Leslie Charteris - The Saint Returns

Igor opened the door, and a white-coated waiter came in with the tray, bending quickly down to set it on a stand beside the door.

Simon was on him in an instant, one arm like a vise at his throat, the other twisting the man’s wrist behind him.

“Meet Hans Klaus, bartender extraordinary,” the Saint said through grimly clenched teeth. “Lock the door and search him. Hurry.”

“For why?” cried a dumfounded Ivan.

But the urgency in Simon’s voice was unmistakable, and the Russian began to pat down the feebly struggling captive.

“Bartender?” Smolenko said, showing the closest thing to perturbation she had allowed herself since the Saint’s arrival. “What is it you are doing?”

“Klaus is an unusual bartender. He’s probably much more at home mixing Molotov cocktails than martinis.”

Ivan’s search produced a transmitter device exactly like that demonstrated so effectively by Dr. Mueller in his laboratory.

“Quickly,” Simon said. “Check the tea... the tray... inside the pot.”

Ivan obeyed despite his mystification, and within seconds discovered a small cone-shaped object which had been attached by suction under one edge of the tray. Suddenly Klaus darted out his hand and flipped the switch on the transmitter which Igor was holding. It began its now familiar thin crescendo.

“The window!” Simon yelled, twisting Klaus’s arm until he yelped. “Throw it out. Fast.”

Ivan slammed down the window and tossed out the little cone. Igor threw the transmitter. A second later there was an explosion which undoubtedly disturbed the dreams of a number of passengers about one car back.

“See what I mean about this fellow?” Simon said. “Dispenses good cheer wherever he goes.”

Colonel Smolenko, who had been on her feet since the discovery of the bomb, stared at Klaus.

“He is the one you said would kill me?”

“One of the ones, probably.” With his lean strength he evoked a new whimper from Klaus and said to him in German, “Now, tell us all you know, or I shall let these Russians tear you to pieces. Who are you working for?”

“A man... in Paris.”

“His name?”

“Ich weiss nicht. I have him never seen. My orders come by telephone.”

“What orders?”

“Hahn to kill. Then this train to catch and the occupants of this compartment to kill.”

Simon released the erstwhile bartender, who rubbed his aching arm and took a deep breath.

“A nice night’s work,” said the Saint, turning to Smolenko. “Did you get all that?”

She nodded, and at the same moment Klaus grabbed the emergency stop cord. The train gave a tremendous lurch as the air brakes slammed on automatically. All those in the compartment except Klaus, who had prepared himself, went staggering off balance, and Smolenko fell back against the wall and slipped to the floor.

Klaus was out and running down the corridor. Igor and Ivan plunged after him. Their silenced shots were lost in the groans and rattles of the halting train.

The Saint knelt over Smolenko, who was limp on the carpet, her eyes closed. He picked her up to put her on the seat, already assured that she was not more than stunned. Her eyelids fluttered, and she gave a sighing moan through parted lips.

“You look much more sweetly feminine asleep than awake, Colonel,” Simon murmured.

She opened her eyes wide.

“Put me down. Instantly!”

He dropped her ungently onto the seat, flat on her back.

“As you say, Colonel.”

She swung her legs around and stood up, jerking wrinkles out of her coat, trying to overcome dizziness with determined dignity.

“That was not good of you,” she snapped.

“Picking you up or putting you down?”

“Neither. I need no help. You insult me.”

“I’m not particularly flattered myself, Sonya. You couldn’t have looked more horrified if you’d found yourself in the arms of King Kong himself.”

“My name is not Sonya, and I do not understand all your idioms. Please...”

“Please what?” Simon asked politely, after she had hesitated for several seconds.

She was apparently unable to think of any useful orders to give him. He had proven his value and the sincerity of his desire not to see her killed. But there was no trust in her eyes, only a touch of confusion behind the hard glaze of the secret police officer. She was spared having to manufacture a statement by the return of her bodyguards.

“They shot him dead,” she translated for the Saint. “They placed his body in the water of the ditch before the train was fully stopped, and they told that the signal of this rope was a mistake.”

“Very clever,” Simon said with disgust. “Why so quick with the guns? Klaus might have led us to the ringleaders of the whole plot.”

“Whole plot?” asked Smolenko.

“The agents of yours who’ve been killed.” Smolenko looked surprised.

“Our secrecy is apparently not good. You and this Klaus have both found me here, who am supposed to be a cultural exchange representative, and now you know all about the murders of our...”

She stopped herself.

“But you tell me, Mr. Templar. What is your part in all this?”

“I would say, in the first place, that your remark about secrecy is the understatement of the century. You couldn’t have a bigger following if you had hired P. T. Barnum as a publicity agent. Which leads me to believe, as they say in the old films, that this whole deal is an inside job.”

“But what do you know, Mr. Templar? What facts do you have? What is your part in this?”

He told her, and she listened with more and more intense interest.

“So,” he concluded, “these people — whoever they are-have managed to gain control of the production of your miniaturized equipment. You should know considerably more about that than I do. For instance, where do you get all those little toys like cigarette lighters that take pictures?”

“They are purchased in Western Europe by our Paris organization, which is absolutely trustworthy. You are lying. I am trying to think why.”

The Saint gave a weary sigh.

“Okay. Believe what you like. I’m only trying to help. If you get yourself blown into pretty little pieces in Paris, don’t expect any flowers on your grave from me.” He stood up. “Charming as your company is, I’m tired, I didn’t ask for this job in the first place, and if anything happens to you now, you can’t claim it’s my fault.”

“Wrong,” Igor said, speaking English for the first time. “We are blame you.”

“No person in Paris know Colonel Smolenko,” Ivan explained laboriously. “Not what she is looking like...”

“Or that she is woman,” said Igor.

He prodded the Saint’s shoulder with a long, skinny finger.

“Nobody know... but you. So if she dies, it will be through you. But she will not die.”

Ivan looked cheerfully at the Saint and drew his broad peasant face closer.

“You will die.”

“A fall from the train?” Igor asked.

“Da. I am think yes.”

Smolenko’s icy voice sliced Ivan’s grin in half.

“Be silent, both of you.”

She looked thoughtfully at the Saint.

“Of course we could never let you go. Now, you say Smolenko will be killed?”

“I do indeed, unless you take precautions, including some kind of co-operation with Western intelligence.”

“Well, we will see if that is true, without co-operation of bourgeois spy apparatus. With your co-operation only. When we get to Paris in the morning...”

The Saint watched suspiciously as her lips pouted slightly in a smile.

“Yes?”

“We change places,” she said. “I become your secretary, and you... you become Colonel Smolenko.”