because Teddy might be dangerous. I know Hallin had planned some story to get those shares back from Perry; and I know Hallin tried to kill me because I told Perry the truth-even if Perry didn't believe me. That's all there is to it. Your turn."