The Fun Continues
It was only a moment before Carn opened the door. Simon could have
fallen on the detective’s neck when he saw that Carn’s features
registered nothing more than a faint surprise, but he concealed his
joy and assumed the slightly mocking smile that went with his Saintly
pose.
“Thought I’d find you up,” murmured the Saint. “Mind if I split a
small lemonade with you?”
He had sidled past Carn into the miniature hall before the detective
could answer, and Carn closed the front door resignedly.
“I didn’t expect to be honoured again so soon, Mr. Templar,” said the
detective. “As a matter of fact, I’ve a visitor with me. . . .”
The last sentence was uttered in a tone that was intended to convey a
gentle hint, as man of the world to man of the world, that the Saint
should pause and consult his host before making himself at home, but
the Saint had opened the door of the study before the detective had
finished speaking.
“Why, it’s Miss Holm!” exclaimed the Saint. “Fancy meeting you!” He
turned to Carn, who was reddening silently on the threshold. “I hope
I’m not interrupting a consultation, Doc? Throw me out of the window
if I cramp your style, won’t you? I mean, people never stand on
ceremony with me. . . .”
“As a matter of fact,” said Carn, on the defensive, “Miss Holm simply
came round for a chat.”
“No? Really?” said the Saint.
“Yes!” returned Carn loudly.
“Well, well!” said Simon, who was enjoying himself hugely. “And how
are we, Miss Holm?”
He was wondering just how much she had told Carn, and she read the
unspoken question in his eyes, and answered it.
“In another minute——”
“I shall get my face smacked,” the Saint took her up swiftly. “And
quite right, too. Try to forgive me. I never could see an elastic leg
without being irresistibly impelled to find out how far it would
stretch.”
He cast a reproachful glance at Carn which made the detective take on
an even deeper purple hue. Then he was smiling at Patricia with a
message that was not for broadcasting. It showed his complete
satisfaction with the way things had fallen out. There must have been
a difference of a couple of minutes between their watches, and those
two minutes had been just long enough to save the beans from being
spilt all over the place. And the smile added: “Well played, kid! I
knew I could rely on you. And everything in the garden’s lovely. . . .
Which means, incidentally, that it’s our job to lead Carn up the
garden. Watch your step!” And the girl smiled back, to show that she
understood—but there was rather more in her smile than that. It showed
that she was very glad to see him again, and the Saint had a struggle
to stop himself grabbing her up in his arms and kissing her on the
strength of it.
“You seem to have been in the wars, Mr. Templar,” remarked Carn, and
the Saint nodded tolerantly.
“Didn’t Miss Holm tell you?”
“I didn’t feel I could ask her.”
The Saint raised his eyebrows, for although the girl had made some
effort to tidy herself it was still glaringly evident that she had not
spent the evening playing dominoes in the drawing-room. Carn
explained:
“When I opened the door and saw her, I thought something had happened
and she was coming to me for—er—first aid. But she said it was only
for a chat, so I overcame my—um—professional instincts, and said
nothing. I rather think you were leading up to something when Mr.
Templar came in, weren’t you, Miss Holm? . . . I see that you were.
But as a—er—um—ah——” Carn caught the Saint’s accusing eye for the
third time, and spluttered. “As a Doctor,” said Carn defiantly, “I was
trained to let my patients make the running. The old school, but a
good one. And then you arrive——”
The detective broke off with a gesture that comprehended Patricia’s
ragamuffin appearance and the Saint’s own tattered clothes, and Simon
grinned.
“So sad!” he drawled. “And now I suppose you’ll be in agonies of
curiosity for weeks.”
Carn shrugged.
“That depends.”
The detective was a passably good actor, but he was heavily
handicapped by the suggestion of malicious glee that lurked in the
Saint’s twinkling eyes. And he dared not seem to notice that the Saint
was quietly laughing at him, because it was essential for him to
maintain the _rôle_ of Dr. Carn in the presence of a witness. Which
goes some way to explain why his florid face remained more rubicund
even than it normally was, and why there was a certain unnatural
restraint in his voice.
Patricia was perplexed. She had expected to find that the Saint and
Carn were familiar friends: instead, she found two men fencing with
innuendo. It was beyond her to follow the subtleties of the duel, but
there was no doubt that Simon was quite happy and Carn was quite
annoyed, for it was indisputably the Saint’s game.
“Shall I tell you all about it, Doc?” asked the Saint insinuatingly,
for it was a weakness of his to exaggerate his pose to the borders of
farce.
“Do,” urged Carn, in an unguarded moment.
“I’ll tell you,” said Simon confidentially. “It was like this. . . .”
Carn drew nearer. The Saint frowned, blinked, scratched his head, and
stared blankly at the detective.
“Do you know,” said Simon, in simulated dismay, “it’s a most
extraordinary thing—I can’t remember. Isn’t that funny?”
The detective was understood to reply that he was not amused. He said
other things, in a low voice that was none the less pregnant with
emotion, for the Saint’s ears alone, and Simon turned away with a
pained expression.
“I don’t agree,” said Simon. “The Ten-Toed Tripe-Hopper is nothing
like the Wall-Eyed Giraffe. Try Keating’s.”
“As a matter of fact,” interposed Patricia, who felt that things
looked like getting out of hand, “Mr. Templar’s been with me most of
the evening. We were taking a walk along by the cliff, and——”
Simon raised his hand.
“Hush!” he said. “Not before the Doc. You’ll be putting ideas into his
head.”
“Grrrr,” said Carn fiercely, which a man might well say when goaded to
the limits of human endurance, and then he coughed energetically to
cover it up.
“You see?” said the Saint. “You’re embarrassing him.”
Simon was perfect. His smiling, polished ease made Carn’s red-faced
discomfort look like an intentional effort of the detective to
entertain a children’s party with a few “faces” between the ice-creams
and the Punch and Judy, and Patricia was weak with suppressed
laughter. It was unpardonable, of course, but it was the only way to
dispose of Carn’s burning curiosity. To have been secretive and
mysterious, much as the Saint would have loved playing the part, would
have been fatal.
Carn suddenly realised that he was being futile—that the elasticity of
his leg was being sorely tried. The Saint had been watching for that,
and instantly he became genuinely apologetic.
“Perhaps I ragged you a bit too much,” he hastened to confess.
“Really, though, you were asking for it, by being so infernally
suspicious. Almost as if you suspected me of just having murdered
somebody, or robbing the till of the village Post Office. It’s really
quite simple. Miss Holm and I were walking along the cliffs, and——”
“I fell over,” Patricia explained, jumping in as soon as the Saint
hesitated. “I landed on a ledge, and I wasn’t seriously hurt, but Mr.
Templar had an awful job getting me back.”
Carn frowned. He had been badly had. The Saint’s merciless leg-pulling
had achieved its object. So masterly was the transition from teasing
to sober seriousness that the seriousness went unquestioned, and Carn
swallowed whole a story that he would certainly have disbelieved if it
had been told him in the first place without any nonsense.
“No offence, old thing,” pleaded the Saint contritely. “I couldn’t
miss such a marvellous opportunity to make you imagine the worst.”
Carn looked from one to the other; but Patricia, pulling her weight
and more also, met the detective’s searching stare unabashed, and the
Saint’s face displayed exactly what the Saint wanted it to display.
“I tried to tell you once,” Patricia pointed out, “only Mr. Templar
interrupted.”
Simon flashed her a boatload of appreciation in a glance. Ye gods!
What a girl! There wasn’t an actress in the world who could have
taught her anything about the kind of acting that gets over without
any stage effects—she had every woman in every Secret Service in
Europe skinned a mile. There she was, cool as you please, playing up
to her cue like an old hand. And, marvel of marvels, asking no
questions. The Saint hadn’t the foggiest notion why a girl he’d only
known a couple of days should back him up like that, when every flag
on the mast would have told any ordinary person that the Saint was
more likely to be wrong than not. Ordinary respectable people did not
go in for the hobbies that she had seen the Saint indulging in—like
bending statuettes over millionaire knights’ skulls after walking
mysteriously out of the night through their library windows, or being
chased round gardens by men and bloodhounds, or chucking their lady
friends over eight-foot walls. And yet she trusted him implicitly,
took her line from him, and postponed the questions till afterwards!
And not the least remarkable fact was that the Saint, that consummate
egotist, never thought of the obvious explanation. . . .
Carn reddened again, recovered his normal colour, and his stolid
features gradually lost their strained appearance and relaxed into a
wry smile.
“You certainly did try to save me, Miss Holm,” he admitted. “You see,
the Saint—that is, Mr. Templar—he’s always running into trouble, and
seeing him like that I couldn’t help thinking of his habits. It didn’t
occur to me that you were with him—I was so dense it didn’t strike me
that you might have got mussed up at the same time as he did—and, of
course, I know all about you, Miss Holm, so——”
“Half-time!” begged the Saint dazedly. “We’re getting all tied up.
Let’s call it quits.”
Carn nodded.
“Saint,” he said, “it wasn’t fair. I’m taking this game seriously, and
that’s quite bad enough without tangling it any more.”
“That’ll be all right,” said the Saint heartily. “And now what about
that Baby Polly we were going to split?”
Carn busied himself with decanter and glasses, and the Saint offered
up a short prayer of thanksgiving. That was a nasty corner taken on
two wheels in the devil of a skid, but they were round it somehow with
the old bus still right side up, and the road looked pretty clear—at
least as far as the next bend.
Simon caught the girl’s eye while Carn’s back was turned. She smiled
and shrugged her shoulders helplessly. The Saint grinned back and
spread out his hands. Then, quite shamelessly, he blew her a kiss.
Carn brought the drinks, and the Saint raised his glass.
“Bung-ho, troops,” he said. “Here’s to a good race, Carn.”
The detective looked back.
“_Reasonably_ good hunting, Saint,” he replied grimly, and Simon
grinned and drank.
“All things considered, worthy chirurgeon, I think——”
The Saint broke off at the sound of a thunderous knocking on the front
door. Then a bell pealed long and insistently at the back of the
house, and the knocking was resumed. Simon set down his glass
carefully.
“You’re popular to-night, son,” he murmured. “Someone in a tearing
hurry, too. Birth or death—what’s the betting?”
“Hanged if I know,” said Carn, and went out.
The Saint crossed the room swiftly and opened the casement windows
wide, as an elementary precaution. Apparently the evening’s party was
not yet over. He had not the vaguest idea what the next move was going
to be, but the air tingled with an electric foreboding that something
was about to happen. The girl looked at him inquiringly. He dared not
speak, but he signed to her to keep her end up and go on trusting him.
Outside, a voice which the Saint did not know was asking if Mr.
Templar was there, and Carn answered. There was a tramp of heavy feet,
and somebody arrived in the doorway. Simon was leaning on the
mantelpiece, looking the other way, a study in disinterested
innocence.
“Ho,” said the voice. “There ’e is.”
The Saint looked up.
A man in uniform had entered, and the symptoms pointed to his being
the village constable. Simon had not even realised that such an
official existed in Baycombe, but that was undoubtedly what the
gentleman with the pink face and the ill-fitting uniform was. The
constable had clearly been dragged out of bed and rushed into his
uniform—he was dishevelled, and his tunic was buttoned lopsidedly.
All these details the Saint observed in a slow surprised once-over.
Then the policeman advanced importantly and clapped a hand on Simon’s
shoulder.
“I am Constable George ’Opkins,” he said, “and if the Doctor will
hixcuse me I shall arrest you on a charge of burglary annassault.”
“Smoke!” said the Saint to himself.
That was a move! Simon seemed astonished and rather annoyed, as if he
were wondering how the mistake had been made and was quite satisfied
that it would be cleared up in a moment, but beneath his outward poise
his mind was working at breakneck speed. The counter-attack, and the
rapidity with which it had been launched, were worthy of the Tiger,
but it was fighting over very thin ice.
“My good man, you’re dippy!” said the Saint languidly. “Who makes this
charge, anyway?”
“I do.”
It was Bloem. Bloem with his leathery face perfectly composed, and
just the ghost of a light of triumph in his slitted eyes betraying
him. Bloem, walking past Carn into the room with just the right shade
of deference and just the right suggestion of regret for having to
make a scene—but quite firmly the law-abiding citizen determined to do
his duty and bring the criminal to justice.
“A thousand pardons, Doctor.” Bloem bowed to Carn, and then turned and
bowed to the girl. “I am deeply sorry, Miss Holm, that I should be
compelled to do this in your presence. Perhaps you would like to
retire for a minute. . . .”
Patricia tossed her head.
“Thanks—I’ll stay,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a mistake, and perhaps
I can help. I’ve been with Mr. Templar most of the evening.”
Bloem’s eyes rested long and significantly on the girl’s torn frock
and scratched arms, but she met his gaze boldly, and at last he turned
away with a lift of shoulder and eyebrow.
“I’ll explain,” he said. “I was reading in my study, shortly after
eleven this evening, when this man walked in. He threatened me with a
revolver, making some remark which I did not understand. I am not a
young man, but I have led a hard life, and I did not hesitate to
grapple with him. He is very strong, however, and he managed to hit me
with the butt of the revolver. I remember nothing more until the time
when I came to and found him rifling my desk. Since he was armed, and
had already beaten me once in a hand-to-hand tussle, I pretended to be
still unconscious. He searched the room minutely, but apparently
failed to find whatever it was he was looking for. When he left I
followed him, and traced him here. Then I went and fetched Hopkins.
That is the complete story.”
“Anjew better come along quietly,” advised the policeman, tightening
his grip on the Saint’s shoulder and holding his truncheon at the
ready.
“Fine,” said the Saint softly. “I should like to be searched now, so
that your statement about the revolver can be verified.”
Bloem smiled.
“You left it behind,” he said. “Here it is.”
Carn took the weapon from Bloem’s hand and examined it.
“Belgian make,” he said. “Is this yours, Mr. Templar?”
“It is not,” answered Simon promptly. “I object to firearms on
principle. They make such a noise.”
“Come along,” urged the constable, jerking the Saint forward.
Simon was not easily peeved, but one thing that made him see red was
anybody trying to haze him. For a second he forgot his saintly pose.
He caught the policeman’s wrist with both hands and twisted like an
eel. There was a flurry of arms and legs, a yell, and George Hopkins
landed with a crash on the other side of the room, with most of the
breath knocked out of him.
The Saint straightened his tie, and looked bang into the muzzle of an
automatic in Bloem’s hand, but that he ignored.
“Anyone who wants a quiet life is advised to keep their filthy hands
off me,” murmured the Saint. “Don’t do it again, son.”
The constable was getting shakily to his feet.
“That’s assaulting the police,” he stormed.
“Oh, don’t be childish,” drawled the Saint, cool again. “When we want
your little chatter we’ll ask for it. Just now, Bloem, we’ll argue
this out by ourselves. We can soon smash this cock-and-bull yarn of
yours. One: were you alone in the house?”
“I was.”
“Where was Algy?”
“He’d gone over to see Miss Holm.”
That knocked the bottom out of a neat little alibi that the Saint had
thought of trying to put over, but he did not show his disappointment.
“Two: didn’t anyone follow me here with you?”
“I refuse to be cross-examined. I’ve told you I was alone——”
“You’re talking,” said the Saint coldly. “Don’t. Be a good boy and
just answer when you’re spoken to. And the point is, if you’ve been
quite alone all this time, as you say you have, what’s your word
against mine? Suppose I say I called in for a chat, and you stuck me
up with that gun and tried to pinch my watch? Why shouldn’t you be run
in yourself?”
“Let ’im tell that to the judge,” growled the constable.
“I think,” said Bloem acidly, “that my reputation will survive your
wild accusations.”
The Saint was not impressed.
“We had a stand-up fight, did we?” he went on. “I grant you I look as
if I’d been in some rough stuff. Now suppose you take off that mac and
let’s see how you came out of it.”
Bloem smiled, a little wearily, and unbuttoned his coat. The Saint’s
lips tightened. Bloem certainly had a convincing air of having been
violently handled, and that put the Tiger another point to the good.
Simon saw the Tiger’s score soaring skywards at an alarming rate, but
the only effect of that was to key up his own nerves, while his easy
and confident manner never faltered. There were still a few more
minutes to play.
“It’s rather hopeless, isn’t it?” said Bloem.
He was appealing to the audience, and the constable grunted his
agreement.
“What was this remark you didn’t understand?” asked Carn. “When he—as
you say—threatened you with the revolver.”
“It was most mysterious,” said Bloem. “He said: ‘I’m looking for the
tiger’s den, and I think I’m getting warm.’ I still can’t make out
what he meant.”
Simon fished out his cigarette-case and began to tap a cigarette
thoughtfully on his thumbnail. Apparently bored with the whole
proceeding, he nevertheless saw Carn’s face become a mask. Out of the
corner of his eye he caught sight of Bloem, and the Boer’s bland
demeanour almost took his breath away. The colossal audacity of that
last statement was the crowning stroke to a truly masterly bluff. The
Saint wondered if Carn himself was suspect, but Bloem’s gaze rested
only on the Saint. No—the gang knew nothing about Carn’s real
profession. Bloem was simply taking a vindictive pleasure in kicking
the man whom he thought he had got where he wanted him.
And it looked dangerously as if he had got the Saint tied hand and
foot and gagged. Patricia could not help him, and Carn could not—even
if he cared to. It was Bloem’s word against Simon’s, and there was no
doubt which the Bench would prefer to accept. And Bloem knew that the
Saint knew that any reference to the evening’s entertainment at
Bittle’s would be futile. Bittle would lie like a Trojan, and the
Tiger was sure to have provided him with a plausible explanation of
the noise that had occurred earlier that night.
The Saint grasped the consummate efficiency of the Tiger’s tactics.
Simon was to be shopped, and the shopping had been slickly done. He
would be lucky to get away with six months hard—and taken in
conjunction with the assault upon the police in the execution of its
duty the whole charge-sheet might well put the Saint behind bars for
upwards of a year. And in that time T. T. Deeps could be salted, and
the Tiger Cubs could fade gracefully away. The Saint lounged even more
languidly against the mantelpiece. This last deal had certainly given
the Tiger one Hades of a hand.
Yet indisputably the Saint dominated the situation. They were all
waiting for him. Bloem, watching him through narrowed lids, and still
training the automatic upon him, was utterly confident of the strength
of his combination. He was just waiting for the Saint to confess
defeat. The constable, more wary after his taste of the Saint’s anger,
was hanging about in the background waiting for somebody else to start
the next dance. Patricia was looking anxiously at the Saint, powerless
to help him, and wondering if any daring sideslip was being planned
behind that lazy exterior. The one certain thing was that she did not
believe Bloem’s story for an instant. At any other time she might have
credited it, but seen in the light of previous events that evening it
savoured of nothing but the complicated web of mystery which had
caught her up in its meshes and which threatened her Saint with the
most sinister things. And Carn had nothing to say. As far as Bloem’s
story was concerned, it might or might not be true—his knowledge of
the Saint inclined him to believe it. But in any case the Saint was
working against him, even if he was also working against the Tiger.
And to have disclosed himself as Central Detective Inspector Carn of
Scotland Yard would have written Finis to every chance he had of
succeeding on his mission.
“We’re waiting,” said Bloem at last.
“So I see,” drawled Simon. “If you can wait a bit longer, there are
just one or two more points to clear up. The first is that I’m sure
you won’t mind the Doctor just examining the bump I must have raised
on your cranium when I knocked you out.”
He was watching Bloem closely as he spoke, and his heart sank when he
saw that the man was not at all put out. Carn walked up to Bloem with
a query, and Bloem nodded.
“Just behind my left ear,” he said.
“Sweetest lamb,” said the Saint through his teeth, “I’ll bet you just
hated getting that bit of realism!”
Carn looked at the Saint and shrugged.
“Someone certainly hit him very hard,” he said. “Saint, you’ve put
your foot in it this time.”
“So I don’t think we’ll prolong this unpleasant duty,” said Bloem
briskly. “Constable—you have the handcuffs? I’m covering him, and I
shall shoot if he attacks you again.”
And then the congregation was increased by one, for a man strutted out
of the darkness and stood framed in the open window.
“’Ere, wassal this?” demanded Orace truculently.