Андрей Л.Рюмин - 03 Enter the Saint

With a savage resolution, he telephoned to a ga­rage where he was known. While he waited, he scribbled a note for Tremayne in which he described the whole series of events and stated his intentions. It was time wasted, but he was not to know that.

When the car arrived, he dismissed the mechanic who had brought it round, and drove to Hurley.

He knew how to handle cars-it was one of his few really useful accomplishments. And he sent the Buick blazing west with his foot flat down on the accelerator for practically every yard of the way.

Even so it was nearly five o'clock when he arrived there and then he realized a difficulty. There were a lot of houses at Hurley, and he had no idea where Hayn's house, might be. Nor had the post office, nor the nearest police.

Stannard, in the circumstances, dared not press his enquiries too closely. The only hope left to him was that he might be able to glean some information from a villager, for he was forced to conclude that Hayn tenanted his county seat under another name. With this forlorn hope in view, he made his way to the Bell Inn, and it was there that he met a surpris­ing piece of good fortune.

As he pulled up outside, a man came out, and the man hailed him. "Thank the Lord you're here," said Roger Conway without preface. "Come inside and have a drink."

"Who are you?" asked a mystified Jerry Stannard.

"You don't know me, but I know you," answered the man. "I'm one of the Saint's haloes."

He listened with a grave face to Stannard's story.

"There's been a hitch somewhere," he said, when Jerry had finished. "The Saint kept you in the dark because he was afraid your natural indignation might run away with you. Hayn had designs on your girl friend-you might have guessed that. The Saint pinched a letter of Hayn's to Chastel-Hayn's man abroad-in which, among other things, Edgar de­scribed his plot for getting hold of Gwen. I suppose he wanted to be congratulated on his ingenuity. The rough idea was to plant some cocaine on Gwen in a present of powder and things from Laserre, fake a police raid, and pretend to square the police for her. Then, if she believed the police were after you and her-Hayn was banking on making her afraid that you were also involved-he thought it would be easy to get her away with him."

"And the Saint wasn't doing anything to stop that?" demanded Jerry, white-lipped.

"Half-a-minute! The Saint couldn't attend to it himself, having other things to deal with, but he put the man Tremayne, you were supposed to have met at the Splendide, on the job. Tremayne was to get hold of Gwen before Hayn arrived, and tell her the story-we were assuming that you hadn't told her anything-and then bring her along to the Splen­dide and join up with you. The two of you were then to take Gwen down by car to the Saint's bungalow at Maidenhead and stay down there till the trouble had blown over."

The boy was gnawing his finger-nails. He had more time to think over the situation on the drive down, and Conway's story had only confirmed his own deductions. The vista of consequences that it opened up was appalling.

"What's the Saint been doing all this time?"

"That's another longish story," Conway answered. "He'd got Hayn's check for five figures and that made the risk bigger. There was only one way to settle it." Roger Conway briefly described the Saint's employing of the four spoof Cherubs. "After that was found out, Simon reckoned Hayn would think the gang business was all bluff, and he'd calculate there was only the Saint against himself. Therefore he wouldn't be afraid to try on his scheme about Gwen, even though he knew the Saint knew it, because the Saint was going to be out of the way. Anyhow, Hayn's choice was between getting rid of the Saint and going to prison, and we could guess which he'd try first. The Saint had figured out that Hayn wouldn't simply try a quick assassination, be­cause it wouldn't help him to be wanted for murder. There had got to be a murder, of course, but it would have to be well planned. So the Saint guessed he'd be kidnapped first and taken away to some quiet spot to be done in, and he decided to play stalking horse. He did that because if Hayn were arrested, his checks would be stopped automatically, so Hayn had got to be kept busy till tomorrow morning. I was watching outside the Saint's flat in a fast car last night, as I'd been detailed to do, in case of accidents. The Saint was going to make a fight of it. But they got him somehow-I saw him taken out to a car they had waiting-and I followed down here. Tremayne was to be waiting at the Splendide for a 'phone call from me at two o'clock. I've been trying to get him ever since, and you as well, touring London over the toll line, and it's cost a small fortune. And I didn't dare to go back to London, because of leaving the Saint here. That's why I'm damned glad you've turned up-"

"But why haven't you told the police?"

"Simon'd never forgive me. He's out to make the Saint the terror of the underworld, and he won't do that by simply giving information to Scotland Yard. The idea of the gang is to punish people suitably before handing them over to the law, and our suc­cess over Hayn depends on sending five figures of his money to charity. I know it's a terrible risk. The Saint may have been killed already. But he knew what he was doing. We were ordered not to inter­fere and the Saint's the head man in this show."

Stannard sprang up. "But Hayn's got Gwen!" he half sobbed. "Roger, we can't hang about, not for any­thing, while Gwen's------"

"We aren't hanging about any longer," said Roger quietly.

His hand fell with a firm grip on Jerry Stannard's arm, and the youngster steadied up. Conway led him to the window of the smoke-room, and pointed.

"You can just see the roof of the house, over there," he said. "Since last night, Hayn's gone back to London, and his car came by again about two hours ago. I couldn't see who was in it, but it must have been Gwen. Now-"

He broke off suddenly. In the silence, the drone of a powerful car could be heard approaching. Then the car itself whirled by at speed, but it did not pass too quickly for Roger Conway to glimpse at the men who rode in it. "Hayn and Braddon in the back with Dicky Tremayne between them!" he said tensely. He was in time to catch Stannard by the arm as the boy broke away wildly.

"What the blazes are you stampeding for?" he snapped. "Do you want to go charging madly in and let Hayn rope you in, too?"

"We can't wait!" Stannard panted, struggling.

Conway thrust him roughly into a chair and stood over him. The boy was as helpless as a child in Conway's hands. "You keep your head and listen to me!" Roger commanded sharply. "We'll have another drink and tackle this sensibly. And I'm going to see that you wolf a couple of sandwiches before you do anything. You've been in a panic for hours, with no lunch, and you look about all in. I want you to be useful."

"If we 'phone the police-"

"Nothing doing!"

Roger Conway's contradiction ripped out almost automatically, for he was not the Saint's right-hand man for nothing. He had learnt the secret of the perfect lieutenant, which is the secret of, in any emergency, divining at once what your superior officer would want you to do. It was no use simply skinning out any old how-the emergency had got to be dealt with in a way that would dovetail in with the Saint's general plan of campaign. "The police are our last resort," he said. "We'll see if the two of us can't fix this alone. Leave this to me."

He ordered a brace of stiff whiskies and a pile of sandwiches, and while these were being brought he wrote a letter which he sealed. Then he went in search of the proprietor, whom he knew of old, and gave him the letter. "If I'm not here to claim that in two hours," he said, "I want you to open it and telephone what's inside to Scotland Yard. Will you do that for me, as a great favour, and ask no ques­tions?"