Leslie Charteris - Featuring the Saint

"You killed him?"

"Of course I did," said Hallin shortly, "unless he can fall two hundred feet without hurting himself. It was him or me- and he was armed. I got back into the car and drove on. Farther up the road a man stepped out and tried to stop me, but I drove right at him. He fired after me twice, but he didn't do any damage. And that's all."

Perry's fists clenched.

"By heaven, if that man really was waiting for Templar--"

"Why shouldn't he have been? Remember all that's happened. We don't know what Templar's game is, but we know his record."

"But he was pardoned a long time ago."

"That doesn't make him straight. A man like that--"

Perry swung round. He caught at Hallin's arm.

"For God's sake, Miles-we've got to do something."

Hallin stood up.

"That's why I came to fetch you," he said.

"But what can we do?"

"Get back to that telephone-find where the line leads "Could you find the place again?"

"I marked it down."

"But those men who fired at you----"

"We can go another way. I know all the roads around here backwards. Are you game?"

Perry set his teeth.

"You bet I am. But-if you'd got a gun or something--"

Hallin looked at him for a moment. Then he went to the desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out two automatics. One he gave to Perry, the other he slipped into his own pocket.

"That's a good idea," he said. "Now are you ready?"

"Yes-come on!"

It was Perry who led the way out of the cottage, and he had already started the car when Hallin climbed in behind the wheel.

They moved off with a roar, and Perry leaned over and yelled in Hallin's ear.

"They'll hear us coming!"

Hallin nodded, and kicked the cut-out over. The roar was silenced.

"You're right," he said.

They tore down the hill for a quarter of a mile, and skidded deliriously round a right-angle turn; then they went bucketing down a steep and narrow lane, with the big car brushing the hedge on either side.

"This is the only way to get round them," Hallin said.

The huge headlights made the lane as light as it would have been at noon; even so, it was a nightmare path to follow at that pace. But Hallin was a perfect driver. Presently the lane seemed to come to a dead end; Hallin braked, and put the wheel over; and they broadsided into a clear road.

"It's close here," Hallin said.

The car slackened speed; after a few moments they almost crawled, while Hallin searched the side of the road. And then he jammed on the brakes, switching off the engine and the lights as he did so.

"This is the place."

He met Perry in the road and led off at once. For a few yards they went over grass; then they threaded a way between rocks and low stunted bushes. On his right, Perry heard a distant murmur of water. Then Hallin stopped him.

"It was just here."

Perry heard the scrape of a match; and then he saw.

They stood beside a slight bump of ground; and there was a shallow cavity in the side of it, which seemed to have been worn away under a flat ledge of stone. And in the cavity was a telephone.

The light went out.

"I've got an idea," Hallin said.

"What is it?"

"Suppose you took the place of the man I heard at the telephone-spoke to the men at the other end-told them some story? I'll follow the wire. I don't think the other end is far away. Give me ten minutes, and then start. You could distract their attention-it'd give me a chance to take them by surprise."

"But I want to get near the swine myself!"

"You shall. But to start with-- Look here, you know you aren't used to stalking. I could get up to them twice as quietly as you could."

Perry hesitated; and then Hallin heard him groping down into the hollow.

"All right." The youngster's voice came up from the dark ness. "Hurry along, Miles, and shout as soon as you can."

"I will. Just ten minutes, Nigel."

"Right-ho!"

Hallin moved away.

He did not follow any wire. He knew just where he was going.

In ten minutes he was squatting beside a heavily insulated switch. Beside him a trellised metal tower reached up towards the stairs. It was one of many that had not long since sprung up all over England, carrying long electric cables across the country and bringing light and power to every comer of the land.

That Miles Hallin had left London late was only one of his inventions. He had, as a matter of fact, been in that spot for several hours. He was an expert electrician- though the job he had had to do was fairly simple. It had been the digging that had taken the time. . . .

He had an ingenious mind. The Saint would have been sheerly delighted to hear the story that Nigel Perry had heard. "If you must have melodrama, lay it on with a spade," was one of the Saint's own maxims; and certainly Miles Hallin had not tyrannized his imagination.

There was also a thoroughness about Hallin which it gave the Saint great pleasure to recall in after years. Even in murder he was as thorough as he had been in fostering the legend of his charmed life. A lesser man would simply have pushed Perry over the very convenient precipice.

"But even at that time," the Saint would say, "Hallin clung to the idea that after all he might get away with something. If he'd simply shoved Nigel off the cliff he'd have had trouble with the body. So he dug a neat grave, and put Nigel in it to die; so all our sweet Miles had to do afterwards was to come back and remove the telephone and fill up the hole. You can't say that wasn't thorough."

Hallin pulled on a thick rubber glove; and then he struck a match and cupped it in his other hand. He looked once at his watch. And his face was perfectly composed as he jerked over the lever of his switch.

"We'd better walk from here," said the Saint.

Teal nodded.

He leaned forward and spoke a word to the driver, and the police car pulled into the side of the road, and stopped there.

The detective levered himself out with a grunt, and inspected the track in front of them with a jaundiced eye.

"We might have gone on to the top of the hill," he said; and the Saint laughed without mirth.

"We might not," said the Saint. "Hallin's place is right by the top of the hill, and we aren't here to advertise ourselves."

"I suppose not," said Teal wistfully.

The driver came round the car and joined them, bringing the electric flashlights that were part of their outfit, and Teal took one and tested it. The Saint did the same. They looked at each other in the light.

"You seem to know a lot about this place," Teal said.

The Saint smiled.

"I came down from London last week especially to have a look at it," he answered, and Teal's eyes narrowed.

"Did you bring any bombs with you?" he asked.

Simon turned his flashlight up the road.

"I'm afraid I forgot to," he murmured. "And now, shall we proceed with the weight-reducing, Fatty?"

They set off in a simmering silence, Teal and the Saint walking side by side, and the chauffeur bringing up the rear. As they went, the Saint began to sing, under his breath, some ancient ballad about "Oh, How a Fat Girl Can Love"; and Teal's breathing seemed to become even more laboured than was warranted by the steepness of the hill. The driver, astern, also sounded as if he were having difficulty with his respiratory effects.

They plodded upwards without speaking for some time, preoccupied with their respective interests; and at last it was Teal who stopped and broke the silence.

"Isn't that a car up there?" he said.

He pointed along the beam of his torch, and the Saint looked.

"It surely is something like a car," admitted the Saint thoughtfully. "That's queer!"

He quickened his pace and went into the lead. Then the other two caught him up again; he was standing still, a few yards from the car, with his flashlight focused on the number plate.