The Saint Meets the Tiger

Chapter III A LITTLE MELODRAMA

Carn sprang to his feet, his hand flying to his hip, and the Saint laughed softly.

"He's gone," Templar said. "He ducked as soon as I spoke. But maybe now you realize how hard it is not to be killed when someone's really out for your blood. It looks so easy in stories, but I'm finding it a bit of a strain."

The Saint was talking in his usual mild, leisurely way, but there was nothing leisurely about his movements. He had turned out the lamp at the same instant as Carn had jumped up, and his words came from the direction of the embrasure.

"Can't see anything. This bunch are as windy as mice trying to nibble a cat's whiskers. I'll take a look outside. Stay right where you are, sonny."

Carn heard the Saint slither out, and there were words in the kitchen. A few seconds later Orace came in, bearing a lighted candle and Clasping his beloved blunderbuss in his free hand. Orace did not speak. He set the candle down in a corner, so that the light did not interfere with his view of the embrasure, and waited patiently with the enormous revolver cocked and at the ready.

"You have an exciting life," remarked Carn, and Orace turned an unfriendly eye — and the revolver — upon the Doctor.

'"Um," said Orace noncommittally.

The Saint was back in ten minutes by the clock.

"Bad huntin'," he murmured. "It's as black as coffee outside, and he must have hared for home as soon as I scared him.... Beer, Orace."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the silent one,and faded out as grimly as he had entered.

Carn gazed thoughtfully after the retreating figure with its preposterous armoury and its preposterous strut.

"Any more in the menagerie?" he inquired.

"Nope," said the Saint laconically.

He was relighting the lamp, and the flare of the match threw his face into high relief for an instant. Carn became more thoughtful. His life had been devoted to dealing with men of all sorts and conditions. He had known many clever men, not a few dangerous men, and a number of mysterious men, but at that moment he wondered if he had ever met a man who looked more cleverly and dangerously and mysteriously competent to deal with any kind of trouble that happened to be floating around.

"I'd rather have you on my side than against me, Saint," said Carn. "You'd get a rake-off. Think it over.'

Hands on hips, the Saint regarded the red-faced man quizzically.

"Can I take that as official?"

"Naturally not. But you can take it from me that it can be arranged on the side."

"Thanks," said the Saint. "I don't feel impressed with your balance sheet. Taken by and large, the dividend don't seem fat enough to tempt this investor. Now try this one: come in with me, and I'll promise you one third. Think it over, Detective Inspector Carn."

"Dr.Carn."

The Saint smiled.

"Need we keep it up?" he asked smoothly. "What on earth, dear lamb, did you think you were getting away with?"

Carn wrinkled his nose.

"Just as you like," he agreed. "You have the advantage of me, though. I'm hanged if I can place , you."

"That's the best news I've heard for some time,"

said the Saint cheerfully.

Carn rose to go after a couple of pints of beer

had vanished, and Templar rose also.

"Better let me see you home," said the Saint. “I’ll feel safer."

"If you think I need nursing," began Carn with some heat, but Simon linked his arm in that of the detective with his most charming smile.

"Not a bit. I'd enjoy the stroll."

Carn was living in a miniature house the grounds of which backed on the larger grounds of the Manor. Templar had already noticed the house, and wondered to whom it belonged; and for some unaccountable reason, which he could only blame on his melodramatic imagination, he felt relieved at the news that Patricia had a real live detective within call.

On the walk, the Saint learned that Carn had been on the spot for three months. Carn was prepared to be loquacious up to a point: but beyond that limit he could not be lured. Carn was also prepared to talk about the Saint — a fact which pleased Simon's egotism without hypnotizing his caution.

"I think it should be an interesting duel," Carn said.

"I hope so," agreed Templar politely?

"The more so because you are the second most confident crook I've ever met.'

The Saint's white teeth flashed.

"You're premature," he protested. "My crime is not yet committed. Already an idea is sizzling in my brain which might easily save me the trouble of running against the law at all. I'll write my solicitor to-morrow and let you know."

He declined Carn's invitation to come in for a doch-an-dorris, and, saying good-bye at the door, set off briskly in the general direction of the Pill Box.

This expedition, however, lasted only for so long as he judged that Carn, if he were curious, would have been able to hear the departing footsteps. At that point the Saint stepped neatly off the road on to the grass at the side and retraced his steps, moving like a lean gray shadow. A short distance away he could see the gaunt lines of Sir John Bittle's home, and it had occurred to him that his investigations might very well include that wealthy upstart. It was just after ten o'clock, but the thought that the household would still be awake never gave the Saint a moment's pause: his was a superbly reckless bravado.

The house was surrounded by a high stone wall that increased its sinister and secretive air, making it look like a converted prison. The Saint worked round the wall with the noiseless surefootedness of a Red Indian. He found only two openings. There was a back entrance which looked more like a mediaeval postern gate, and which could not have been penetrated without certain essential tools that were not included in Templar's travelling equipment. At the front there was a large double door a few yards back from the road, but this also was set into the wall, which would have formed a kind of archway at that spot if the doors had been opened.

It was left for the Saint to scale the wall itself. Fortunately he was tall, and he found that by standing on tiptoe and straining upward he was able to hook his fingers over the top. Satisfied, he took off his coat and held it with the tab between his teeth; then, reaching up, he got a grip and hauled himself to the full contraction of his muscles. Holding on with one hand, he flung his coat over the broken glass set into the top of the wall, and so scrambled over, dropping to the ground on the other side like a cat.

The Saint moved swiftly along the wall to the back entrance which he had observed, conducted a light-fingered search for burglar alarms, and found one which he disconnected. Then he unbarred the door and left it slightly ajar in readiness for his retreat.

That done, he went down on his knees and crawled toward the house. If the light had been strong enough to make him visible, his method of progress would have seemed to border on the antics of a lunatic, for he wriggled forward six inches at a time, his hands waving and weaving about gently in front of him. In this way he evaded two fine alarm wires, one stretched a few inches off the ground and the other at the level of his shoulder. He rose under the wall of the house, chuckling in" audibly, but he was taking no chances.

"Now let's take a look at the warrior who looks after himself so carefully," said the Saint, but he said it to himself.

The side of the house on which he found himself was in darkness, and after a second's thought he worked rapidly round to the south. As soon as he rounded the angle of the building he saw two patches of light on the grass, and crept along till he reached the French windows from which they were thrown. The curtains were half drawn, but he was able to peer through a gap between the hangings and the frames.

He was looking into the library — a large, lofty, oak-panelled room, luxuriously furnished. It was quite evident that Sir John Bittle's parsimony did not interfere with his indulgence of his personal tastes. The carpet was a rich Turk with fully a four-inch pile; the chairs were huge and inviting, upholstered in brown leather; a costly bronze stood in one corner, and the walls were lined with bookshelves.

These things the Saint noticed in one glance, before anything human caught his eye. A moment later he saw the man who could only have been Bittle himself. The late wholesale grocer was stout: the Saint could only guess at height, since Bittle was hunched up in one of the enormous chairs, but the millionaire's pink neck overflowed his collar in all directions. Sir John Bittle was in dinner dress, and he was smoking a cigar.

"Charming sketch of home life of Captain of Canning Industry," murmured the Saint, again to his secret soul. "Unconventional portraits of the Great. Picture on Back Page."

The Saint had thought Bittle was atone, but just as he was about to move along he heard the millionaire's fat voice remark:

"And that, my dear young lady, is the position.

The Saint stood like a man turned to granite.

Presently a familiar voice answered, "I can't believe it."

The Saint edged away from the wall so that he could see into the room through the space between the half-drawn curtains. Patricia was in the chair opposite Bittle, tight-lipped, her handkerchief twisted to a rag between her fingers.

Bittle laughed — a throaty chuckle that did not disturb the comfortable impassiveness of his florid features. Templar also chuckled. If that chuckle could have been heard, it would have been found to have an unpleasant timbre.

"Even documents — bonds — receipts — won't convince you, I suppose?" asked the millionaire. He pulled a sheaf of papers from the pocket of his dinner jacket and tossed them into the girl's lap. "I’ve been very patient, but I'm getting tired of this hanky-panky. I suppose just seeing you made me silly and Sentimental — but I'm not such a sentimental fool that I'm going to take another mortgage on an estate that isn’t worth one half of what I've lent your aunt already."

"It'll break her heart," said Patricia, white-faced.

"The alternative is breaking my bank."

The girl started up, clutching the papers tensely,

"You couldn't be such a swine!" she said hotly. "What's a few thousand to you?"

"This," said Bittle calmly: "it gives me the power to make terms."

Patricia was frozen as she stood. There was a silence that ticked out a dozen sinister things in as many seconds. Then she said, in a strained^ unnaturally low voice, "What terms?"

Sir John Bittle moved one fat hand in a faint gesture of deprecation.

"Please don't let's be more melodramatic than we can help," he said. "Already I feel very self-conscious and conventional.; But the fact is I should like to marry you."

For an instant the girl was motionless. Then the last drop of blood fled from her cheeks. She held the papers in her two hands, high above her head.

"Here's my answer, you cad!"

She tore the documents across and across and flung the pieces from her, and then stood facing the millionaire with her face as pale as death and her eyes flaming.

"Good for you, kid'" commended the Saint inaudibly.

Bittle, however, was unperturbed, and once again that throaty chuckle gurgled in his larynx without kindling any corresponding geniality in his features,

"Copies,"he said simply, and at that point the Saint thought that the conversational tension would be conveniently relieved with a little affable comment from a third party.

"You little fool!" said Bittle acidly. "Did you think I worked my way up from mud to millions without some sort of brain? And d'you imagine that a man who's beaten the sharpest wits in London at their own game is going to be baulked by a chit of a country child? Tchah!" The millionaire's lips twisted wryly. "Now you've made me lose my temper and get melodramatic, just when I asked you not to. Don't let's have any more nonsense, please. I've put it quite plainly: either you marry me or I sue your aunt for what she owes me. Choose whichever you prefer, but don't let's have .any hysterics."

"No, don't let's," agreed the Saint, standing just inside the room.

Neither had noticed his entrance, which had been a very slick specimen of its kind. He had slipped in through one of the open French windows, behind a curtain, and he stepped out of cover as he spoke, so that the effect was as startling as if he had materialized out of the air.

Patricia recognized him with a gasp. Bittle jumped up with an exclamation. His fat face, which had paled at first, became a deeper red. The Saint stood with his hands in his pockets and a gentle smile on his open face Bittle's voice broke out in a harsh snarl, "Sir — ”

"To you," assented the Saint smoothly. "Evening. Evening, Pat. Hope I don't intrude."

And he gazed in an artlessly friendly way from face to face, as cool and self-possessed and saintly looking a six-foot-two of toughness as ever breezed into a peaceful Devonshire village. Patricia moved nearer to him instinctively, and Simon's smile widened amiably as he offered her his hand. Bittle was struggling to master himself: he succeeded after an effort.

"I was not aware, Mr. Templar, that I had invited you to entertain us this evening," he said thickly.

"Nor was I," said the Saint ingenuously. "Isn't that odd?"

Bittle choked. He was furious, and he was apprehensive of how long Templar might have been listening to the duologue; but there was another and less definite fear squirming into his consciousness. The Saint was tall, and although he was not at all massive there was a certain solid poise to his body that vouched for an excellent physique in fighting trim. And there was a mocking hell-for-leather light twinkling in the Saint's level blue eyes, and something rather ugly about his very mildness, that tickled a cold shiver out of Bittle's spine.

"Shall we say, as men of the world, Mr. Templar — it's hardly necessary to beat about the bush — that your arrival was a little inopportune?" said Bittle.

The Saint wrinkled his brow.

"Shall we?" he asked vaguely, as though the question was a very difficult riddle. "I give it up."

Bittle shrugged and went over to a side table on which stood decanter, siphon, and glasses.

"Whisky, Mr. Templar?"

"Thanks," said the Saint, "I'll have one when I get home. I'm very particular about the people I drink with. Once I had a friend who was terribly careless that way, and one day they fished him out of the canal in Soerabaja. I should hate Utbe fished out of anywhere."

“To show there's no ill-feeling…”

"If I drank your whisky, son," said the Saint, "I'm so afraid there might be all the ill-feeling we could deal with."

Bittle came back to the table and crushed the stump of his cigar into an ash tray. He looked at the Saint, and something about the Saint's quietness sent that draughty shiver prickling again up Bittle's vertebrae. The Saint was still exactly where he had stood when he emerged from behind the curtain; the Saint did not seem at all embarrassed; and the Saint seemed to have all the time in the world to kill. The Saint, in short, looked as though he was waiting for something and in no particular hurry about it, and Bittle was beginning to get worried.

"Hardly conduct befitting a gentleman, shall we say, Mr. Templar?" Bittle temporized.

"No," said the Saint fervently. "Thank the Lord I'm not a gentleman. Gentlemen are such snobs. All the gentlemen around here, for instance, refuse to know you — at least, that's what I'm told — but I don't mind it in the least. I hope we shall get on excellently together, and that this meeting will be but the prelude to a long and enjoyable acquaintance, to mutual satisfaction and profit. Yours faithfully."

"You leave me very little choice, Mr. Templar," said Bittle, and touched the bell.

The Saint remained where he was, still smiling, until there was a knock on the door and a butler who looked like a retired prize fighter came in.

"Show Mr. Templar the door," said Bittle.

"But how hospitable!" exclaimed the Saint, and then, to the surprise of everyone, he walked coolly across the room and followed the butler into the passage.

The millionaire stood by the table, almost gaping with astonishment at the ease with which he had broken down such an apparently impregnable defence.

"I know these bluffers," he remarked with ill-concealed relief,

His satisfaction was of very short duration, for the end of his little speech coincided with the sounds of a slight scuffle outside and the slamming of a door. While Bittle stared, the Saint walked in again through the window, and his cheery "Well, well, well brought the millionaire's head round with a jerk as the door burst open and the butler returned.

"Nice door," murmured the Saint.

He was breathing a little faster, but not a hair of his sleek head was out of place. The pugilistic butler, on the other hand, was not a little dishevelled, and appeared to have just finished banging his nose on to something hard. The butler had a trickle of blood running down from his nostrils to his mouth, and the look in his eyes was not one of peace on earth or goodwill toward men.

"Home again," drawled the Saint. "This is a peach of a round game, what? — as dear Algy would say. Now can I see the offices? House agents always end up their advertisements by saying that their desirable property is equipped with the usual offices, but I've never seen one of the same yet."

"Let me attim," uttered the butler, shifting round the table.

The Saint smiled, his hands in his pockets.

"You try to drop-kick me down the front steps, and you get welted on the boko," said Simon speculatively, adapting style to audience. "Now you want to whang into my prow — and I wonder where you get blipped this time?"

Bittle stepped between the two men, and in one comprehensive glance summed up their prospects in a rough-house. Then he looked at the butler and motioned toward the door.

The ex-pug went out reluctantly, muttering profane and offensive things, and the millionaire faced round again.

"Suppose you explain yourself?"

"Just suppose!" agreed Templar enthusiasticalty. Bittle glowered.

"Well, Mr. Templar?"

"Quite, thanks. How's yourself?"

"Need you waste time playing the fool?" demanded Bittle shortly.

"Now I come to think of it — no," answered the Saint amiably. "But granny always said I was a terrible tease... Well, sonny, taken all round I don't think your hospitality comes up to standard; and that being so I'll see Miss Holm back to the old roof tree. S'long.''

And he took Patricia’s arm and led her towards the French window, while Bittle stood watching them in silence, completely nonplussed. It was just as he seemed about to pass out of the house without further parley that the Saint stopped and turned, as though struck by a minor afterthought.

"By the way, Bittle," he said, "I was forgetting — you were going to pass over a few documents, weren't you?"

Bittle did not answer, and the Saint added:

"All about your side line in usury. Hand over the stuff and I'll write you a check now for the full amount."

"I refuse," snapped the millionaire.

"Please yourself," said the Saint. "My knowledge of Law is pretty scrappy, but I don't think you can do that without cancelling the debt. Anyway, I'll tell my solicitor to send you a check, and we'll see what happens."

The Saint turned away again, and in so doing almost collided with Patricia, who had preceded him into the garden. The girl was caught in his arms for a moment to save a fall, and the Saint was surprised to see that she was gasping with suppressed terror. A moment later the reason was given him by a ferocious baying of great hounds in the darkness.

In one swift movement Simon had the girl inside the room, and had slammed the French windows shut. Then he stood with his back to the wall, half covering Patricia in the shelter of his wide shoulders, his hands on his hips, and a very saintly meekness overspreading his face.

“’Um — as Orace would say in the circumstances," murmured the Saint. "Bigger than Barnums. Do you mind playing the Clown while I open the Unique Mexican Knifethrowing Act?"

And Bittle, with a tiny automatic in his hand, was treated to a warning glimpse of the fine steel blade that lay along Simon Templar's palm.