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Other documents randomly have
different content
 “I’ll explain,” he said. “I was reading in my study, shortly after
eleven this evening, when this man walked in. He threatened me
with a revolver, making some remark which I did not understand. I
am not a young man, but I have led a hard life, and I did not hesitate
to grapple with him. He is very strong, however, and he managed to
hit me with the butt of the revolver. I remember nothing more until the
time when I came to and found him rifling my desk. Since he was
armed, and had already beaten me once in a hand-to-hand tussle, I
pretended to be still unconscious. He searched the room minutely,
but apparently failed to find whatever it was he was looking for.
When he left I followed him, and traced him here. Then I went and
fetched Hopkins. That is the complete story.”
“Anjew better come along quietly,” advised the policeman,
tightening his grip on the Saint’s shoulder and holding his truncheon
at the ready.
“Fine,” said the Saint softly. “I should like to be searched now, so
that your statement about the revolver can be verified.”
Bloem smiled.
“You left it behind,” he said. “Here it is.”
Carn took the weapon from Bloem’s hand and examined it.
“Belgian make,” he said. “Is this yours, Mr. Templar?”
“It is not,” answered Simon promptly. “I object to firearms on
principle. They make such a noise.”
“Come along,” urged the constable, jerking the Saint forward.
Simon was not easily peeved, but one thing that made him see red
was anybody trying to haze him. For a second he forgot his saintly
pose. He caught the policeman’s wrist with both hands and twisted
like an eel. There was a flurry of arms and legs, a yell, and George
Hopkins landed with a crash on the other side of the room, with most
of the breath knocked out of him.
The Saint straightened his tie, and looked bang into the muzzle of
an automatic in Bloem’s hand, but that he ignored.
“Anyone who wants a quiet life is advised to keep their filthy hands
off me,” murmured the Saint. “Don’t do it again, son.”
The constable was getting shakily to his feet.
“That’s assaulting the police,” he stormed.
 “Oh, don’t be childish,” drawled the Saint, cool again. “When we
want your little chatter we’ll ask for it. Just now, Bloem, we’ll argue
this out by ourselves. We can soon smash this cock-and-bull yarn of
yours. One: were you alone in the house?”
“I was.”
“Where was Algy?”
“He’d gone over to see Miss Holm.”
That knocked the bottom out of a neat little alibi that the Saint had
thought of trying to put over, but he did not show his disappointment.
“Two: didn’t anyone follow me here with you?”
“I refuse to be cross-examined. I’ve told you I was alone——”
“You’re talking,” said the Saint coldly. “Don’t. Be a good boy and
just answer when you’re spoken to. And the point is, if you’ve been
quite alone all this time, as you say you have, what’s your word
against mine? Suppose I say I called in for a chat, and you stuck me
up with that gun and tried to pinch my watch? Why shouldn’t you be
run in yourself?”
“Let ’im tell that to the judge,” growled the constable.
“I think,” said Bloem acidly, “that my reputation will survive your
wild accusations.”
The Saint was not impressed.
“We had a stand-up fight, did we?” he went on. “I grant you I look
as if I’d been in some rough stuff. Now suppose you take off that
mac and let’s see how you came out of it.”
Bloem smiled, a little wearily, and unbuttoned his coat. The Saint’s
lips tightened. Bloem certainly had a convincing air of having been
violently handled, and that put the Tiger another point to the good.
Simon saw the Tiger’s score soaring skywards at an alarming rate,
but the only effect of that was to key up his own nerves, while his
easy and confident manner never faltered. There were still a few
more minutes to play.
“It’s rather hopeless, isn’t it?” said Bloem.
He was appealing to the audience, and the constable grunted his
agreement.
“What was this remark you didn’t understand?” asked Carn.
“When he—as you say—threatened you with the revolver.”
 “It was most mysterious,” said Bloem. “He said: ‘I’m looking for the
tiger’s den, and I think I’m getting warm.’ I still can’t make out what
he meant.”
Simon fished out his cigarette-case and began to tap a cigarette
thoughtfully on his thumbnail. Apparently bored with the whole
proceeding, he nevertheless saw Carn’s face become a mask. Out
of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Bloem, and the Boer’s
bland demeanour almost took his breath away. The colossal
audacity of that last statement was the crowning stroke to a truly
masterly bluff. The Saint wondered if Carn himself was suspect, but
Bloem’s gaze rested only on the Saint. No—the gang knew nothing
about Carn’s real profession. Bloem was simply taking a vindictive
pleasure in kicking the man whom he thought he had got where he
wanted him.
And it looked dangerously as if he had got the Saint tied hand and
foot and gagged. Patricia could not help him, and Carn could not—
even if he cared to. It was Bloem’s word against Simon’s, and there
was no doubt which the Bench would prefer to accept. And Bloem
knew that the Saint knew that any reference to the evening’s
entertainment at Bittle’s would be futile. Bittle would lie like a Trojan,
and the Tiger was sure to have provided him with a plausible
explanation of the noise that had occurred earlier that night.
The Saint grasped the consummate efficiency of the Tiger’s
tactics. Simon was to be shopped, and the shopping had been slickly
done. He would be lucky to get away with six months hard—and
taken in conjunction with the assault upon the police in the execution
of its duty the whole charge-sheet might well put the Saint behind
bars for upwards of a year. And in that time T. T. Deeps could be
salted, and the Tiger Cubs could fade gracefully away. The Saint
lounged even more languidly against the mantelpiece. This last deal
had certainly given the Tiger one Hades of a hand.
Yet indisputably the Saint dominated the situation. They were all
waiting for him. Bloem, watching him through narrowed lids, and still
training the automatic upon him, was utterly confident of the strength
of his combination. He was just waiting for the Saint to confess
defeat. The constable, more wary after his taste of the Saint’s anger,
was hanging about in the background waiting for somebody else to
start the next dance. Patricia was looking anxiously at the Saint,
powerless to help him, and wondering if any daring sideslip was
being planned behind that lazy exterior. The one certain thing was
that she did not believe Bloem’s story for an instant. At any other
time she might have credited it, but seen in the light of previous
events that evening it savoured of nothing but the complicated web
of mystery which had caught her up in its meshes and which
threatened her Saint with the most sinister things. And Carn had
nothing to say. As far as Bloem’s story was concerned, it might or
might not be true—his knowledge of the Saint inclined him to believe
it. But in any case the Saint was working against him, even if he was
also working against the Tiger. And to have disclosed himself as
Central Detective Inspector Carn of Scotland Yard would have
written Finis to every chance he had of succeeding on his mission.
“We’re waiting,” said Bloem at last.
“So I see,” drawled Simon. “If you can wait a bit longer, there are
just one or two more points to clear up. The first is that I’m sure you
won’t mind the Doctor just examining the bump I must have raised
on your cranium when I knocked you out.”
He was watching Bloem closely as he spoke, and his heart sank
when he saw that the man was not at all put out. Carn walked up to
Bloem with a query, and Bloem nodded.
“Just behind my left ear,” he said.
“Sweetest lamb,” said the Saint through his teeth, “I’ll bet you just
hated getting that bit of realism!”
Carn looked at the Saint and shrugged.
“Someone certainly hit him very hard,” he said. “Saint, you’ve put
your foot in it this time.”
“So I don’t think we’ll prolong this unpleasant duty,” said Bloem
briskly. “Constable—you have the handcuffs? I’m covering him, and I
shall shoot if he attacks you again.”
And then the congregation was increased by one, for a man
strutted out of the darkness and stood framed in the open window.
“ ’Ere, wassal this?” demanded Orace truculently.
 Chapter VIII.
The Saint is Dense
Bloem wheeled with a smothered exclamation, for the interruption
came from behind him. Then the Boer slowly lowered his automatic
—because Orace was carrying the enormous revolver which was his
pride and joy, and that fearsome weapon was waving in a gentle
semicircle so that it covered everyone in the room in turn. Orace
leaned on the windowsill, well pleased with the timeliness of his
entrance and the sensation it had caused.
“Snoldup,” declared Orace brightly. “Ni jus’ come in the nicker
time. Looks like a dangerous carrickter, too. Orfcer,” said Orace, with
a lordly sweep of his free hand, “you ’ave the bracelets. Do yer
dooty!”
“My good fellow——”
Orace waggled the blunderbuss threateningly in Bloem’s direction.
“Lay orf ‘me good fellerin’ ’ me!” commanded Orace ferociously.
“Caught in the yack, that’s wot you are, an’ jer carn’t wriggle out av it!
Constible! Wot the thunderin’ ’ell are yer wytin’ for? Look slippy an’
clap the joolry on ’im! An’ jew jusurryup an’ leggo that popgun, or I’ll
plugua!”
Bloem let the automatic fall, and the Saint picked it up, in case of
accidents.
“I can explain,” persisted Bloem.
“Corse yer can,” agreed Orace scornful. “Never knew a crook ’oo
couldn’t.”
“Oh, but he can,” said the Saint. “You can stop flourishing that
cannon, Orace, and come right in. I was just wondering how to get
hold of you.”
 Orace looked doubtful, but eventually he obeyed, clambering
lamely over the sill and treating Bloem to a menacing glare as he did
so.
“Yessir?”
“A simple case of mistaken identity,” remarked the Saint to the
assembled company, in the manner of counsel opening the defence.
“But Mr. Bloem was so very obstinate. . . . Well, this is Orace, late of
His Majesty’s Royal Marines, and my servant for years. Orace will
now testify that I reached home just after eleven, and didn’t leave
again until about twenty to twelve.”
The Saint did not even look at Orace as he spoke, for he knew his
man. Carn, however, did, and saw Orace register surprise.
“Tha’s so,” said Orace. “ ’Oo said yer didn’t?”
“You see,” Simon explained, “Mr. Bloem there was held up by an
armed man to-night, and he had the idea that it was me, so he’s
been trying to arrest me.”
Orace nodded, tilting his head away from Bloem as if the man
offended his nostrils.
“Ar,” said Orace derisively. “The idea!”
The Saint turned to Bloem.
“Perhaps you will now apologise?” he suggested. “Come, Mr.
Bloem, admit that you didn’t get a good view of your assailant, and
for reasons of your own you jumped to the conclusion that it was me.
He might even have been masked. . . .”
The two men’s eyes met. There was no misconstruing the Saint’s
meaning. He was offering Bloem a graceful retreat. Bloem knew that
he had weakened his case by confessing that no one but himself
had seen the bandit, and his story would never hold water in the face
of Simon’s alibi. Orace was the one factor which the Tiger, by some
incomprehensible oversight, had utterly overlooked. It might even be
said that only Orace’s arrival at that precise moment made him a
factor to be considered: if any time had elapsed between the arrest
and its coming to Orace’s ears, Orace might by then have been
trapped into admitting that he had not seen the Saint since dinner,
and possibly the Tiger had banked on some such manœuvre. But
Orace had turned up just when he was wanted, which he had an
uncanny gift for doing, and thereby he had upset the Tiger’s
applecart irretrievably.
And Bloem knew it. He did not show it with a muscle of his face,
but his eyes glowed venomously. And the Saint, smiling a little,
gazed back with a little blue devil of unholy glee dancing about just
behind his lazily lowered lids. For the Saint was thinking of the
whack behind the ear which Bloem had suffered for the good of the
cause, and that thought made his ribs ache with noiseless
laughter. . . .
“I am deeply humiliated,” said Bloem in a strangled voice. “As a
matter of fact, the man was masked. I let him leave the room, and
then followed. When I came out of the garden, I saw Mr. Templar
walking away, and immediately concluded that it was he. The real
man must have gone off in another direction. I apologise.”
“I accept your apology, Mr. Bloem,” said the Saint stiffly. “Don’t let
it occur again.”
His dignity was terrific, and for that shrewd cut he was rewarded
with a look from Bloem which ought by rights to have made him
vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving a small greasy stain on the carpet,
but the Saint’s armour was impregnable.
“I’m very sorry, Doctor,” said Bloem unevenly. “Try to forgive me,
Miss Holm. I’d better go.”
The Saint stepped up with the automatic.
“You might need this, with a hold-up man in the neighbourhood,”
he murmured mockingly. “If you meet him again, I trust you will not
spare the lead.”
Bloem gazed back malignantly.
“You need have no fear of that, Mr. Templar,” he replied.
He was just going out when Mr. Hopkins awoke to the realisation
that he had been cheated of the glory of arresting an armed
desperado, and that this coolly smiling man who, was getting off
scot-free had flung him across the room, bruised and shaken him
severely, and nearly broken his arm.
“ ’Ere,” said the constable, whose idiom was much the same as
that of Orace, “wassal this? Whatever you say, that don’t dispose of
the charge of assaultin’ the police.”
 “When an innocent man is treated like a criminal,” said Simon
virtuously, “he may be pardoned for losing his temper. I’m sure Mr.
Bloem will agree with me? . . . In fact,” added the Saint, taking Mr.
Hopkins coaxingly by the arm, “I’m sure that if you mentioned the
matter to Mr. Bloem, he’d stand you a glass of milk and put a penny
in your money-box. Wouldn’t you, Mr. Bloem?”
“Naturally,” said Bloem, without enthusiasm, “naturally I must
accept the responsibility for that.”
“Spoken like a gent,” approved the Saint. “Now toddle along and
talk big business under the stars, like good children.”
And he urged Bloem and the constable towards the door. They
went obediently, for different reasons. It was a victory that the Saint
could not help rubbing in.
He slammed the front door on the pair, and returned hilariously.
“Honour is vindicated, mes enfantes,” he said happily. “What about
splitting another lemonade on it, Carn?”
The detective looked at the Saint and nodded slowly.
“I think we might,” he assented. “Such luck ought to be celebrated.
I suppose it would be indiscreet to ask how Orace came to arrive so
fortunately?”
“But why indiscreet?” cried the Saint. “All’s fair and above board.
Orace, tell the gentleman how you happened to blow in on your cue.”
Orace cleared his throat.
“Being accustomed to take a constitooshnal,” he began, in the
stilted language which he would have employed before his orderly
officer, “I’m in the ’abit of walking this wy of a nevenin’; and the
winder bein’ open an’ me ’avin’ good eyesight——”
“Of course I believe you,” said Carn. “You deserve to be believed.
There’s some whisky in the kitchen, Orace.”
Orace saluted and marched out, and the Saint doubled up with
silent mirth.
“Orace is unique,” he said.
“Orace is all that, and then some,” Carn returned ruefully.
Soon afterwards Simon and Patricia left. They walked the short
distance to the Manor without speaking, for the Saint was enjoying
the novel experience of finding his flow of small talk entirely dried up.
He had thought of nothing to say until the girl was opening the door,
and then he could only make a postponement.
“May I see you to-morrow morning?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“I’ll come right after breakfast.”
Suddenly she remembered Agatha Girton.
“I think—would you mind if I came over to you instead?”
“I’d love you to. And if I haven’t bored you to tears by then, you
can stay for lunch. Tell me what time you’ll be leaving, and I’ll send
Orace over to fetch you.”
She was surprised.
“Is that necessary?”
“Very necessary,” replied the Saint gravely. “Tigers have nasty
suspicious minds, just like me, and by this time one Tiger is
wondering just how dangerous you are, Pat. Yes, I know it’s
screamingly funny, but let me send Orace—for my own peace of
mind.”
“Well—— About half-past ten, if you like.”
“I do. And Orace will adore it. One other thing. Will you do me a
great favour?”
She had found the switch in the hall, and she turned on the light to
see his face better, but he was not joking.
“Lock your door, and put the key under the pillow. Don’t open to
anybody—not even your aunt. I don’t really think anything’ll happen
so soon, but Tigers can hustle. Will you?”
She nodded.
“You’re very alarming,” she said.
“I’m full of ideas to-night,” he said. “I’ve had a taste of the Tiger’s
speed, and nobody ever stung the Saint in the same way twice.
Don’t believe any messages except they’re brought by Orace. Don’t
trust anybody but me, Orace, or old Carn at a pinch. I know it’s a tall
order, but there are one or two rough days—not to mention rough
nights—in store for the old brigade. You’ve been perfectly marvellous
so far. Can you keep it up?”
“I’ll try,” she said.
He took her hand.
“God bless you, Pat, old pal.”
 “Saint——”
He was going when she stopped him. It was odd to hear that
nickname fall from her lips—the name wherewith the Saint had been
christened in strange and ugly places, by hard and godless men. He
had grown so used to it that he had come to accept it without
question, but now the sound of it brought a flood of memories. Once
again he stood in the Bosun’s smoky bar at the back of Mexico City,
looking from the huddled corpse of Senhor Miguel Grasiento to the
girl called Cherry, and heard the rurales pounding on the door. He
had got her away, on an English tramp bound for Liverpool. “ ‘Saint,’ ”
she had said—“that was a true word spoken in jest.” And he had
never heard the name uttered in the same tone since until that
moment. . . .
“Saint, did you really go to Bloem’s?”
“I did not,” he answered. “That was a frame-up. But Mynheer
Bloem is certainly one of the Tiger Cubs. Watch him! I’ll tell you the
whole yarn to-morrow. Bye-bye, kid.”
The Saint found Orace in the lane, curled up under the hedge,
philosophically smoking his pipe.
“We’ll work inland round the village,” said Simon, “I’m hoping the
Tiger’s had enough for one night, but you never know. Nobody’s got
any proof that Bloem was lying about that hold-up merchant, except
me, and a fairy tale like that cuts both ways. If our bodies were found
in a field in the morning, the whole thing’d fit in beautifully.”
Nevertheless, they were not molested on the way back—a fact
which might well have been due to the Saint’s foresight. It took an
hour of the Saint’s killing pace to do the journey which would have
lasted only fifteen minutes by the obvious route, and even then
Simon was not satisfied.
When the outline of the Pill Box loomed dimly up against the dark
sky, he stopped.
“Booby traps have caught mugs before now,” he murmured. “Just
park yourself in the nettles here, Orace, while I snoop round.”
The Saint could have given most shikars points when it came to
moving across country without being noticed. Orace simply saw a tall
shape melt soundlessly away into the gloom, and thereafter could
trace nothing until the tall shape materialised again beside him.
 “All clear,” said Simon. “That means our Tiger’s burning the
midnight oil thinking out something really slick and deadly.”
The Saint was right. Although he and Orace never relaxed their
vigilance, taking it in turns to sleep and keep watch, they were left in
peace. The Tiger had taken one blind shot, and it had not come off.
Moreover, if his organisation had been only a shade less thorough, it
might have landed him in the tureen. As it was, he had come out of
the encounter none too well. And for the future he intended to have
his moves mapped out well in advance, with every possible set-back
and development legislated for.
None of these reflections disturbed the Saint’s sleep. He had
taken the first watch, and so the sun was shining gaily through the
embrasures when he awoke for the second time, to find Orace
setting a cup of tea down by his bedside.
“Nice morning,” remarked Orace, according to ritual, and vanished
again.
Since the episode of the bullet out of the blue, Simon had
reluctantly decided to forgo his morning dip until the air had become
clearer. However, he skipped and shadow-boxed in the sun with
especial vigour, and finished up with Orace splashing a couple of
buckets of water over him, what time the Saint lay on the grass
drawing deep grateful breaths and blessing his perfect condition. For
the Saint saw a fierce and wearing scrap ahead, and he reckoned
that he would need all his strength and stamina if he was going to be
on his feet when the gong clanged for the last round.
“Brekfuss narf a minnit,” said Orace.
The Saint was grinning as he dressed. Orace was nearly too good
to be true.
They were late that morning, and Orace left to fetch Patricia as
soon as he had served “brekfuss.” The girl arrived in half an hour, to
find the Saint spread-eagled in a deck chair outside the Pill Box. He
had managed to unearth another pair of flannel bags and another
shooting-jacket that were nearly as disreputable as the outfit which
had been wrecked in Bittle’s garden the night before, and he looked
very fresh and comfortable, for his shirt, as usual, would have put
snow to shame.
 He jumped up and held out both his hands, and she gave him both
of hers.
“I haven’t seen you for ages,” he said. “How are we?”
“Fine,” she told him. “And nothing happened.”
She was cool and slim in white, and he thought he had never seen
anyone half so lovely.
“Something might have,” he said. “And when I was a Boy Scout
they taught me to Be Prepared.”
He rigged a chair for her and adjusted the cushions, and then he
sat down again.
“I know you’re bursting with curiosity,” he said, “so I’ll come
straight to the ’osses.”
And without further ado he started on the long history. He told her
about Fernando, dying out in the jungle with a Tiger Cub’s kris in
him, and he told her Fernando’s story. He told her about the Tiger,
who was for years Chicago’s most brilliant and terrible gang leader.
He told her about some of the Tiger’s exploits, and finally came to
the account of the breaking of the Confederate Bank. Some of the
details Fernando had told him; the rest he had gathered together by
patient investigation; the accumulation worked up into a plot hair-
raising enough to provide the basis of the wildest film serial that was
ever made.
“The Tiger’s very nearly a genius,” he said. “The way he got away
with that mint of money and carted it all the miles to here is just a
sample of his brain.”
Then he told her about the more recent events—the little he had
learned while he had been in Baycombe. How he had been
suspected from the day of his arrival, and how he had done his best
to encourage that suspicion, in the hope that the other side would
give themselves away by trying to dispose of him. Gradually the lie
of the land took shape in her mind, while the Saint talked on, putting
in a touch of character here and there, recalling points that he had
omitted and referring to details that he had not yet given. The story
was not told smoothly—it rattled out, paused, and rattled on again,
decorated with the Saint’s typical racy idiom and humorous egotism.
Nevertheless, it held her, and it was a convincing story, for the Saint
had a gift for graphic description. She saw the scenes at which she
had been present in a new light.
He ended up with a flippant account of the sport chez Bittle after
he had helped her get away.
“And there you have it,” he concluded. “Heard in cold blood, with
the sun shining and all that, it sounds preposterous enough to make
dear old Munchausen look like gospel. But you’ve seen a bit of it
yourself, and perhaps that’ll make it easier for you to believe the rest.
And what it boils down to is that the Tiger is in Baycombe, and so am
I, and so are the pieces of eight; and the Tiger wants my head on a
tin tray, and I want his ill-gotten gains, and we’re both pretty keen to
hang on to our respective possessions. So, taken by and large, it
looks like we shall come to blows and other Wild and Woolly
Western expressions of mutual ill-feeling. And the point is, Pat, and
the reason why I felt you had a right to know all the odds—is that
you’ve gone and cut in on the game. By last night, the Tiger had to
face the risk that I might have talked to you, and the way you
behaved generally won’t have eased his mind any. You might be a
danger or you might not, but he can’t afford to take chances. To be
on the safe side, he’s got to assume that you and I are as thick as
thieves. So you see, old soul, you’re slap in the middle of this here
jamboree, whether you like it or not. You’re cast for second juvenile
lead in the bloodcurdling melodrama now playing, and your name’s
up in red lights all round the Tiger’s den—and the question before
the house is, What Do We Do About It?”
He was leaning forward so that he could see her face, and she
knew that he was desperately serious. She knew, also, instinctively,
that he was not a man to exaggerate the situation, however much he
might play the buffoon in other directions.
“Now, here’s my suggestion,” said the Saint. “I know a bloke called
Terry Mannering, who lives on the other side of Devonshire, and he
can deal with fun and games as well as I can. He has a wife, whom
you’ll love, and a very good line in yachts, being nearly as rich as I
should like to be since his Old Man kicked the bucket. If I took you
over and told Terry that it’d be good for all your healths if you went
cruising off to the West Indies or somewhere else a long way off for a
few months, till the tumult and the shouting dies, so to speak, and
the Tigers and their Cubs depart—well, I know the three of you’d be
on the high seas in no time. And the Tiger and I would be rude to
each other for a bit, and when it was all over and he was decently
buried I’d let you know and you could come back. What about it?”
Patricia studied her shoe; and she said, in a very Saintly way:
“What, indeed?”
“You said?” rapped Simon.
“What about it?” queried Patricia. “It might be rather a good idea
some time, but you can’t rush it like that. Besides, I’m rather enjoying
myself in Baycombe.”
Simon got up.
“Well, I’m not enjoying your enjoyment,” he said bluntly. “That sort
of courage is all very fine when it’s to some purpose—but this time it
isn’t. I’ve never dragged a woman into my little worries yet, and I’m
not starting now. Perhaps you think this is going to be a picnic. I
thought I’d made it plain enough that it isn’t. If you want to pack a
few thrills into your young life, I’ll arrange a big-game shooting trip, or
something else comparatively tame, later. But this particular spree is
not in your line one bit, and you’d better be sensible and admit it.”
Patricia raised her eyebrows.
“So I gather you propose to kidnap me,” she said calmly. “I believe
‘shanghai’ is the word. Well, I should start planning right away—
because nothing short of that is going to move me.”
“You’re a damned fool,” said the Saint.
She laughed, standing up to him and laying a hand on his
shoulder.
“Dear man,” she said, “I refuse to lose my temper, because I know
that’s just what you want me to do. You think that if you’re rude
enough I’ll dash off and leave you to stew. And I can promise you I
shan’t do anything of the sort. I know it isn’t going to be a picnic—but
I’m sorry if you think I’m a girl that’s only fit for picnics. I’ve always
fancied myself as the heroine of a hell-for-leather adventure, and this
is probably the only chance I shall ever have. And I’m jolly well going
to see it through!”
Simon held himself in check with an effort. He had a frantic
impulse to take this stubborn slip of a girl across his knee and spank
some sense into her; and coincidently with that he had an equally
importunate desire to hug her and kiss her to death. For there was
no doubt that she was determined to ride on to the kill, however
dangerous the country her obstinate intention led her over. Why she
should be so set on it beat the Saint. He could imagine a high-
spirited girl fancying herself as the heroine of just such an adventure,
but he had never dreamed of meeting a girl who’d go on fancying
herself quite so keenly when it came to the point, and when she’d
had a peek at some of the stern and spiky disadvantages. But there
she was, smiling into his eyes, tranquilly announcing her resolution
to see the shooting-match through with him, and boldly averring that
she was perfectly prepared to eat the whole cake as well as the
icing. She was going to be the blazes of a nuisance and the mischief
of a worry to him—“But, Hell!” swore the Saint to himself—“I’m darn
glad of it!” Wherein he betrayed his egotism. It would be a gruelling
test for her, but he’d have her with him all the time. And if she came
through it with flying colours, well, maybe after all he’d go the way of
most confirmed bachelors. . . .
And since he saw that neither cajoling nor cursing would budge
her, he accepted the situation like a wise man. And even then (with
such an inferiority complex is Love afflicted) the sublime egotist did
not spot the foundation of her determination, though it stuck out a
mile. Nevertheless, in his blindness he was very near to blundering
straight into the heart of the affair. His scowl relaxed, and he took her
hand from his shoulder and held it.
“I’ve known some fool women,” said the Saint, “but I never met
one whose foolishness appealed to me more than yours.”
“Then—it’s a bet?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You said it, partner. And the Lord grant we win. It’s not my fault if
you insist on jazzing into the Tiger’s den, but it’ll be my unforgivable
fault if I don’t yank you out again safely. Shake!”
“Bless you,” said Patricia softly.
 Chapter IX.
Patricia Perseveres
“Well,” remarked Simon Templar, breaking a long silence as lightly
as he could, “where do we go from here, old Pat?”
She disengaged her hand and sat down again; and he shifted his
own chair round so that they were knee to knee. She was chilled by
the definiteness with which he reverted to pure business, though
later she realised that he did so only because he was afraid of letting
himself go, and possibly incurring her displeasure by forcing the
pace.
“I’ve also a story to tell,” she said, “and it came out only last night.”
And she gave him a full account of Agatha Girton’s confession.
For such a loquacious man, he was an astonishingly attentive
listener. It was a side of his character which she had not seen before
—the Saint concentrating. He did not interrupt her once, sitting back
with his eyes shut and his face so composed that he might well have
been asleep. But when she had finished he was frowning
thoughtfully.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said the Saint. “So Aunt Aggie is one of
the bhoys? But what in the sacred name of haggis could anyone
blackmail Aunt Aggie with? Speaking quite reverently, I can’t imagine
she was ever ravishing enough, even in her prime, to acquire
anything like a Past.”
“It does seem absurd, but——”
The Saint scratched his head.
“What do you know about her?”
“Very little, really,” Patricia replied. “I’ve sort of always taken her for
granted. My mother died when I was twelve—my father was killed
hunting three years before that—and she became my guardian. I
never saw much of her until quite recently. She spent most of her
time abroad, on the Riviera. She had a villa at Hyères. I stayed on at
school very late, and I was generally alone here during the holidays
—I mean, she was away, though I usually had school friends staying
with me, or I stayed with them. She didn’t do much for me, but my
bills were paid regularly, and she wrote once a fortnight.”
“When did she settle down in Baycombe, then?”
“When she came back from South Africa. About six years ago I
had a letter from her from Port Said, saying that she was on her way
to the Cape. She was away a year, and I hardly had a line from her.
Then one day she turned up and said she’d had enough of travelling
and was going to live at the Manor.”
“And did she?”
“She used to go abroad occasionally, but they were quite short
trips.”
“When was the last expedition?”
She pondered.
“About two years ago, or a bit less. I can’t remember the exact
date.”
“Now think,” suggested the Saint—“roughly, you hardly saw her at
all between the time she introduced herself as your guardian, when
you were twelve, until she came back from South Africa, when you
were sixteen or seventeen.”
“Nearer seventeen.”
“And in that time anything might have happened.”
She shrugged.
“I suppose so. But it’s too ridiculous. . . .”
“Of course it is,” agreed Simon blandly. “It’s all too shriekingly
ridiculous for words. It’s ridiculous that our Tiger should have broken
the Confederate Bank of Chicago and lugged the moidores over to
Baycombe to await disposal. It’s ridiculous to think that there are
some hundredweights of twenty-two carat gold hidden somewhere
not two miles from here. But there are. What we’ve got to assume is
that on this joy ride nothing is too ridiculous to be real. Which
reminds me—what do you know about the old houses in Baycombe?
There must be something conspicuously old enough for Fernando to
have thought The Old House was sufficient address.”
 He was surprised at her immediate answer.
“There are two that’d fit,” she said. “One is just out of the village,
inland. It used to be an inn, and the name of it was The Old House.
It’s falling to bits now—the proprietor lost his licence in the year Dot,
and nobody took it over. It’s supposed to be haunted. The windows
are all boarded up, and a dozen men could live there without being
seen if they went in and out at night.”
The Saint smashed fist into palm, his eyes lighting up.
“Moonshine and Moses!” he whooped. “Pat, you’re worth a fortune
to this partnership! And I was just thinking we’d come to a standstill.
Why, we haven’t moved yet! . . . What’s the other one?”
“The island just round the point.” She waved her arm to the east.
“The fishermen call it the Old House, but you wouldn’t have noticed it
because it only looks like that from the sea. The sides are very
steep, and on one side it juts right out over the water, like those old
houses where the first floor is bigger than the ground floor.”
Simon jumped up and walked to the edge of the cliff, so that he
could see the island. It was about a mile from the shore—nothing but
an outcrop of rock thickly overgrown with bushes and stunted trees.
He came back jubilant.
“It might be either,” he said exultantly, “or it might be both—the
Tiger may have a home from home in your defunct pub, and he may
have parked the doubloons on the island. Anyway, we’ll draw both
covers and see. Thinking it over, I guess I’ve hit it. The Tiger’d want
to have the gold in some place he could ship it from easily—
remember it’s got to go to Africa. And by the same token . . . Here,
hold on half a sec.”
He disappeared into the Pill Box and came back in a moment with
field-glasses. Then he focused on the horizon and began to sweep it
carefully from west to east. He had covered three-quarters of the arc
when he stopped and stared for a full minute, suddenly rigid.
“And there she blows,” he muttered.
He handed her the binoculars and pointed north-east.
“See what you make of it.”
“It looks like a couple of masts sticking up.”
“Motor ship—no funnels,” he explained. “The Bristol shipping
passes here, but we’re back in a sort of big bay, and I don’t think
they’d stand in as near as that. But we’ll just make sure.”
He took the glasses from her again and went into the Pill Box, and
she followed. He fossicked about in the kitchen till he found a piece
of board, the remains of a packing-case, and this he settled in one of
the embrasures, truing it up level with little wedges of newspaper.
Then he put the field-glasses on it and took a sight on one of the
masts by means of a couple of pins stuck in the board.
“We’ll give her five minutes.”
She grasped his meaning at once.
“You think they’re waiting to come in after dark?”
“No less. Comrade Bloem hasn’t done all he’d like to with T. T.
Deeps, but he’ll have some weeks’ grace while the stuff’s getting to
the mine. And he daren’t let it lie around here any longer, in case my
luck holds and I don’t get bumped off according to schedule. I’ve
rattled the Tiger!”
He was keeping an eye on his watch, and the minutes ticked away
very slowly.
“Is Dr. Carn a detective?” she asked.
“That’s hit it in one,” affirmed the Saint. “But don’t let on you know.
It wouldn’t be sporting not to give the old boy a fair run.”
“Then aren’t you a detective?” she stammered in bewilderment. “I
thought you were friendly rivals—that was the only explanation I
could work out last night.”
The Saint smiled grimly.
“Rivals—more or less friendly—yes,” he said. “But I’m not a
detective, and never was. I’m playing for my own hand, with an
enormous quantity of ha’pence coming to me if I win, and
everybody’s kicks if I lose. Profession, gentleman adventurer: i.e.,
available for any job involving plenty of money and plenty of trouble,
suitable for a man who doesn’t bother much about the letter of the
law and who’s prepared to take his licking without a yelp if he gets
landed. That’s me. Like this. I happened to find Fernando, and as
soon as I’d got the thing taped out I took a trip to Chicago and saw
the boss of the Confederate. ‘Here’s nearly a year since your strong
room was busted,’ I said, ‘and the dicks haven’t brought you back
one cent of the almighties. Now suppose you let me have a shot.
Terms, twenty per cent. commission if I bring it off. Not a bean if I
don’t. Me to work on my lonesome, without reporting to anybody, and
to take all the blame if I’m run over.’ Well, that put them on
something to nothing, so they bit. And there you are.”
He was looking steadily at her, but she did not change colour. But
the Saint was never a faker, and this was his call to clean the whole
sheet, so that she could take it or leave it as she chose and would
never be able to say he hadn’t played square. He rubbed it in with
brutal directness.
“That’s the way I’ve lived for years. Pretty well, all things
considered, so that if this gamble turns up I’ll be able to retire and
settle down as soon as I like, and not have to stint myself anywhere.
In those years I’ve committed about half the crimes in the Calendar,
at the expense of crooks. It’s a sporting game—man to man, and
devil take the mug: and the police, for obvious reasons, aren’t invited
to interfere by either side. Bloem’s the first to break that rule; but the
Tiger isn’t a sportsman—he’s just a pot-hunter. Still, I doubt if your
friends would appreciate my success in that career. D’you still want
to be a partner in the firm?”
She sighed.
“Saint, you’re an ass,” she said. “And if you exhibit any symptoms
of virulent imbecility I shall fire you and become managing director
myself.”
“Hell’s bells,” ejaculated Simon, unwontedly moved, and swung
away.
Very carefully, so as not to disturb the board, he took another sight
at the ship’s masts; and presently he straightened up with a light of
triumph breaking on his face.
“We’re in luck,” he said. “She hasn’t shifted a millimetre. Rotten
bad navigation. I’d have known the height of my masts to an inch,
and the height of the cliffs here ditto, and I’d have figured out my
position to six places of decimals. . . . But the Tiger’s loss is our
gain!”
“They’ll start to come in at sunset,” she took him up excitedly. “And
——”
“And I’ll be there,” said the Saint. “It’s a moonlight swim for me to-
night. That’s great—to let the Tiger Cubs themselves lead me to the