The Old House
It was Orace, that stern disciplinarian, who ruthlessly interrupted
the seance in order to lay the table for lunch. That was half an hour
later, though Simon and Pat would both have sworn that the interlude
had lasted no more than a short half-minute. The Saint moved away to
an embrasure and gazed out at the rippling blue sea, self-conscious
for the first time in his life. The girl began to tidy her hair. But
Orace, after one disapproving glance round, brazenly continued with
his task, as though no amount of objections to his intrusion could
stop him enforcing punctuality.
“Lunch narf a minnit,” warned Orace, and returned to the kitchen.
The Saint continued to admire the horizon with mixed feelings. He was
sufficiently hardened in his lawless career to appreciate the
practical disadvantages of Romance with a big R horning in at that
stage of the proceedings. Why in the name of Noah couldn’t the love
and kisses have waited their turn and popped up at the conventional
time, when the ungodly had been duly routed and the scene was all set
for a fade-out on the inevitable embrace? But they hadn’t, and there
it was. The Saint was ready to sing and curse simultaneously. That the
too marvellous Patricia should be in love with him was all but too
good to be true—but the fact that she was, and that he knew it,
quadrupled his responsibility and his anxieties.
It was not until Orace had served lunch and departed again that they
could speak naturally, and by then a difficult obstacle of shyness had
grown up between them to impose a fresh restraint.
“So you see,” remarked Patricia at last, “you can’t leave me out of it
now.”
“If you cared anything about my feelings,” returned the Saint,
somewhat brusquely, “you’d respect them—and give way.”
She shook her head.
“In anything else in the world,” she said, “but not in this.”
So that was that. Simon had used up all his arguments, and further
effort to combat her resolution would only be tedious. She won. Short
of an appeal to brute strength, he hadn’t a thing left to do except
grin and bear it and do his best to make the going as safe as
ingenuity could. And like many strong men the Saint shrank from
applying cave-man measures.
At that moment he would even have considered throwing up the sponge,
tipping the wink to Carn, and sliding out of the picture. What stopped
him from taking that desperate way out was a shrewd understanding of
the girl’s character. Somehow, out of a normal education and a simple
life in a forgotten country village, she had acquired the standards of
a qualified adventuress—in the clean sense. And she had a ramrod will
to back her up. She felt that it was only the game to stand by her man
in any and every kind of trouble, and she meant to play the game
according to her lights. She would only despise him if he refused to
carry on on her account: she was determined to prove to him by deeds
as well as words that she wasn’t a clinging vine who was going to
cramp his style either before or after the wedding bells. And it was
quite hopeless for the Saint to try and point out to her that she
would only hamper him—as hopeless as it would have been ungracious,
bearing in mind the uniqueness of a girl of her calibre.
But for one thing Simon could and did thank his stars: he had
successfully put her off the track of the first string of his bow—the
disused inn behind the village. He would be able to tackle the
proposition from that angle without her knowledge before nightfall,
and if the Fates played into his hands he might manage to get a
stranglehold on the Tiger before it was her turn to bat.
“If the mountain won’t budge, Mahomet’ll have to leave it where it
is,” said the Saint disarmingly. “But there are one or two knots that
ought to be untied in the course of the afternoon, and that’s where
you can help. One—it might be a sound plot to see if we can’t get this
Aunt Aggie palaver cleared up a bit.”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything last night.”
“You were hardly on form then, with me loose in the menagerie. This
afternoon you can go back full of beans, with a parting hug from me to
pep you up, and lam into Auntie two-fisted. If you can only carry it,
you’ve got her cold. After all, she admits having tapped your treasure
chest to save herself. It isn’t too stiff a return to ask her to get a
bit off her own chest for your satisfaction. I know she’s a hefty
handful, but she isn’t half the size of some of the things you’ll have
to wire into during the next twenty-four hours, and it’ll limber you
up. If she tries to bully you, remember that there isn’t a bully
swaggering the earth that can’t be bullied himself by someone with the
guts to take on the job. And if she finds she can’t treat you
high-handed, and bursts into tears—don’t let ’em dissolve you. I can’t
take her on myself, so I’ve got to rely on you.”
She nodded.
“If you say so, Saint, I shan’t funk it.”
“Good Scout!” he approved. “The other item is old Lapping. He’s been
lying doggo since the beginning of the piece, but there are so darn
few possible winning numbers in this lottery that I think we ought to
get a line on Lapping. On the face of it, he’s right out of the
running—but then, so’s everyone else in Baycombe. And I’m just
wondering about a lad called Harry the Duke.”
“‘Harry the Duke’?” she repeated, mystified. “Whoever’s he?”
“A swell mobsman that Lapping sent down for seven years when he was a
judge. It was a nasty piece of work—I’ll spare you the details—but
Harry escaped six years ago, and he never was a forgiving man, from
all accounts. In fact, knowing what’s said about Harry at the Yard,
I’m surprised he hasn’t taken it out of Lapping before now. There’s a
story that Harry followed the first magistrate who convicted him
half-way round the world—and got him. Since when there was no other,
Harry being miles and miles above the common run of crooks in brains,
until Lapping. It’s a long shot, I know, but bad men run pretty much
to pattern, and the Tiger’s acknowledged to be an Englishman. And the
hunch got me recently—suppose Harry the Duke is the Tiger?”
“Wouldn’t he have been recognised?”
“Harry’s face is pure plasticine, and he’s forgotten more about
make-up than most actors ever learn. And Harry’s one of the few men
I’d credit with brains enough to wear the Tiger’s hat. . . . It’s all
speculation, and long odds against it on probability, but it’s worth a
flutter. You see, if the Tiger did happen to be Harry the Duke—and the
Tiger started operations not so long after Harry broke gaol—it
accounts for Lapping’s continued health. The Tiger’ll just be waiting
till he’s ready to skedaddle with the swag, since Lapping’s right
where he can lay his hands on him any time, and then he’ll pay off the
old score and sail away.”
She was still puzzled.
“But what do you want me to do?” she asked.
“If you’ve got time and energy left after pasting Auntie, go over and
be sweet and winsome to Sir Mike,” replied Simon. “You know him quite
well—lay it on with a spade. Ask him to advise you about me. That’s
sound! If he happened to be in with the Tiger, it might put you on
safer ground, if you can kid them you’re not in my confidence after
all. If he’s harmless, it can’t hurt us. Talk to him as the old friend
and honorary uncle. Tell him about _l’affaire_ Bittle—noting how he
reacts—and lead from that to my eccentric self. You might say that you
felt attracted, and wondered if it was wise to let it go any further.
The blushing ingenuous maiden act.”
“I’ll do it,” she said, and he leaned across the table and touched her
hand.
“You’re a partner in a million, old Pat.”
After lunch Orace served coffee outside, and they sat and smoked while
they discussed the final arrangements.
“I’ll send Orace over to fetch you after dinner,” he said. “I think
it’d be better if I didn’t appear. Put a bathing costume on under your
frock; and when the time comes I’ll give you a belt and the neatest
waterproof holster, that’ll just carry your fit in guns. But I’ll give
you the shooter now.”
He took a little automatic from his pocket, slipped the jacket to
bring a cartridge into the chamber, and clicked over the safety catch.
“And it’s not for ornament,” he added. “If the occasion calls for it,
let fly, and apologise to the body. Have you ever handled this sort of
gadget?”
“Often. I used to go and shoot in revolver ranges on piers.”
“Then that’s all to the good. Put it away in your pocket—but don’t
flourish it about unnecessarily, because it belongs to Bloem. I picked
his pocket when I was showing him out last night, thinking it might be
handy to have around the house.”
She rose.
“I’d better be getting along,” she said. “I shall have a lot to do
this afternoon. And we assemble after dinner?”
“Eightish,” he said. “Don’t take any risks till then. I just hate
having to let you out of my sight even for as long as that. You never
know what Tigers are up to. All the help I can give you is, distrust
everybody and everything, keep your head and use it, and don’t go and
walk into the first trap that’s set for you like any fool heroine in a
novel.”
Her arms went round his neck, and he held her close to him for a
while. And then she drew back her head and looked up at him with a
smile, though her eyes were brimming.
“Oh, I’m silly,” she said. “But love’s like that, old boy. What about
me letting you out of my sight for so long?”
“I’m safer than the Bank of England,” he reassured her. “The gipsy
told me I’d die in my bed at the ripe old age of ninety-nine. And
d’you think I’m going to let the Tiger or anyone else book me to
Kingdom Come when I’ve got you waiting for me here? I am not!”
And then there had to be a further delay, which need not be reported.
For those who have lost their hearts know all about these things, and
those who haven’t don’t deserve to be told. . . .
But at last he had to let her go, so he kissed her again and then took
her hand and kissed that. And afterwards he took her shoulders and
squared them up, and drew himself up in front of her.
“Soldier’s wives, Pat!” he commanded. “Cheerio—and the best of luck!”
“Cheerio, Saint!” she answered. “God bless you. . . .”
She flung him a brave smile, and turned and walked off down the hill
with Orace ambling behind like a faithful dog. Just before the path
led her round a bend and out of sight she stopped and waved her
handkerchief, and the Saint waved back. Then she was gone, and he
wondered if he would ever see her again.
He went back into the Pill Box, took off his coat, rolled up his left
sleeve, and strapped Anna securely to his forearm. That was for
emergencies; but now that the Tiger knew all about Anna the Saint had
to rummage in his bag for her twin sister, and this dangerous woman he
fixed to his left calf in a similar manner, where it would be quite
likely to be overlooked if he were caught and searched. He made sure
that he had his first-aid cigarette case in his hip pocket, and as an
afterthought added to the kit a telescopic rod of the finest steel
with a claw at one end.
As a final precaution, he sat down and scribbled a note:
If I don’t turn up by seven-thirty look for me at the Old House—the
place behind the village that used to be an inn. Failing that, try
Bloem’s or Bittle’s. Don’t go to Carn till you’ve drawn blank at all
those three places. And BE CAREFUL. If they get me they’ll be on the
look out for you.
This he folded, addressed to Orace, and left in a conspicuous position
in the kitchen, where his man would be sure to find it when he
returned.
Then the Saint went swinging down the track towards the village.
It was a ticklish job he was embarking on. In broad daylight stealth
was out of the question. It would mean walking boldly up to the enemy
fortress and trying to get as far as he wanted in one dash, before the
opposition could collect their wits. And then there would be
ructions—but that would have to take care of itself.
The Saint did not remember the Old House very distinctly, and he
paused at the edge of a spinney lower down the hill to survey the
land. And then he gave thanks once again for the continuance of his
phenomenal luck. There it was—the blessing out of the blue that he’d
never dared to hope or pray for—a long low wall that sprang from one
corner of the Old House and ran north towards the straggly outskirts
of the village, losing itself behind a couple of sheds belonging to a
small farm. Hardly believing his good fortune, the Saint hurried down
the slope and passed through the village. He worked round the farm
outbuildings, and found that he was not deceived. The wall started
there, and it was just high enough to screen his advance if he bent
almost double.
That was not a very difficult feat, and Simon plunged straight on into
his adventure. Stooping down, he trotted rapidly along under cover of
the wall till he had nearly reached the nearest corner of the Old
House. At that point he slowed up and proceeded with more caution,
travelling on his toes and finger-tips, in case there should be a
watcher posted at an upper window. When he actually came to the Old
House itself he flattened down on his stomach and lay prone for a
moment while he planned his entrance.
He could see one wall of the Old House—a dead flat facade of chipped
and mouldering brick, broken only by four symmetrically placed windows
and a door. The door was a godsend. The windows themselves were
roughly boarded up, and to prise off those boards, though it could be
done in a brace of shakes, would be rather too audible for the Saint’s
taste; whereas a mere door could probably be dealt with, by an expert,
almost noiselessly.
The Saint wormed his way forwards, fitting himself as snugly as he
could into the angle between the wall and the ground and taking
infinite pains to make no sound that might betray his approach to a
keen ear within. From the moment he left the shelter of the wall,
however, he was in danger of discovery, for if any sentinel had
elected to peer out of a window the Saint would be lucky to be
overlooked. The watcher would probably scrutinise the nearest cover,
in which case his gaze would pass right above the Saint; but on the
other hand the enemy might be well aware of the possibilities of that
too convenient wall, and in that case anyone who was taking a peek
round would certainly cast an eye downwards, and then the Saint
wouldn’t have an earthly. That salutary realisation made him wriggle
along as fast as he could with safety, and it must be admitted that
his spine was tingling and the short hairs on the scruff of his neck
bristling throughout that dozen yards’ crawl. It is not pleasant to
have visions of a man sticking a gun out of an upper window and
plugging a chunk of lead down into your back.
But his head came on a level with the door at last, and nothing so
disastrous had happened. The Saint crept up into a squatting position
and, tentatively, began to breathe again, while he inspected the door
at close quarters.
He found that the handle had snapped off short—in fact, he discovered
the tarnished brass ball lying under a bush a few yards away. The lock
was rusty, and the door sagged on its hinges. The Saint scratched his
head. Either the Old House was not the goods at all, or the Tiger Cubs
were banking a lot on its reputation of being haunted. He looked again
and more closely at the broken end of the handle lever protruding from
the door, and caught his breath. The jagged metal was shining—not a
trace of the rust that flaked over the rest of the metal dulled its
brilliance. That was a new break! Even in forty-eight hours the
exposed steel would have lost some of that sheen. Therefore, someone
had been there recently. And unless the village children were less
superstitious than their elders, that meant that the Tiger Cubs had
graced the premises.
Simon put his hand on the door and pushed gently. It gave back
smoothly at his touch.
The Saint took his hand away as if the wood had burned it. The door
yielded smoothly! It wasn’t locked, or bolted, or barred, and there
wasn’t a creak anywhere. And the doors of houses that haven’t been
inhabited since the year Dot don’t do things like that—for one thing,
the hinges are so rusted up that it takes a thundering good push to
shift them; but these hinges turned like brand-new ones freshly oiled.
That meant that someone certainly was using the Old House. And, plus
the fact that there was apparently nothing to stop anyone else using
it as well, the complete scenery had a howling warning scrawled all
over it. A tight little smile moved the Saint’s mouth.
“‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the spider to the fly,”
murmured the Saint. “Surest thing you know, son—but not exactly like
that sort of boob.”
He drew back to think it over, and cast a thoughtful glance at the
boarded windows. But the same difficulty presented itself: to break
away a plank makes a noise at the best of times, and he could now see
that the planks in question were not simply nailed to the frame but
solidly riveted in place. That seemed to rule out the windows, which
left only the door—with someone waiting for him inside, as like as
not. Well, Simon decided, that had got to be faced, and it was better
to tackle something you had a line on than something you hadn’t. It
wasn’t a time for humming and hawing and eventually leaving your card
and promising to look them up next walk you took that way. He was more
than ever determined to get inside the Old House that afternoon, and
the door was the only way in that presented itself. Therefore, it must
be the door.
The Saint pushed the door a little further. Nothing happened. Then he
slowly edged one eye round at a point where no one within would expect
a man to appear—only a few inches off the ground. But inside was
darkness, and he could distinguish nothing. The Saint swung the door
again, until it was over a foot ajar.
_Plop!_
Just the noise that a big stone makes falling into a well; and
something nicked the door, breaking a burst of splinters out of the
rotten wood. The Saint looked up at the wound, and saw that it would
have been on a level with his chest if he had been standing up.
That was enough—ultimatum, declaration of war, and attack, all
together. And it meant also that, whatever was waiting for him inside,
it would probably be healthier to charge right in and take it on than
to stick around in the open where half a dozen Tiger Cubs could take
pot-shots at him from the windows. The Saint gathered himself for the
rush and slid Anna out of her sheath. He tested his muscles, drew a
deep breath, and jumped.
One leap took him well inside the door, and in a flash he had banged
it shut again behind him. That evened things up a bit, for it stopped
him being a target against the light outside for any sniper hidden in
the darkness. Then, almost in the same movement, he had flung back
again against the door, in a corner.
He had half expected to find someone waiting just behind the door to
put him down as he passed, but his groping fingers touched nothing but
dust. First mistake. Well, that meant that anything that was coming to
him would arrive out of the blackness in front.
The Saint stood motionless, listening intently and straining his eyes
to try and locate the gentleman who had fired that single shot—and had
been too surprised at the suddenness of the Saint’s reaction to loose
off another round at the critical instant when the Saint was
silhouetted in the doorway on his way in. It was at least a comfort to
have your back to a wall, and to know that the other man was literally
as much in the dark as you were; but there were such things as
electric torches, and the Saint was tensely prepared for a beam of
light to shoot from the obscurity and pick him out for the benefit of
the man with the gun. Simon had Anna held in his deft fingers ready to
send her whistling through the hand of any man who turned a spotlight
on him, and equally ready to hamstring anyone who might creep up and
jump on him.
Minutes passed without the other side making a move, and Simon shifted
one hand to scratch his head mechanically. Not even his
preternaturally acute hearing could catch the least sound—and in that
silence he would have bet half his worldly goods on being able to
detect the faint rustle of cloth if a man so much as lifted his arm.
He made out the steady beating of his own heart, and even heard the
whisper of his wrist watch ticking, but there was nothing else.
His eyes were gradually becoming accustomed to the gloom, and at last
he began to scowl very thoughtfully, for the passage in front of him
was empty. One by one the details became visible. First, two doors,
opposite each other and about two yards away, both of them closed. He
looked down. The dust lay thick on the floor of the passage, and there
were marks of many feet, both entering and leaving. Some of the
footprints branched off to the door on his right, but it seemed that
nobody had used the room on the left, unless there was another
entrance to it. At the far end of the passage was a small window,
boarded up like the rest, and it was through this that enough light
filtered in for him to be able to see.
It was not long before other features of the landscape showed up.
Further along, to the left, was another door and the footprints proved
that that room had been used fairly recently. And at the end of the
passage, under the window, stood a table with a square box on it.
The Saint looked long and hard at that box, and suddenly he had an
inspiration. Bending down, he felt along the ground by the door.
Presently he found wires, and a little research disclosed the fact
that they ran up the corridor—towards the table and the square box. A
little more investigation brought him to the metal contacts which
closed the electric circuit. One of them he found screwed to the
inside of the door, low down; the other projected from a terminal
fixed to the floor. On the strength of that, Simon began to tiptoe
down the passage, though he did not relax his vigilance for an
instant. He came to the table and the box, and examined them with
interest. The wires he had found led to terminals on the box, and from
the front of it protruded a shining steel tube.
“Very ingenious, my Tiger,” was the Saint’s unspoken comment. “When I
open the door, I get pipped. And I didn’t, after all. _So_ sorry!”
However, just in case the arrangement had any more shots left, and in
case he should have to leave hurriedly by the door, he slewed the box
round so that the gun barrel pointed into the wall, and disconnected
the wires. Then he took stock of the position again.
The discovery and circumnavigation of that little booby-trap didn’t
dispose of the possibility of encountering others—in fact, his
estimate of the Tiger forced him to realise that the next step he took
might set some other equally neat little contrivance working. And if
not that, there might still be Tiger Cubs in the building, already
warned of his arrival by Booby Trap Number One going off, and knowing
that it hadn’t functioned quite according to plan. The amusing thought
that they might be in some fear of his fighting record struck the
Saint, and he chuckled quietly. Perhaps they felt confident of having
him safely trapped, and were just biding their time to strike him down
when the operation could be performed without risk to themselves.
Well, it wouldn’t hurt them to keep on hoping.
But the job looked just as prickly now that he was inside the Old
House as it had been when he was outside. However gingerly he opened
the next door, there might be men inside the room waiting to open fire
as soon as he showed up in the doorway. Yet the Saint was no piker;
and, having got so far, he intended to go the rest of the journey. And
the only course he could see was to repeat the tactics he had used
when entering the building in the first place. So, without further
hesitation, he got on with it.
There was the door with footprints leading to and from it, and that
seemed the most promising. There were also footprints outside the
swing door nearest to him, but they were less encouraging, for at that
point there was only a double set, whereas the other seemed to have
been fairly popular. And the Saint’s philosophy laid down the law that
if you must stroll into the home-sweet-home of a bunch of cut-throats
you might as well do the thing in style. Wherefore the Saint went down
the passage and halted by the most dangerous-looking door.
There was a handle on that door. He turned it and opened a couple of
inches. Then, keeping well away, he set his toe against the wood,
braced himself, and kicked. The door opened wide, but there was no
muffled report. That short history at least wasn’t going to repeat
itself. And, accordingly, the only thing to do was to march straight
in.
Simon went—in a catlike spring that carried him round the corner and
set his back against the wall again in a flash. But once more there
was no response. Simon had jerked the door shut behind him as before,
and one foot was against it so that nobody could open it and sneak out
without his knowing it. But only stillness answered his listening, and
the room was so dark that he could see nothing. He cursed himself for
not having an electric torch. But it was far too late to remedy that,
and therefore his only hope was to strike a match—and hope that his
concerted speed of eye and brain and hand would be great enough to
overcome the handicap he would have to create for himself. If there
was anyone in the room, he would be able to see the Saint before the
Saint saw him. But the Saint had taken longer chances than that, and
his nerves were getting just a shade raw. Simon Templar was afraid of
nothing that he could see and hit back at, but this creeping around,
seeing no sign of the enemy and yet continually threatened by him, was
turning into a joke that the Saint didn’t feel inclined to laugh at.
Still gripping Anna, he fished a box of matches out of his pocket and
struck one quickly, holding it behind his head so that the flare of it
would not dazzle him.
And the room was perfectly empty.
The match burned down between his fingers and went out. He struck
another, but even that could not cause a human being to materialise.
Yet there had been men there—their footprints were all over the floor,
and there were three comparatively new-looking beer bottles in one
corner, and scraps of greasy paper were littered about.
“This is getting annoying,” said the Saint.
He struck a third match, and took a couple of steps into the room.
Then he tried to hurl himself back, but he was a fraction of a second
late. The ground dropped away beneath his feet and he felt himself
falling down and down into utter darkness.