4 How Captain Fowler Was Displeased, and Abdul Haroon’s Hospitality Was Imposed On

1

The Saint shot his blond fellow-prisoner a silencing look and neither of them said anything. Above the sound of his own controlled breath, Simon listened for any clue that his ears might draw from the commonplace sounds outside the walls. Presumably the new arrival would be the co-conspirator referred to by Kalki as “Captain Fowler”: if so, Simon thought with the ridiculous optimism that would never allow him to take disaster as seriously as he should, a temporary setback could already have brought them miraculously close to what after all had been their goal from the beginning.

“What...” Tammy began, but the Saint stopped her with a shake of his head.

He listened intently. The car sounded heavy, and its engine had a smooth expensive quietness, before it was switched off. A single door of the automobile opened and slammed hurriedly. The footsteps that spurned the gravel had a purposive male rhythm. There was no knock at the boathouse door, which opened, closed, and set off a babble of excited voices over which there suddenly rose a single incredulous infuriated shout:

“Here?”

The voice which uttered the almost despairing cry had a tantalisingly familiar tone, but Simon had no immediate chance to hear any more of it. The single word, like a lion trying to hurl itself out of a trap, was instantly smothered in a net of appeals and explanations. Although few other words were distinguishable, the tones and tempo failed somewhat to suggest a gathering of happy souls in harmonious relaxation.

Then the communicating door was flung open, and Captain Fowler himself strode in, with his cohorts crowding behind him.

It could have been nobody else. For he was the talkative Empire-builder whom Simon had met before dinner at the Golden Crescent, and the semi-familiarity of a voice which had puzzled the Saint a moment ago was explained.

“Well, well, well!” murmured the Saint. “What a surprise. But I suppose it shouldn’t be, really. In most of the detective stories I’ve read, it’s the most innocent-looking character who turns out to be the criminal mastermind. Only they usually don’t unmask him until the very end.”

“Dammit!” said Fowler. “What makes you think this isn’t the end?”

His sandy hair was swept back as if by a recent typhoon, and his face was redder than ever. He had come to a halt a few feet in front of the Saint and Tammy, peering at them as if he had not really believed they could be there until he had seen them for himself. He clamped his jaws together and breathed noisily. Kalki came up beside him while Mahmud and Shortwave hovered in the comfortable obscurity of the background.

“For them, it must be,” Kalki said.

“Thanks to a lot of stupid blundering,” Fowler agreed angrily. He turned back to the Saint “Why did you have to get yourself into this, Templar? Who was bothering you?”

“I might ask you the same question,” Simon countered. “Why aren’t you off ruling the waves somewhere instead of picking on cooks and bottle-washers? Not a very noble pursuit for an officer and a gentleman.”

“Ex-officer,” Fowler reminded him.

“And ex-gentleman,” the Saint concluded agreeably.

“I’d thrash you for that if you weren’t tied,” Fowler said.

“Then untie me,” Simon suggested.

Fowler clenched his hands at his sides and turned to Kalki and his henchmen.

“You’ve all managed to botch this up beautifully!” he raged. “First that idiotic arm-breaking idea of Mahmud’s, and then bollixing the car accident, and now bringing them here!”

“Don’t forget, Fowler,” Simon began, “the captain is always responsible—”

Fowler swung around to send a broadside at Kalki.

“Who told him my name?” he demanded furiously.

Kalki’s tremendous chest expanded with hostility before he answered.

“It does not matter. We are going to kill him anyway.”

“Yes. You’ve left us no choice, have you? Simple enough. Blabber everything to anybody we happen to run into. We can always kill them!”

Kalki’s face became characteristically enpurpled and his tiny eyes seemed to draw closer together.

“There is nothing else to say,” he growled sulkily.

“Right, there isn’t!” Fowler snapped. He looked down at the Saint again. “You wanted to say something? I may as well hear it.”

“I was just going to remind you that you don’t have all that excuse for playing Captain Bligh with your cronies here, because while they were arranging charades in the back room of the Golden Crescent you were loafing around chatting with me about current history.”

“What else could I do?” Fowler said. He calmed down a little, behaving more like an officer enjoying a conversation with a captured equal — not unconscious of the fact that men of lower rank were listening. “I walked into the restaurant expecting to go through to the back to talk to my people, and there you were.”

“Sometimes I’m starting to consider plastic surgery,” said the Saint.

“I recognised you, of course,” Fowler said, “and naturally I had no idea whether you were there by chance or by design.

“Well said, forsooth. ‘By chance or by design.’ You were born too late, Admiral. You have a lovely Victorian style.”

Fowler looked uncomfortable, but went on.

“I assumed you knew nothing about me,” he said, “but I had to find out what you did know, if anything.” He turned his attention to Tammy for the first time. “Miss Rowan, I believe we’ve met only by telephone, and now that I’ve seen you in person I must say that I’m sorry we weren’t able to become acquainted under different circumstances.”

“You’re the swine who rang up threatening to slash my face, I suppose,” she said, with a defiance that surprised and impressed the Saint.

Fowler smiled and shrugged, his hands behind his back.

“I’m afraid so. You’ll have to pardon my crudity at that time, but my experience in handling these things comes mostly from American films.”

“I won’t pardon anything,” Tammy retorted. “Just untie us and let us out of here, or you’ll be in real trouble.”

Fowler reacted with a sigh and a quick fading of cordiality from his face.

“I am in real trouble,” he said. “And so are you. It’s unfortunate that only by putting you in much worse trouble can I save myself. I have a very valuable business going here — which I amply warned you not to interfere in. If either you or Mr. Templar got out of this house it would be the end of my livelihood — not to mention me. Unless...” He studied Simon thoughtfully. “I should have thought that what I’m doing might have appealed to you, actually. Helping a lot of unfortunate people, even in a technically illegal way, into a better life—”

“And even into Paradise, via the old-world crucifixion route.”

“That was only to make an example of an ungrateful traitor, even if it was rather crude.”

“And to encourage the faithful to pay up promptly.”

“From all I’ve heard,” Fowler said irritably, “you’ve never been averse yourself to making a profit out of your so-called good deeds. Why do you suddenly have to be so righteous? Why do we have to be on opposite sides?”

“Because I never believed in blackmailing my so-called beneficiaries, just for one thing.” The Saint shook his head. “No sale, Captain. If this is your idea of a proposition, I can only suggest that you try it as a suppository.”

Fowler’s thin lips compressed, and his florid complexion blanched momentarily; and then he shrugged.

“Too bad, old boy,” he said, with a strained display of jauntiness. He turned to Kalki. “Well, that settles it. This is your mess. You get rid of it.”

Tammy jumped to her feet, straining her wrists against the ropes that held them.

“You can’t do that!” she cried. “You must be joking. We haven’t done enough...”

Mahmud trotted forward anxious to assert himself, and pushed her back down into her chair.

“You have done enough,” Fowler said coldly. “It’s do-gooders like you, poking into things that are none of their business, that cause half the trouble in the world today. I must say I won’t be sorry to see one less of you around after tonight.”

“I can’t believe they’d be stupid enough to really do it!” she exclaimed to the Saint, as if expecting him to arbitrate the dispute.

Fowler literally snorted, disdainfully, before Simon could answer. He spoke again to Kalki.

“Kill them — quietly — and put them in those two empty tar drums behind the house. Fill the drums up with wet cement. I’ll have to pick them up and dump them offshore later.”

“That’s what I like,” Simon said admiringly to Tammy. “The efficient executive type: quick decisions, no nonsense.”

“Sorry to be so abrupt about it,” Fowler said unsorrowfully. “I’ve got to make a pick-up tomorrow night and I’ve got no time to dilly-dally here.”

“Still got the old sea-salt in the veins, hm?” Simon taunted. “What kind of scow are you using on the cross-Channel run?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Doing your bit to sink England, though, aren’t you?”

Fowler glared.

“That lot in the Admiralty didn’t need me, and now as far as I’m concerned it’s every man for himself.”

“It’s interesting,” Simon philosophised. “I’ve almost never met a crook who couldn’t make out a case that his particular racket wasn’t only justified but society practically brought it on itself. The Sea Wolf here probably figures that if he can smuggle in enough illegal immigrants it’ll help the Government to see the error of its ways and make them tighten up the immigration laws.”

“I don’t give a damn about the immigration laws,” Tammy said irrationally. “I just think you’d better let us out of here.”

Fowler glanced at his watch.

“That’s wishful thinking, Miss Rowan, and I’m afraid I have to be a realist. I must go now. Goodnight.”

Just before he reached the door, sweeping Shortwave and Mahmud out ahead of him, Kalki caught him deferentially by the arm and engaged him in a whispered conversation.

“No!” Fowler said impatiently. “The girl too! And just to be sure you don’t get any fancy ideas, you drive the van ahead of my car so I can be sure we don’t have any more slip-ups.”

He made Kalki precede him through the door, and then followed him out without a backward look at the two people he had condemned to death.

“I think you’ve got an admirer,” Simon said to Tammy. “I wonder if Kalki might take it into his head to rescue the princess from the dark tower.”

Tammy’s nerve had finally reached its limit. Her lips began to tremble even though she tried to control them.

“I’d rather be dead.” She burst abruptly into a full flood of tears. “No, I wouldn’t! I’m afraid! This is too horrible! I’m afraid to die!”

“Nature intended it that way,” Simon said, with no flippancy in his tone.

“To die?” she sobbed.

“No, to dislike the idea of dying. And since I share your attitude, I suggest that we go to work at getting out of here.”

“Out?” she moaned despairingly. “There isn’t the slightest hope unless they change their minds.”

She raised her bound wrists to dramatise her helplessness.

“Well,” said the Saint, “at least your hands are tied in front of you. So you can see what you’re doing if you want to come over and have a shot at untying me.”

2

He rolled over away from the wall towards her, and she got up from the chair chattering half hysterically in the relief of realising that she was not utterly immobilised and that there might still be something that they could attempt, however desperate.

“I’ll do my best — I will, honestly. Whatever you think, I didn’t get my job on the Evening Record by being a completely scatterbrained female.” She was on her knees beside him then, fumbling frantically. “I am trying, you know, but I can only use one hand at a time...”

“Take your time,” Simon said coolly, trying to steady her. “And don’t forget our secret weapon: that Girl Guide ring of yours. Even if you haven’t got me untied, we might get Shortwave or Mahmud in here alone with us as some point. If the chance comes, use the ring and I’ll use my feet.”

“You make it sound so easy.” She was almost giggling in the reaction of terror. “But what if the chance doesn’t come?”

“Then we can try singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot in close harmony. Meanwhile, be sure your miniature Flit-gun is in firing order.”

“There’s nothing I can do to be sure without firing it,” she told him. “All we can do is hope.”

Simon did not have much confidence in the efficacy of wishful thinking, but for the moment there did not seem to be much else to count on.

The sounds of muttered words drifted in a meaningless jumble through the wall. Then the outside door opened and closed. After a minute the van rattled to life. Then the engine of Fowler’s car caught smoothly. Gears were shifted, and both vehicles pulled away from the house and their mechanical voices quickly faded into the distance.

“The knots are so tight, and I can only use one hand at a time,” Tammy whimpered. “I don’t think I’m getting anywhere... Now I know what a sheep in a slaughterhouse feels like waiting to get his throat cut.”

“Funny you should say that,” said a voice like the scraping of a razor’s edge on glass. “Real funny you should say that!”

Shortwave stood in the doorway, with the Saint’s throwing knife in his hand, and Tammy started and gasped as his words answered hers.

To Simon, the little man’s entrance was like a sudden chill wind in the room. He looked smaller than ever for some reason, a malevolent dwarf in workingman’s clothes, his eyes red-rimmed and thirsty for blood. In his small hand the slender knife seemed the size of a Roman sword, but much more sinister. There was no guard to protect the hand of its wielder from an opponent’s blows: the bare double edges were for attack only, the point for sudden and silent piercing.

As Shortwave stepped into the room, Mahmud appeared reluctantly behind him, but hung back at the door as Shortwave gloated over his captives.

“Who wants to be first?” the little man asked, with a taunting lilt in his voice. “Volunteers step forward.” He chuckled. “Sorry, I forgot you can’t step forward. How about crawling... like a worm?”

“I guess that’s a thrill you don’t get very often,” Simon said.

But he said it quietly and steadily, without too much goading mockery that might trigger a sudden attack he could not hope to fend off. In fact, all the mockery that ordinarily danced like summer-light in his eyes had frozen into an ice-blue glint that brought the scrawny American up short when he saw it. The Saint’s eyes were so coldly contemptuous that it would have been difficult for an observer to believe that he was the one with his hands and feet tied, while the other man held the knife.

Shortwave came forward and grabbed Tammy by one upper arm, yanking her to her feet with a show of brute strength that he could only have made with such a slight victim, and wrenched her back into the chair. He circled around to confirm that the ropes were still on Simon’s wrists. Then, avoiding the Saint’s uncanny eyes, which followed every move he made, turned to Mahmud.

“You waitin’ to help?” he asked.

Mahmud showed distinct signs of being anything but ready to assist in surgery. He looked sick, and he moved his hands behind him to hide their agitated fluttering.

“I will mix the cement,” he said. “Fowler told me—”

“I know,” Shortwave said curtly. “So do it!”

Mahmud withdrew gratefully and a moment later opened and slammed the outer door. He had seemed in command when he and Shortwave had captured Simon and Tammy. Now it was as if some subtle transfer of power had wordlessly taken place from the leader who balked at anything more disagreeable than long-range killing and the subordinate who could enjoy the running of live blood.

Shortwave regarded his sacrificial lambs with satisfaction, and stepped towards Tammy. The girl involuntarily shrank back in her chair, twisting to one side in a futile attempt to get away from the point of the knife, which he took sadistic pleasure in bringing very slowly closer and closer to her face.

Simon’s eyes were on the heavily wrought golden metal of her ring. Her hands, crossed in front of her and tied at the wrists, looked white and rigid. If she was really lapsing into a freeze of terror it could easily be too late before she used the tear-gas cartridge, if she ever used it at all.

“Wait!” he shouted.

Shortwave kept the knife a few inches from Tammy’s face as he looked at the Saint.

“Anything wrong?” he asked. “Ladies first, right? We gotta be gentlemen, don’t we?”

“Maybe we could make a deal,” Simon said.

“You’re a real wheeler and dealer, ain’t you?” the little man said. “But not with me. You belted me one, remember? Seeing you squirm is the only deal I want.”

Out of the corners of his eyes Simon caught a slight movement of Tammy’s hands. His interruption had started the thaw in her terror that he had hoped it would. Her face was no longer a plaster mask of fear. She was looking past the freshly honed knife blade at Shortwave’s face. He was still not quite within range, but she raised her wrists slightly, calculating the angle of the ring, holding it steady until Shortwave should lean closer to her.

Then he flicked the knife point teasingly at her nose without quite touching her, and stepped back three paces.

Tammy closed her eyes; her hands drooped like wilted leaves. Simon himself felt as if the blood pounding along his veins had suddenly coagulated and grown lead-heavy.

“So,” said Shortwave, not seeing the significant disappointment that a more alert eye might have noted in his prisoners, “who’s in a hurry?”

He turned the knife and took its point in his right hand, dandled it for a moment as he sized up the distance between him and Tammy, then raised it handle-up for throwing. The Saint tensed his muscles for a desperate roll across the floor towards Shortwave’s legs that might at least make the knife miss its living target.

But Shortwave abruptly let the knife topple straight down from his fingers in a lazy somersault through the air and stick into the floor at his feet. Laughter whistled up through his uneven teeth. Tammy opened her eyes and glared at him with pure hatred.

“Why not let’s have a little fun first?” he said.

He stepped up to her again, emptyhanded — and cupped the empty hands on her breasts.

Tammy brought her own hands up, as if in the instinctive attempt to fend him off, but in a motion which at the same time brought them close to his face, directly under his nose. And in exactly that perfect moment and position, as if she had mastered it from a textbook, with a twist of a thumb and the clenching of a fist, she detonated the tear-gas cartridge straight into his face.

This time it worked. The sound of the discharge was negligible, but the effect was stupendous. As the gas puff blossomed into Shortwave’s eyes he gave a startled screech and staggered back, bent almost double, rubbing his distorted countenance furiously.

The Saint, in the instant of the miniature explosion, also went into action, rolling across the floor like a log down a mountainside. It was an unorthodox means of locomotion, but it was the only way to get to Shortwave before he started to recover. The little man was still blind and choking, hunched over with his head almost level with his waist, when Simon arrived beside him. The trip had taken only two or three seconds, and the Saint decided that he had time for a more devastating attack than the rotary crash into Shortwave’s shaky shins that he had first thought might be necessary. Without any pause, he stopped on his back, drew his knees almost to his chin — cocking his lithe body on to his shoulders — and unleashed a double-footed kick straight up into Shortwave’s face.

It was an instantaneous uncoiling of supremely conditioned muscle that drew power from the whole magnificent length of the Saint’s body, from shoulder blades to thighs, and concentrated its entire force in the heels of his shoes as they came into crunching contact with the forepart of Shortwave’s steel-plated head. The would-be Jack the Ripper was rocketed straight up; then, with neither conscious will nor strength of limb to guide or support him, he crashed down like a dropped doll beside the Saint in a totally limp condition which the Saint only regretted might not prove permanent. But there was no doubt that he would be out of the game for a long time.

“Good girl!” Simon said softly. “I take back all my rude remarks about your little toy.”

She was already out of her chair and on her knees by the knife Shortwave had teasingly let fall to the floor.

“You can send me a bouquet later,” she said. “Here, I’ll cut you loose.”

She pulled the blade out of the wood while Simon scooted around into a sitting position with his back towards her.

“I’m glad we’re good friends,” he said as he felt the sharp edge of Anna bite into the cords an inch or so from his pulse.

“To the end,” she muttered. “And this was almost it.”

“It still will be if Mahmud comes in here before you’ve got me loose,” he said. “But I don’t think he will. Listen.”

He turned his head slightly, and Tammy concentrated too, without letting up in her careful work behind him.

“He’s mixing our concrete comforters,” Simon said. “It’ll keep him occupied for a while.”

The ropes gave way. Shortwave was still motionless, bleeding quietly to himself. Simon turned quickly, took the knife from Tammy, and untied the ropes that held his ankles. Then he untied her hands, also without using the knife, and turned to search Shortwave for his gun.

At that moment the busy scraping outside stopped. Both the Saint and Tammy reacted as if the silence had been a sudden loud noise.

“Is he coming?” she breathed.

“I’ll see. You take what’s left of those ropes and tie up Shortwave. If you can find his gun, keep it handy — and use it if you have to!”

Simon was talking on the run. He kept Anna in his hand and hurried through the outer part of the boathouse and across to the side door.

The scraping of metal on wood started again. The Saint peeped cautiously out. The light from the cobwebbed window fell across Mahmud’s heaving back as he worked with a hoe to mix cement in a low wooden trough on the ground in front of him. Beside him were bags of sand and lime, and a garden hose was squirting water into the straggly grass near his feet.

The Saint glanced around, saw no better weapon than he was holding already, and decided to move on Mahmud immediately while his back was turned and he was preoccupied with his work. He pushed the door wider, with tentative fingers, praying that the hinges would not squeak: they didn’t.

About twenty feet away, Mahmud went on stirring the cement. Simon opened the door just enough to let himself through and slipped out. Mahmud could have noticed the variation in the light falling from behind him, but he did not.

Planting his feet very carefully, the Saint moved stealthily towards his prey: he still hadn’t located the Pakistani’s rifle, and had to reckon with the possibility that Mahmud might have put it down somewhere within easy reach.

When he was about ten feet away, Mahmud stopped pushing and pulling the hoe through the heavy mixture and straightened up to stretch his muscles. Simon froze. No stalking tiger could have attained a state of more absolute motionlessness. The only sounds for several seconds were Mahmud’s laboured breathing and the quiver and squeak of branches overhead in the night wind.

Then it looked as if Mahmud was going back to stirring. He prodded the mixture, and apparently disapproved of its consistency. Holding the hoe with one hand, he turned and stooped to pick up the garden hose.

At that point he caught a glimpse of the legs of the man behind him, and it was his turn to freeze.

“What’s for breakfast, chef?” the Saint asked genially. “Long pig in a blanket?”

Mahmud leapt up, almost falling back into the tank of cement he had made, and grabbed the hoe defensively in both hands. He was staring at the Saint with an incredulous horror that gripped even his vocal cords when he tried to shout for help.

“Shortwave!” he croaked. “He’s out here! Shortwave! quick!”

“Shortwave is more with the dead than the quick,” Simon informed him. “Which would you rather be?”

Mahmud had already noticed the knife balanced all too comfortably in Simon’s right hand, the direction of its point indicating that he, Mahmud, had been singled out for its undivided attention. He swept the hoe to one side and fanned it back and forth between himself and the Saint, not so much trying to attack as to keep Simon at bay.

“Shortwave?” he called shrilly, but no longer very hopefully.

“He won’t be answering,” the Saint assured him. “But if you’ll answer a few questions, I’ll consider not sinking your floating kidneys with this pig sticker. While you’re pondering, let me remind you that people who shoot up other people’s cars and try to kill them can’t expect very friendly treatment unless they’re willing to make amends.”

The Pakistani’s eyes telegraphed his next move, and before he could make a dash for the car parked around beside the house Simon took four sudden paces and cut off that path of escape.

“I’m warning you, Mahmud,” Simon said more harshly, “unless you want your appendix removed by a rank amateur, you’d better drop that hoe and start telling me all about Fowler.”

Mahmud cocked back the hoe and hurled it at the Saint. It came as no surprise, but even so Simon had to duck, dodge, and momentarily lose his balance in order to keep from getting hit. That gave Mahmud a chance to whirl and dive for something in the dark shadows where the garden hose joined the wall of the house. With a sinking heart Simon saw the long barrel of the rifle flash dully into the light as Mahmud jerked it to his shoulder. Simon’s heart sank more for Mahmud than for himself: he had felt the Pakistani had been forced into the role of assassin and deserved something less than what Simon would instantly have to do to him in order to preserve the sanctity of his own skin.

There was no tune for calculation. Few men on earth but the Saint could have thrown a knife with lethal accuracy in that light and in that split second of urgency. He scarcely had time even to move his arm. It was a throw from the wrist — the flick of a deadly dart with an almost imperceptible effortlessness at a dim slender target whose finger was even at the instant tightening on a trigger.

But the Saint’s aim was so sure and his reflexes so swift that Mahmud’s finger never even finished the short movement it would have had to complete in order to send a bullet smashing into Simon’s chest. Instead, the knife found its target with the precision of a guided missile.

Mahmud gasped. First the rifle clattered to the ground, and then he fell beside it. By the time Simon got to him, the last embers of life had faded from his open eyes.

3

As the Saint walked back towards the room where he had been held prisoner, Tammy Rowan poked her head out.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“For us it is,” he answered. “I had to kill Mahmud.”

He said it as he reached her. She looked at him questioningly and saw from the simple directness of his eyes that he was doing no more than stating a fact.

“Good,” she said firmly, and her knees uncooperatively gave way and she started to faint.

He caught her in his arms and held her until she got back her equilibrium. Holding her, for whatever reason, was an act that really merited a man’s absolute attention, but even so the Saint could not help noticing that she had trussed up Shortwave with so many windings of rope that he would have looked completely at home in the Egyptian sarcophagus section of the British Museum.

“Oh, Simon, it was so horrible while you were gone! I imagined all sorts of awful things.”

“Mahmud went for his rifle and I had to use my knife,” he explained casually. “How’s our friend here?”

“Oh, he’s awful! He looks like a dead rat.”

“Well, I suppose even that’s some improvement over what he looked like before. Just so long as he’s not really dead. He’s our only easy way to finding out how to catch up with Kalki the Creep and Fowler.” He moved Tammy a little away from him and had a physicianly look at her face. “Do you think you can navigate on your own power now?”

She looked at him uncertainly, with a warmth in her sea-green eyes that he had not seen beneath their businesslike intensity before.

“I’m not sure I want to,” she said.

But before he could react she pulled away and walked over to Shortwave’s prone form.

“I have a feeling he’s not going to be answering any questions for quite a while, don’t you?” she said.

“In that case we may as well settle down in this luxurious hideaway and pass the hours in cheerful dalliance and—”

She looked at nun with incipient panic in her expression.

“Please, just get me out of here as fast as possible,” she begged. “Otherwise I’ll come down with the screaming heebie-jeebies. I really will! And anyway, somebody might come back.”

“Not right away,” the Saint said. “And where could we take our limp little friend without being importuned with offers from every taxidermist in. the south of England? And just think of the scandal if he were found in your flat...”

“My flat?” she squealed.

“Yes. You could be up on fifty different charges: operating an illegal radio station, taking in lodgers without a licence, cruelty to animals—”

“Never mind the other forty-seven,” she interrupted. “Because nobody’s ever going to find him anywhere near where I live.”

“Well, I’m not interested in entertaining him either. So let’s see what the other accommodations are like in this riverside château.”

The upstairs was no startling contrast, but it was an improvement. It did not suggest that Fowler himself spent his leisure hours there, but rather that it served as an occasional billet for such minions as Mahmud, Kalki, or Shortwave, who might be left in charge of even more transient guests. The furnishings were sparse and old and depressing, overlaid with stained lace and yellowed antimacassars; however, one of the two bedrooms seemed to have been unused since its linen was last changed, and there was a reasonably clean bathroom.

“We might do worse than stay here,” Simon said. “For a while, anyway. Driving around in the middle of the night, we could always be unlucky enough to get stopped by a police patrol looking for somebody to try their breathalyser on, and then Shortwave might be an embarrassment.”

“But what if the others come back?” she asked.

“They weren’t planning to, apparently, but if they do, so much the better. The last thing they’ll be expecting to find is me with a rifle and Mahmud up to his scalp in instant quicksand.”

“Delightful.”

Simon countered her shudder with a cool shrug.

“You may find the idea easier to swallow if you’ll recall that you and I would have been hamburger or roasted pigeon if your car had cracked up the way he wanted it to. Now why don’t you curl up and rest a bit while I take care of Mahmud and stand the first watch. You can keep Short-wave’s popgun for a comforter. When I’m finished outside I’ll see that you’re okay and then guard our little nest with my trusty blunderbuss. I hope Fowler or Kalki does come back. They’d save us a lot of chasing around.”

Tammy brushed her blond hair wearily away from her face.

“I’m exhausted, but I’ll never sleep here,” she complained. “On the other hand, how can you be sure you’ll stay awake all night?”

“My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure,” Simon explained. “And the blood of Lancelot and Siegfried surges in my iron veins, reinforced by charms and talismans which make me impervious to all human weakness...” His eyes held hers for a moment. “Or almost all.”

He went back downstairs, again checked the trussing of Shortwave, who still showed no signs of returning animation, and took off his coat and draped it over the back of a chair. Then he went outside and turned to the necessary job that was waiting for him.

When he had finished almost an hour had passed, and his shoulders ached a little from the unaccustomed effort of stirring wet cement and shovelling it into the two big metal drums. One of the drums took more cement, because Mahmud’s body helped to fill up the other. In the second container the Saint put a partial stuffing of leafy twigs cut from nearby bushes, so as to make the weight of the two drums not too greatly different.

He left the two steel barrels brimming with concrete near the side door, where anybody arriving would see them right away and — assuming the arriver was in on the plot — think that Shortwave and Mahmud had done their jobs according to plan. He mentally ran over the current situation: Kalki and Fowler on their way to parts unknown, Fowler planning a “pick-up” at the end of the day which would presently be dawning, which undoubtedly meant the joyous arrival on England’s shores of another misguided batch of reverse-order colonists. Meanwhile, a pair of minor pests had been taken out of circulation, one of them permanently, but the major miscreants still had their bill to pay — to which, Simon reflected, could fairly be added the write-off of Tammy Rowan’s car.

He pondered his next move as he watched the branches of the big trees behind the boathouse quiver and flail in the wind against the barely perceptible luminescent background of the sky. Once more in his miracle-punctuated life he was standing with the good earth beneath his feet and sniffing the good air when by all acceptable guesses he ought to have shuffled off this mortal coil and — as the mystically minded might say — begun operations in another sphere. He savoured the sensation with the quiet gratitude of a man who has come to accept marvels as a part of his everyday experience without ever losing his respectful appreciation of them.

But while one such escape would have been more than enough in the life of most men, Simon Templar was already thinking of courses of action that would more than likely bring him face to face with death again within twenty-four hours. He could not afford to waste time. Men like Fowler, who apparently took care of the nautical end of the immigration game, were not likely to continue their normal routine once persistent investigators started showing up in upsetting numbers. If the Saint was not able to trace Fowler and Kalki before this same time tomorrow, a lot more sunrises might follow before he was able to pick up their trail again.

Shortwave knew where Fowler would be during the crucial day that was now on its way towards dawning, so it was to Shortwave’s health and immediate future that Simon turned his consideration.

He picked up Mahmud’s Winchester, which he had already emptied, tested, and reloaded for use in case he had been interrupted during his work, and went back into the boathouse.

The scrawny killer lay as still as ever in his windings of secondhand rope. The Saint began to fear that his two-legged kick might have had fatal consequences, which would undoubtedly have brought satisfaction to the grim gods of justice, but not to anybody wanting to dredge Shortwave’s transistor brain for information.

A brief medical examination told Simon that the worst his charge could be suffering was concussion, accompanied by minor modifications of the facial profile which could be nothing but an improvement. But he had no way to tell how much longer the coma might last, so Simon gagged him with his own handkerchief and necktie and went to look for Tammy.

He found her in the upstairs living room, asleep in one of those bulbous overstuffed short-haired chairs that looks as if it had been grown in a cellar along with mushrooms. Her position hinted at exhausted collapse in spite of her assertion that sleep would be impossible.

Simon tried not to disturb her while he moved quietly about the place, checking the drawers of a cabinet and a writing table for any useful information. He found nothing more enlightening than a spider or two and a few ancient and much-thumbed girlie magazines. The rest of the apartment was no more rewarding. The kitchen shelves were stocked with only a can of beans and a can of sardines, and the antique refrigerator offered nothing more nourishing than a bottle of beer. If the flat served as a meeting place for Fowler and associates, it apparently was not regularly inhabited.

Only mildly disappointed and not much surprised by his lack of success, the Saint turned out all the lights and sat down by the window, and watched till the sky began to pale, while Tammy breathed heavily near by. He had made up his mind to rest and relax without dozing off, and his reserves of fitness and strength and mental energy were so great that when he stood up again he was able to confront the day with as much alertness and enthusiasm as he could have garnered from six hours’ sleep.

After a visit to the bathroom, he came back and spoke gently to Tammy.

“Time to get up.”

She groaned and tried to burrow farther down into the cushions. He jigged her shoulder.

“You’ve just been made editor of the Evening Record, and Kalki has offered to divorce Fowler and marry you.”

Her eyes opened slightly and she suddenly jerked upright.

“Oh! What’s happening? I fell asleep!”

“Rose-fingered dawn is about to glide through the fields and glens,” Simon said, “and we want to beat the morning traffic rush into London.”

He took her hand and helped her to her feet. Her cheek was creased lightly from contact with the chair, her hair was in platinum tangles, and her eyes were puffy from sleep. As she stood up she saw her face in a mottled mirror over the fireplace.

“Oh, I look awful!”

“Only the least bit ghastly,” he concurred encouragingly. “Go and see what you can do to repair the damage while I see if Shortwave is still snoring.”

Still holding one hand to her face, she wobbled to the door and glanced back.

“I didn’t mean to go to sleep,” she said. “Did anything happen?”

“Nothing you don’t know about already.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“We’ll talk about that on the road, shall we? I’d just as soon not stick around this house any longer than we have to now that it’s light.”

“Amen!” she said, and hurried out.

The Saint went downstairs to where he had left Shortwave tied and gagged. Because of the small filthy window panes, that room was still almost as dark as night. Simon skirted the human bundle on the floor, and threw open the side door, letting in some of the dim morning light. When he turned, he saw that Shortwave was no longer comatose but wide awake, staring up with glistening eyes, wriggling in his bonds like a netted fish.

“Good morning, Sunshine!” the Saint said to him cheerily. “I hope you had lovely nightmares.”

Shortwave could not say anything because of the handkerchief in his mouth, but he made incoherent and clearly unhappy sounds.

Simon gazed down at him benevolently. Using only one hand, he moved the rifle he carried from the casual angle at which he had allowed it to hang and placed its cold muzzle against Shortwave’s forehead directly between the eyes.

“Take a long look, chum,” he said, with the most ghoulish intonation he could command with a straight face. “Because when I start asking you to recite your lessons, and if you forget anything important, the zero I give for flunking is going to drill straight through your tinplated head...”

4

“But what are we going to do with him?” Tammy asked. “We might have been able to sneak him into one of our flats at night, but now we’d never get away with it.”

She referred to Shortwave, who was now neatly tucked away in the trunk of the late Mahmud’s car. Simon, at the wheel, had left the boathouse behind and was feeling his way from one crossroads to the next on his way to the main London highway.

“It’s just as well we can’t sneak him into one of our flats,” he said. “He’s not the kind of house guest I’d enjoy anyway.”

“What can we do with him, then?”

She had been tensing visibly whenever some workbound driver came into view in his dew-covered automobile, as if each car might harbour a whole troop of detectives specifically charged with rooting Shortwave out from under a blanket in the boot of a late-model Ford.

“We can do the same sort of things to him that he was going to do to us,” the Saint said nonchalantly. “Or at any rate we can threaten to. Until we get what we want out of him.”

“I’m starting to wish I’d stuck to plain reporting,” Tammy said. “Let’s just give ourselves and him up to the police.”

“Why should we give ourselves up to anybody?” the Saint asked. “We haven’t done anything wicked yet.”

Tammy looked at his innocent profile with surprise in her wide eyes, like one child witnessing another in some undreamed-of audacity. In the few minutes it had taken them to prepare to leave the boathouse the ravages of the strenuous night had disappeared from her face, leaving her as fresh as the approaching dawn.

“But back there,” she began, “you...”

Simon raised one finger to his lips.

“See no evil, speak no evil,” he said. “I have an excellent memory, and all I can remember about that place is that we were kidnapped and left there tied up, possibly to be murdered later, but we managed to untie ourselves and escape, because they were too silly to leave anyone to guard us. Isn’t that approximately what you remember?”

She sat back and shook her head. There was the suspicion of a smile on her lightly reddened lips.

“Approximately,” she murmured.

The Saint glanced at her with deep aesthetic appreciation.

“So,” he said, “we don’t have anything to give ourselves up for, do we? Our object, in fact, is to keep ourselves free and mobile so that we can track down Kalki the Corn-ball and his nautical buddy, and get your exclusive story. We aren’t going to the police yet because that would put all the other newspapers on the trail.”

“Lovely,” she said. “Except we don’t have the faintest idea where they are.”

“We will,” Simon replied, “as soon as we’ve had a heart-to-heart chat with our little friend in the trunk. We already know Fowler is making some kind of pick-up tonight, and I don’t think he means in Shepherd Market.”

Tammy gave a despairing sigh.

“Then we should have waited somewhere where we could watch the boathouse. You already guessed that he was planning to bring his immigrants there.”

“ ‘Planning’ is the operative word. From the look of the place, it’s still being prepared for that. Fowler mightn’t be planning to inaugurate it today. You could see, it’s still being worked on. And after last night, he might even feel more like postponing the grand opening. So we can’t afford to take the chance. Since it’s a fair bet that he’ll still use another old-established landing place tonight, I’d rather try to catch him even farther up the line. And that’s where fate allows Shortwave his moment of glory. Against a Wagnerian background transmitted direct to him from Radio Three, he will sing for us at the top of his miserable little lungs, in the course of which concert we shall learn just exactly where Commander Fowler is running his moonlight cruise this evening.”

They had finally come to a highway which a signpost identified as the A40, and Simon swung the car eastwards towards London. The misty pearl-grey of the sky was still barely tinged with pink, and the roads were almost deserted in the hush between the tardiest stragglers and the front-runners of the matutinal deluge.

“So,” he continued, “we’ll take Shortwave to a cosy spot where he can warm up for his command performance, and then I’ll be on my way to foul up Captain Fowler.”

We’ll be on our way,” she corrected. “Don’t forget our bargain.”

“Sorry,” he said. “My memory is perfect but a bit selective.”

“So I gathered,” she said. “You’ve almost forgotten to tell me where this cosy spot is where we’re taking Shortwave.”

“The Golden Crescent,” Simon answered.

She stared at him.

“That restaurant? Why there?”

“Because neither of us wants him home, so that was the best place I could think of to park him. Do you know the owner?”

“I’ve seen him when I was poking around looking for leads on my story, that’s all.”

The Saint accelerated around a lumbering truck which was already making a heroic start on polluting the atmosphere of the new-borning day with the abominable fumes of the unlamentable Herr Rudolf Diesel’s contribution to the horrors of the internal combustion engine.

“Well,” he continued, “Mr. Haroon’s role in this immigrant game isn’t completely clear to me, and I’d like to get it straight. Obviously Fowler and his friends have felt chumsy enough with Haroon to make his restaurant a meeting place—”

“But Kalki said Haroon wasn’t part of the gang,” Tammy interrupted.

“Right. Which I could believe. On the other hand, they must have him pretty well under their thumbs, or they couldn’t risk working as close to him as they have.”

On the almost deserted roads, their speed was limited by practically nothing but his discretion, and in what seemed no time at all they were running into Kensington.

“They’ve probably just got him scared to death the way they have everybody else,” Tammy said.

“Probably,” Simon agreed. “I wouldn’t guess that our fat friendly restaurateur is the bravest or strongest man in the world. He’s got an imbalance of blubber over moral fibre. If we need him on the side of the angels, we’ll just have to scare him worse than the bad guys did. But we can’t afford to have an uncertain factor rattling around in the works at this stage, and Mr. Haroon is certainly an uncertain factor, so we’ll drop in for breakfast with Shortwave and see what we can do about battening them both down.”

“He won’t be open this early.”

“We could hardly do this during business hours — that’s why we had to wait out most of the night at that boathouse. But he lives right above the restaurant,” Simon told her. “He’ll probably still be in bed counting cheap sheep jumping into his saucepans.”

When they arrived at the alley behind the Golden Crescent, it was just after six o’clock. The city was barely coming to life, outside of the meat and produce market districts; and in this area dominated by restaurants and theatres, their doors all closed, there was still more an atmosphere of sleeping off the night before than of getting ready for a new day’s business. The few pedestrians seemed on their way to somewhere else, and in the alley there was no sign of life at all.

Simon pulled up at the back door of Haroon’s establishment and switched off the car’s engine.

“Have you ever been to his flat?” Tammy asked.

“No, but he once showed me a separate door around on the street in front. You wait here while I go rouse him and have him open this entrance.”

“You’re not supposed to go anywhere without me,” she said.

The Saint looked momentarily tired.

“I seem to remember that you said that before. Surely we can be parted for three or four minutes without your hurling yourself off Lovers’ Leap.”

“Do you promise you won’t try to give me the slip?” she asked earnestly.

“I do so swear,” he said. “I won’t be gone any longer than it takes to pump up Abdul for the day and roll him down the stairs. All right?”

“All right,” she said. “But I still don’t see why I have to stay here.” She looked over behind her seat. “He certainly can’t get away.”

“That’s what he would have said about us at one point last night,” the Saint reminded her. “But let’s also hope that he hasn’t suffocated by this time. If he has, it might solve Abdul’s meat problem, but it won’t help us.”

He avoided any more discussion by getting quickly out of the car and walking down to the alley’s mouth and around to the front of the restaurant. Next to it was an open doorway exposing worn wooden stairs which led to rooms above the street level. The staircase was dark and smelled sour, like old beer. At the top, to the left and right, Simon found a choice of two doors. The one on the right bore a thumbtacked card signed “Evans” and the one to the left was unmarked.

The Saint knocked on the left-hand door. Presently there was a scuffling sound from within, and then silence. Simon rapped on the door again. More silence.

“Abdul,” he called softly. “This is Simon Templar.”

Reluctant footsteps approached the door.

“Mr. Templar?” Haroon’s voice asked. “It is you, is it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“What do you want?”

“Are you always this friendly with big-spending customers?” the Saint enquired. “Among other things, I want to help your business.”

A key rattled in the lock and the door opened a fraction.

Then it opened fully and revealed Abdul Haroon in leather slippers, dark trousers, and clean open-collared white shirt. He looked freshly scrubbed and shaven, like a Grade A apple.

“I don’t want any trouble with anybody,” he said hastily, holding one plump hand out as if he might try to fend off the Saint if he tried to cross the threshold.

“You won’t have any if you’re a good fellow and help me,” Simon told him pleasantly. “As I understand the situation, you’ve had a little trouble making up your mind just whose side you’re on in this business of Kalki’s and Fowler’s, and it’s about time—”

Haroon’s shiny round face suddenly stretched into a great tremulous pudding of dismay.

“What are you talking about?” he gasped. “I don’t know anything about it!”

He started to close the door, but before he could do it the Saint pushed into the room.

“Then you’d better listen,” he said. “I know all about Kalki and Fowler and Shortwave now — and also about Mahmud’s fake broken arm. Incidentally, this wasn’t Mahmud’s lucky day. You’ll have to start looking for a new waiter.”

Haroon was shaking his head violently, as if to convince the world and the gods that he was not really there and not really hearing anything at all. He closed the door at the mention of Mahmud’s name, though, to shut himself and the Saint off from any prying ears outside the flat.

“Mahmud?” he mumbled. “What happened to him?”

“He’s booked for a long sea voyage,” said Simon. “But more to the point is your future, which is not going to be terribly rosy if you can’t explain to me and the police why you’ve been letting Kalki and Fowler use your beanery as a clubhouse.”

Haroon wrung his bejewelled hands, creating the clear impression that at any moment he might fall to his knees and dissolve in tears.

“I didn’t do anything!” he protested frantically. “They made me. They would have killed me if I’d told anybody or tried to stop them!”

“I’m inclined to believe you,” Simon admitted. “So do you propose to repent now and help me nail those creeps or shall we take a ride to Scotland Yard?”

Haroon looked less actively distraught and more despairing.

“You work for the police?” he asked.

“No, but I don’t mind giving them a helping hand when it suits me. Which way would you like it?”

Haroon’s hands dropped limply to his widely separated sides like a pair of discarded rubber toys.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked weakly.

Simon smiled and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder — a touch which became a firm grip as he steered Haroon out of the door and on to the stairs.

“I don’t want you to do anything that you’re not already good at. I have a very thin friend downstairs and I want you to help fatten him up. After that you can start preparing a feast to celebrate our final victory over Kalki the Conquered and Fowler the Foundered.”

Загрузка...