Leslie Charteris - Featuring the Saint

"One of Hallin's cars," said the Saint.

He moved quickly round it, turning his light on the tires: they were all perfectly sound. The petrol gauge showed plenty of fuel. He put his hand on the radiator: it was hot.

"Well, well, well!" said the Saint.

Teal, standing beside him, began to flash his torch around the side of the road.

"What's that tin doing there?" he said.

"I do not know, my chubby cherub," said the Saint.

But he reached the tin first and lifted it up. It was an empty petrol can. He turned it upside down over his palm, and shook it.

"Did he fill up here?" said Teal, and the Saint shook his head.

"The can's as dry as a successful bootlegger's politics. It's an old one. And I should say-Teal, I should say it was put here to make a place. Look at the mark in the grass!"

He left Teal to it, and moved along the road, searching the turf at the side. Then he came back on the other side. His low exclamation brought Teal trotting.

"Someone's doing a midnight cross-country," said the Saint.

He pointed.

"I can't see anything," said Teal.

"You wouldn't," said the Saint disparagingly. "Now, if they'd only thought to leave some cigarette ash about for you to put under a microscope, or a few exciting bloodstains--"

Teal choked.

"Look here, Templar--"

"Teal," said the Saint, elegantly, "you drip."

He sprang lightly over the ditch and headed into the darkness, ignoring the other two; and, after a moment's hesitation, they followed.

The assurance with which the Saint moved over his trail was uncanny. Neither of the others could see the signs which he was able to pick up as rapidly as he could have picked up a plain path; but they were townsmen both, trained for a different kind of tracking.

Perhaps they travelled for fifty yards. And then the Saint stopped dead, and the other two came up on either side of him. His lighted torch aimed downwards, and they followed it with their own; but again neither of them could see anything remarkable.

"What is it this time?" asked Teal.

"I saw an arm," said the Saint. "An arm and a gun. And it went into the ground. Put your lights out!"

Without understanding, they obeyed.

And, in the darkness, the Saint leaped.

His foot turned on a loose stone, throwing him to his knees; and at the same time he heard a metallic click that meant only one thing to him: an automatic had been fired-and had failed to fire.

He spun round. Holding his torch at arm's length away from him. he switched it on again. And he gasped.

"Nigel!"

The boy was wrestling with the sliding jacket of the gun. It seemed to have jammed. And he bared his teeth into the light.

"You swine!" he said.

The Saint stared.

"Nigel! It's me-Simon Templar--"

"I know."

The automatic reloaded with a snap, and Perry aimed it deliberately. And then Teal's hand and arm flashed into the beam of light, caught Perry's wrist, and twisted sharply up wards. Another hand snatched the gun away.

"You devils!"

Perry got his wrist free with a savage wrench, and rolled out of the hole where he had been lying. He gathered himself, crouched, and leaped at the light. Simon put out one foot, and brought him down adroitly.

"Nigel, don't be a big boob!"

For answer the youngster squirmed to his feet again, with something like a sob, and made a second reckless rush.

The Saint began to feel bored.

He switched out his torch and ducked. His arms fastened about Perry's waist, his shoulder nestled into Perry's chest; he tightened his grip decisively.

"If you don't stop it, Nigel," he said, "I'll break your back."

Perry went limp suddenly. Perhaps he had never dreamed of being held with such a strength. The Saint's arms locked about him like steel bands.

"What's the matter with him?" inquired Teal lethargically, and Simon grunted.

"Seems to have gone loco," he murmured.

Perry's ribs creaked as he tried to breathe.

"It's all right," he said. "I know all about you. You--"

"I've got him," said Teal unemotionally; and the Saint loosened his hold and straightened up.

He had dropped his torch in the scuffle. Now he stooped to grope around for it; and it was while he was stooping that another light came. It came with a sort of hissing crackle- something like blue lightning.

"What the kippered herring was that?" ejaculated Teal.

The Saint found his torch and turned its rays into the hollow where Perry had been lying. And the blue lightning came again. They all saw it.

And then the Saint laughed softly.

"Good old Miles," he drawled.

"Electric," Teal said dazedly.

"Electrocution," said the Saint, mildly.

There was a long silence. Then: "Electrocution?"

Perry spoke huskily, staring at the hole in the ground, where the beams of three flashlights concentrated brilliantly.

"Good old Miles," said the Saint again.

He pointed to the blackened and twisted telephone, and a dark scar on the rock. And there was another silence.

Teal broke it, sleepily.

"Some fools are born lucky," he said. "Perry, what yarn did Hallin tell you to get you there?"

"Miles didn't do that--"

"I suppose I did." Teal tilted his torch over so that it illumined his own face. "You know me, Perry-you met me yesterday. I'm a police officer. Don't talk nonsense."

It was an incisive speech for Teal.

Perry said, in his throat: "Then-where's Moyna?"

"That's what I want to know," remarked the Saint. "We'll ask Miles. He'll be coming back to inspect the body. Shut your faces, and douse those glimpse!"

The lights went out one by one, and darkness and silence settled upon the group. Without a sound the Saint stepped to one side. He rested his torch on a high boulder and kept his finger on the switch.

Then he heard Hallin.

At least, he heard the faint soft crunch of stones, a tiny rustle of leaves. ... He could see nothing. It was an eerie business, listening to that stealthy approach. But the Saint's nerves were like ice.

A match flared suddenly, only a few yards away. Hallin was searching the ground.

Then the Saint switched on his light. He caught Hallin in the beam, and left the light lying on the rock. The Saint him self stepped carefully away from it.

"Hullo," said the Saint unctuously.

Hallin stood rooted to the ground. The match burned down to his fingers and he dropped it.

Then his hand jerked round to his pocket. . . .

"Rotten," said the Saint calmly; and his voice merged in the rattle of another shot.

From a little distance away two more lights sprang up from the darkness and centred upon Hallin. The man twisted round in the blaze, and fired again-three times. One of the lights went out. The other fell, and went out on the ground as the bulb broke. Hallin whipped round again. He sighted rapidly, and his bullet smashed the Saint's torch where it lay.

"Teal, did he get you?"

The Saint stepped swiftly across the blackness; and Teal's voice answered at his shoulder.

"No, but he got Mason."

The Saint's fingers touched Teal's coat, so lightly that the detective could have felt nothing. They crept down Teal's . sleeve, jumped the hand, and closed upon the torch. . . .

"Thanks," said the Saint. "See you later."

He jerked at the torch as he spoke, and got it away. The detective made a grab at him; but Simon slipped away with a laugh. He could hear Hallin blundering through the darkness, and he followed the noise as best he could. Behind him was another blundering noise, and a shout from Teal; but the Saint was not waiting.

Simon went on in the dark. He had eyes like a cat, anyway; and, in the circumstances, there might be peculiar dangers about a light. . . . Then it occurred to him that there might be other live wires about, and he had no urge to die that way. He stopped abruptly.