Enter the Saint, page 15
part #3 of Simon Templar (Short Stories) Series
He came closer. “You wouldn’t try to double-cross John Hilloran, would you?”
“You know I wouldn’t!”
“I want you!” he burst out incoherently. “I’ve wanted you for years. You’ve always put me off. When I found you were getting on too well with that twister Tremayne, I went mad. But he’s not taking you in any more, is he?”
“No-“
“And there’s no one else?”
“How could there be?”
“You little beauty!”
“Afterwards, Hilloran. I’m so tired. I want to rest. Go away now-“
He sprang at her and caught her in his arms, and his mouth found her lips. For a moment she stood passively in his embrace. Then she pushed him back, and dragged herself away. “I’ll go now,” he said unsteadily.
She stood like a statue, with her eyes riveted on the closing door, till the click of the latch snapping home seemed to snap also the taut cord that held her rigid and erect. Then she sank limply back into her chair. For a second she sat still. Then she fell forward across the table, and buried her face in her arms.
Chapter VIII “VE VERE suppose’,” said the Countess Anusia Marova, “to come to Monaco at nine o’clock. But ve are delay’, and ze captayne tell me ve do nod zere arrive teel ten o’clock. So ve do nod af to urry past dinair to see ourselves come in ze port.”
Dicky Tremayne heard the soft accents across the saloon, above the bull-voice drawl of Mr. George Y. Ulrig, who was holding him down with a discourse on the future of the Japanese colony in California. Dicky was rather less interested in this than he would have been in a discourse on the future of the Walloon colony in Cincinnati. A scrap of paper crumpled in the pocket of his dinner-jacket seemed to be burning his side.
The paper had come under his cabin door while he dressed. He had been at the mirror, fidgeting with his tie, and he had seen the scrap sliding on to the carpet. He had watched it, half-hypnotized, and it had been some time before he moved to pick it up. When he had read it, and jerked open the door, the alleyway outside was deserted. Only, at the end, he had seen Hilloran, in his uniform, pass across by the alley athwarthships without looking to right or left. The paper had carried one line of writing, in block letters: DON’T DRINK YOUR COFFEE.
Nothing else. No signature, or even an initial. Not a word of explanation. Just that. But he knew that there was only one person on board who could have written it. He had hurried over the rest of his toilet in the hope of finding Audrey Perowne in the saloon before the other guests arrived, but she had been the last to appear. He had not been able to summon up the courage to knock on the door of her cabin. His desire to see her and speak to her again alone, on any pretext, was tempered by an equal desire to avoid giving her any chance to refer to his last words of the previous night.
“The Jap is a good citizen,” George Y. Ulrig droned on, holding up his cocktail-glass like a sceptre. “He has few vices, he’s clean, and he doesn’t make trouble. On the other hand, he’s too clever to trust. He… Say, boy, what’s eatin’ you?”
“Nothing,” denied Dicky hastily. “What makes you think the Jap’s too clever to trust?”
“Now, the Chinaman’s the honestest man in the world, whatever they say about him,” resumed the drone. “I’ll tell you a story to illustrate that. …”
He told his story at leisure, and Dicky forced himself to look interested. It wasn’t easy. He was glad when they sat down to dinner. His partner was the less eagle-eyed Mrs. George Y. Ulrig, who was incapable of noticing the absent-minded way in which he listened to her detailed description of her last illness. But halfway through the meal he was recalled to attention by a challenge, and for some reason he was glad of it.
“Deeky,” said the girl at the end of the table. Dicky looked up. “Ve are in ze middle of an argument,” she said.
“Id iss this,” interrupted Sir Esdras Levy. “Der Gountess asks, if for insdance you vos a friendt off mine, ant bromised to tell nobody nothing, ant I see you vill be ruined if you don’t know off der teal, and I know der teal vill ruined be if you know off it-vot shoot I to?”
This lucid exposition was greeted with a suppressed titter which made Sir Esdras whiffle impatiently through his beard. He waved his hands excitedly. “I say,” he proclaimed magisterially, “dot a man’s vort iss his pond. I am sorry for you, bud I must my vort keep.”
‘Owever,” chipped in Mr. Matthew Sankin, and, catching his wife’s basilisk eye upon him, choked redly. “However,” said Mr. Matthew San-kin, “I ‘old by the British principle that a man oughter stick by his mates-friends-an’ he ain’t- ‘asn’t-hasn’t got no right to let “em down. None of ‘em. That’s wot.”
“Matthew, deah,” said Mrs. Sankin silkily, “the Countess was asking Mr. Tremayne the question, ay believe. Kaindly give us a chance to heah his opinion.”
‘What about a show of hands?” suggested Dicky. How many of you say that a man should stand by his word-whatever it costs him?” Six hands went up. Sankin and Ulrig were alone among the male dissenters. “Lost by one,” said Dicky.
No,” said the Countess. “I do not vote. I make you ze chairman, Deeky, and you ‘ave ze last vord. ‘Ow do you say?”
“In this problem, there’s no chance of a compromise? The man couldn’t find a way to tell his friend so that it wouldn’t spoil the deal for his other friends?”
“Ve hof no gompromises,” said Sir Esdras sternly.
Dicky looked down the table and met the girl’s eyes steadily. “Then,” he remarked, “I should first see my partners and warn them that I was going to break my word, and then I should go and do it. But the first condition is essential.”
“A gompromise,” protested Sir Esdras. “Subbose you hof nod der dime or der obbortunity?”
“How great is this friend?”
“Der greatest friendt you hof,” insisted the honourable man vehemently. “Id mags no tifference.”
“Come orf it,” urged Mr. Sankin. “A Britisher doesn’t let ‘is best pal dahn.”
“Well,” drawled George Y. Ulrig, “does an American?”
“You say I am nod Briddish?” fumed Sir Esdras Levy, whiffling. “You hof der imberdinence-“
“Deeky,” said the girl sweetly, “you should make up your mind more queekly. Ozairvise ve shall ‘ave a quarrel. Now, ‘ow do you vote?” Dicky looked round the table. He wondered who had started that fatuous argument. He could have believed that the girl had done it deliberately, judging by the way she was thrusting the casting vote upon him so insistently. But, if that were so, it could only mean …
But it didn’t matter. With zero hour only a few minutes away, a strange mood of recklessness was upon him. It had started as simple impatience- impatience with the theories of George Y. Ulrig, impatience with the ailments of Mrs. Ulrig. And now it had grown suddenly to a hell-for-leather desperation.
Audrey Perowne had said it. “You should make up your mind more quickly.” And Dicky knew that it was true. He realized that he had squandered all his hours of grace on fruitless shilly-shallying which had taken him nowhere. Now he answered in a kind of panic. “No,” he said. “I’m against the motion. I’d let down any partners, and smash the most colossal deal under the sun, rather than hurt anyone I loved. Now you know-and I hope you’re satisfied.”
And he knew, as the last plates were removed, that he was fairly and squarely in the cart. He was certain then that Audrey Perowne had engineered the discussion, with intent to trap him into a statement. Well, she’d got what she wanted.
He was suspect. Hilloran and Audrey must have decided that after he’d left her cabin that afternoon. Then why the message before dinner? They’d decided to eliminate him along with the rest. That message must have been a weakness on her part. She must have been banking on his humanity-and she’d inaugurated the argument, and brought him into it, simply to satisfy herself on a stone-cold certainty. All right… .
That was just where she’d wrecked her own bet. A grim, vindictive resentment was freezing his heart. She chose to trade on the love he’d confessed-and thereby she lost it. He hated her now, with an increasing hatred. She’d almost taken him in. Almost she’d made him ready to sacrifice his honour and the respect of his friends to save her. And now she was laughing at him.
When he’d answered, she’d smiled. He’d seen it-too late-and even then the meaning of that smile hadn’t dawned on him immediately. But he understood it all now. Fool! Fool! Fool! he cursed himself savagely and the knowledge that he’s so nearly been seduced from his self-respect by such a waster was like a worm in his heart.
“But she doesn’t get away with it,” he swore savagely to himself. “By God, she doesn’t get away with it!”
And savagely that vindictive determination lashed down his first fury to an intensely simmering malevolence. Savagely he cursed the moment’s panic that had made him betray himself-speaking from his heart without having fully reckoned all that might be behind the question. And then suddenly he was very cold and watchful. The steward was bringing in the tray of coffee.
As if from a great distance, Dicky Tremayne watched the cups being set before the guests. As each guest accepted his cup, Dicky shifted his eyes to the face above it. He hated nearly all of them. Of the women, Mrs. Ulrig was the only one he could tolerate-for all her preoccupation with the diseases which she imagined afflicted her. Of the men, there were only two whom he found human: Matthew Sankin, the henpecked Cockney who had, somehow, come to be cursed rather than blessed with more money than he knew how to spend, and George Y. Ulrig, the didactic millionaire from the Middle West. The others he would have been delighted to rob at any convenient opportunity- particularly Sir Esdras Levy, an ill-chosen advertisement for a noble race.
Dicky received his cup disinterestedly. His right hand was returning from his hip pocket. Of the two things which it brought with it, he had one under his napkin: the cigarette-case he produced, and offered. The girl caught his eye, but his face was expressionless. An eternity seemed to pass before the first cup was lifted. The others followed. Dicky counted them, stirring his own coffee mechanically. Three more to go … two more …
Matthew Sankin drank last. He alone dared to comment. “Funny taste in this cawfy,” he said.
“It tastes good to me,” said Audrey Perowne, having tasted.
And Dicky Tremayne, watching her, saw something in her eyes which he could not interpret. It seemed to be meant for him, but he hadn’t the least idea what it was meant to be. A veiled mockery? A challenge? A gleam of triumph? Or what? It was a curious look. Blind… .
Then he saw Lady Levy half rise from her chair, clutch at her head, and fall sprawling across the table.
“Fainted,” said Matthew Sankin, on his feet. “It’s a bit stuffy in here-I’ve just noticed. …”
Dicky sat still, and watched the man’s eyes glaze open, and saw him fall before he could speak again. They fell one by one, while Dicky sat motionless, watching, with the sensation of being a spectator at a play. Dimly he appreciated the strangeness of the scene; dimly he heard the voices, and the smash of crockery swept from the table; but he himself was aloof, alone with his thoughts, and his right hand held his automatic pistol hidden under his napkin. He was aware that Ulrig was shaking him by the shoulder, babbling again and again: “Doped-that coffee was doped-some goldurned son of a coot!”-until the American in his turn crumpled to the floor. And then Dicky and the girl were alone, she standing at her end of the table and Dicky sitting at his end with the gun on his knee.
That queer blind look was still in her eyes. She said, in a hushed voice: “Dicky-“
“I should laugh now,” said Dicky. “You needn’t bother to try and keep a straight face any longer. And in a few minutes you’ll have nothing to laugh about-so I should laugh now.”
“I only took a sip,” she said.
“I see the rest was spilt,” said Dicky. “Have some of mine.”
She was working round the table towards him, holding on the backs of the swivel chairs. He never moved. “Dicky, did you mean what you-answered-just now?”
“I did. I suppose I might mean it still, if the conditions were fulfilled. You’ll remember that I said-anyone I loved. That doesn’t apply here. Last night, I said I loved you. I apologize for the lie. I don’t love you. I never could. But I thought-” He paused, and then drove home the taunt with all the stony contempt that was in him: “I thought it would amuse me to make a fool of you.”
He might have struck her across the face. But he was without remorse. He still sat and watched her, with the impassivity of a graven image, till she spoke again. “I sent you that note-“
“Because you thought you had a sufficient weapon in my love. Exactly. I understand that.”
She seemed to be keeping her feet by an effort of will. Her eyelids were drooping, and he saw tears under them. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Dicky Tremayne is my real name,” he said, “and I am one of the Saint’s friends.”
She nodded so that her chin touched her chest.
“And-I-suppose-you-doped-my coffee,” she said, foolishly, childishly, in that small hushed voice that he had to strain to hear; and she slid down beside the chair she was holding and fell on her face without another word.
Dicky Tremayne looked down at her in a kind of numb perplexity, with the ice of a merciless vengefulness holding him chilled and unnaturally calm. He looked down at her, at her crumpled dress, at her bare white arms, at the tousled crop of golden hair tumbled disorderly over her head by the fall, and he was like a figure of stone.
But within him something stirred and grew and fought with the foundations of his calm. He fought back at it, hating it, but it brought him slowly up from his chair at last, till he stood erect, still looking down at her, with his napkin fallen to his feet and the gun naked in his right hand. “Audrey!” he cried suddenly.
His back was to the door. He heard the step behind him, but he could not move quicker than Hilloran’s tongue. “Stand still!” rapped Hilloran.
Dicky moved only his eyes.
These he raised to the clock in front of him, and saw that it was twenty minutes past nine.
Chapter IX “DROP that gun,” said Hilloran. Dicky dropped the gun.
“Kick it away.” Dicky kicked it away.
“Now you can turn round,” Dicky turned slowly.
Hilloran, with his own gun in one hand and Dicky’s gun in the other, was leaning back against the bulkhead by the door with a sneer of triumph on his face. Outside the door waited a file of seamen. Hilloran motioned them in.
“Of course, I was expecting this,” said Dicky.
“Mother’s Bright Boy, you are,” said Hilloran.
He turned to the seamen, pointing with his gun.
“Frisk him and tie him up.”
“I’m not fighting,” said Dicky. He submitted to the search imperturbably. The scrap of paper in his pocket was found and taken to Hilloran, who waived it aside after one glance at it.
“I guessed it was something like that,” he said. “Dicky, you’ll be glad to hear that I saw her slip it under your door. Lucky for me!”
“Very,” agreed Dicky dispassionately. “She must have come as near fooling you as she was to fooling me. We ought to get on well after this.”
“Fooling you!”
Dicky raised his eyebrows.
“How much did you hear outside that door?”
“Everything.”
“Then you must have understood-unless you’re a born fool.”
“I understand that she double-crossed me, and warned you about the coffee.”
“Why d’you think she did that? Because she thought she’d got me under her thumb. Because she thought I was so crazy about her that I was as soundly doped that way as I could have been doped by a gallon of ‘knock-out.’ And she was right-then.”
The men were moving about with lengths of rope, binding wrists and ankles with methodical efficiency. Already pinioned himself, Dicky witnessed the guests being treated one by one in similar fashion, and remained outwardly unmoved. But his brain was working like lightning.
“When they’re all safe,” said Hilloran, with a jerk of one gun, “I’m going to ask you some questions-Mr. Dicky Tremayne! You’d better get ready to answer right now, because I shan’t be kind to you if you give trouble.”
Dicky stood in listless submission. He seemed to be in a kind of stupor. He had been like that ever since Hilloran had disarmed him. Except for the movements of his mouth, and the fact that he remained standing, there might have been no life in him. Everything about him pointed to a paralyzed and fatalistic resignation. “I shan’t give any trouble,” he said tonelessly. “Can’t you understand that I’ve no further interest in anything-after what I’ve found out about her?”
Hilloran looked at him narrowly, but the words, and Dicky’s slack pose, carried complete conviction. Tremayne might have been half-chloroformed. His apathetic, benumbed indifference was beyond dispute. It hung on him like a cloak of lead. “Have you any friends on board?” asked Hilloran.
“No,” said Dicky flatly. “I’m quite alone.”
“Is that the truth?”
For a moment Tremayne seemed stung to life.
“Don’t be so damned dumb!” he snapped. “I say I’m telling you the truth. Whether you believe me or not, you’re getting just as good results this way as you would by torture. You’ve no way of proving my statements-however you obtain them.”
“Are you expecting any help from outside?”
“It was all in the letter you read.”
“By aëroplane?”
“Seaplane.”
“How many of your gang?”
“Possibly two. Possibly only one.”
“At what time?”
“Between eleven and twelve, any night from tonight on. Or at four o’clock any morning. I should have called them by flashing-a red light.”
“Any particular signal?”
“No. Just a regular intermittent flash,” said Dicky inertly. “There’s no catch in it.”
Hilloran studied his face curiously. “I’d believe you-if the way you’re surrendering wasn’t the very opposite of everything that’s ever been said about the Saint’s gang.”
