Андрей Л.Рюмин - 03 Enter the Saint

It was a warm evening, and they walked up Re­gent Street together, enjoying the fresh air. They were in Hanover Square, just by the corner of Brook Street, when the Saint saw the first thundercloud, and unceremoniously caught Patricia Holm, by the shoulders and jerked her back round the corner and out of sight. An opportune taxi came prowling by at that moment, and the Saint had hailed it and bun­dled the girl in before she could say a word.

"I'm telling him to take you to the Savoy," he said. "You'll book a room there, and you'll stay there without putting even the tip of your pretty nose outside the door until I come and fetch you. You can assume that any message or messenger you receive is a fake. I don't think they saw you, but I'm not risking anything. Refuse to pay any attention to anything or anybody but myself in person. I'll be round Monday lunch-time, and if I'm not you can get hold of Inspector Teal and the lads and start raising Cain-but not before."

The girl frowned suspiciously. "Saint," she said, in the dangerous tone that he knew and loved, "you're trying to elbow me out again."

"Old darling," said the Saint quietly, "I've stopped trying to elbow you out and make you live a safe and respectable life. I know it can't be done. You can come in on any game I take up, and I don't care if we have to fight the massed gangs of bad hats in New York, Chicago, Berlin and London. But there's just one kind of dirty work I'm not going to have you mixed up, and this is it. Get me, old Pat? . . . Then s'long!"

He closed the door of the taxi, directed the driver, and watched it drive away. The Saint felt particu­larly anxious to keep on living at that moment. . . . And then the taxi's tail-light vanished round the corner, and Patricia Holm went with it; and the Saint turned with a sigh and an involuntary squaring of the shoulders, and swung into Brook Street.

He had observed the speedy-looking closed car that stood by the kerb directly outside the entrance to his flat, and he had seen the four men who stood in a little group on the pavement beside it conversing with all apparent innocence, and he had guessed the worst. The sum total of those deceptively innocuous fixtures and fittings seemed to him to bear the un­mistakable hall-mark of the Hayn confederacy; for the Saint had what he called a nasty suspicious mind.

He strolled on at a leisurely pace. His left hand, in his trouser pocket, was sorting out the key of his front door; in his right hand he twirled the stick that in those days he never travelled without. His black felt hat was tilted over to the back of his head. In everything outward and visible he wore the mildest and most Saintly air of fashionable and elegant harmlessness, for the Saint was never so cool as when everything about him was flaming with red danger-signals. And as he drew near the little group he noticed that they fell suddenly silent, all turning in his direction.

The Saint was humming a little tune. It all looked too easy-nothing but a welcome and entertaining limbering-up for the big stuff that was to follow. He had slipped the front door key off the ring and trans­ferred it to a side pocket of his jacket, where it would be more easily found in a hurry.

"Excuse me," said the tallest of the four, taking a step forward to meet him.

"I'm afraid I can't excuse you, Snake," said the Saint, regretfully, and swayed back from his toes as Ganning struck at him with a loaded cane.

The Saint felt the wind of the blow caress his face, and then a lightning left uppercut came rocketing up from his knees to impact on the point of Snake's jaw, and Ganning was catapulted back into the arms of his attendant Boys.

Before any of them could recover from their sur­prise, Templar had leapt lightly up the steps to the portico, and had slipped the key into the lock. But as he turned and withdrew it, the other three came after him, leaving their chief to roll away into the gutter, and the Saint wheeled round to face them with the door swinging open behind him. He held his stick in both hands, gave it a half-turn, and pulled. Part of the stick stripped away, and in the Saint's right hand a long slim blade of steel glinted in the dim light. His first thrust took the leading Boy through the shoulder, and the other two checked.

The Saint's white teeth flashed in an unpleasant smile. "You're three very naughty children," said the Saint, "and I'm afraid I shall have to report you to your Sunday-school teacher. Go a long way away, and don't come near me again for years and years!"

The rapier in his hand gleamed and whistled, and the two Boys recoiled with gasps of agony as the supple blade lashed across their faces. And then, as they sprang blindly to attack, the Saint streaked through the door and slammed it on them. He turned the sword back into a stick, and went unhur­riedly up the stairs to his flat, which was the first floor.

Looking down from the window, he saw the four men gathered together engaged in furious delibera­tion. One of them was mopping about inside his coat with an insanitary handkerchief, and the Snake was sagging weakly back against the side of the car hold­ing his jaw. There were frequent gesticulations in the direction of the Saint's windows. After a time, the four men climbed into the car and drove away.

The brief affray had left the Saint completely un­ruffled. If you had taken his pulse then, you would have found it ticking at one beat above or below its normal 75. He sauntered across the room, switched on the lights, and put away his hat and stick, still humming gently to himself.

Propped up on the table, in a prominent position, was a cable envelope. Without any hurry, the Saint poured himself out a modest whisky, lighted a cigarette, and then fetched a small black notebook from its hiding-place behind a picture. Provided with these essentials, the Saint settled down on the edge of the table, ripped up the envelope, and ex­tracted the flimsy.

"Elephant revoke," the message began. A little further on was the name Chandler. And near the end of the closely written sheet were the words: "Caterpillar diamonds ten spades four chicane hearts knave overcall."

"Elephant" was the code word for Hayn; Chastel was "Caterpillar." "Revoke" meant "has changed his mind." And the Saint could almost decode the sen­tence which included the words "chicane" and "overcall" at sight.

In his little black book, against the names of every card in the pack, and every bridge and poker term, were short sentences broadly applicable to almost any purpose about which his fellowship of free­booters might wish to communicate; and with the aid of this book, and a pencil, the Saint translated the message and wrote the interpretation between the lines. The information thus gleaned was in confirma­tion of what he had already deduced since purloin­ing and reading Hayn's letter to Chastel, and the Saint was satisfied.

He opened his portable typewriter, and wrote a letter. It was the Saint's first official communiquй.

To Chief Inspector Teal, Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, S.W.1 .

Sir, I recommend to your notice Edgar Hayn, for­merly Hein, of 27 Portugal Mansions, Hampstead. He is the man behind Danny's Club in Soho, and a well-timed raid on that establishment, with particu­lar attention to a secret door in the panelling of the ground floor lounge (which is opened by an electric control in Hayn's office in the basement) will give you an interesting insight into the methods of card-sharping de luxe.

More important than this, Hayn is also the man behind Laserre, the Regent Street parfumeurs, the difference being that George Edward Braddon, the manager, is not a figurehead, but an active partner. A careful watch kept on future consignments re­ceived from the Continent by Laserre will provide adequate proof that the main reason for the exis­tence of Laserre is cocaine. The drug is smuggled into England in cases of beauty preparations shipped by Hayn's foreign agents and quite openly declared-as dutiable products, that is. In every case, there will be found a number of boxes purport­ing to contain face powder, but actually containing cocaine.