[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Shall I bring some help?"
"Yes, bring the others. He wants you all to sign. You needn't send your names
in they'll be expecting you. Will you come on over?"
"They've got a gun on you, I suppose," Teal said intelligently.
"That's the idea," said the Saint. "As quick as you can, darling. 'Bye."
He dropped the microphone back and pushed the telephone away with a smile of
satisfaction.
"They'll be here in a few minutes," he announced.
Urivetzky unlocked his fingers and leaned back; and Perez, who had sat down
on the arm of the same chair, crossed his legs and took out a cigarette.
Quin-tana nodded and put his gun down on the desk where it was still within
easy reach. Every one of their individual reactions held an unspoken triumph
that would have shrieked aloud its confirmation of the Saint's deductions if
he had wanted any confirmation. They were like three spiders waiting for the
entrance of the flies.
None of them spoke. An atmosphere of guarded relaxation settled upon the
scene, in which they waited in savoury anticipation for the logical outcome of
their own ingenuity.
The Saint himself was not reluctant to be spared the trouble of making
conversation. At ease in his chair, with an outward confidence and equanimity
that was even more convincing than theirs, with his head thrown back so that
he could build intermittent smoke-ring patterns towards the ceiling, he
watched in his imagination the machinery that his telephone call had set in
motion.
Now Teal was hanging up the receiver after another telephone call. Now he
would be kicking off his carpet slippers and going quietly frantic over the
obstinacy of his boot laces. And over in the gloomy soot-grimed building on
the Embankment that was called Scotland Yard there would be a suppressed
crescendo of traffic ir certain bare echoing corridors, and big heavy-footed
men would be buttoning their prosaic and respectable coats and reaching down
their prosaic and respectable hats; and a car or two would start up and swing
round in the courtyard and stand there unexcitedly ticking over; and a man
would hurriedly finish his beer in the canteen and stump up the stairs.
Perhaps in his study in Hampstead an assistant commissioner would be frowning
over the telephone and fiddling with his moustache and giving counsel in a
worried Oxonian bleat. "Well, I don't know . . . Yes, but . . . ticklish
business, you know . . . international complications . . . Home Secretary . .
Page 41
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
. Foreign Office . . . Yes, I know, got to do something, but . . . Bonds?
Forgery? Murder? ... I don't know . . discretion . . . unofficial . . . tact .
. . Well, for God's sake be careful . . ." And Teal would be waiting,
fidgeting on his doorstep, till the cars drove up and he stepped in with a
curt businesslike greeting and they went on, threading rapidly through the
traffic, filled with stolid, unromantic, uncommunicative men. "Your policemen
are wonderful." Now they would be well on their way it wouldn't take them long
to get to Cambridge Square via the modest lodgings in Victoria where Teal had
his home. All these things happening in London between the drab narrow streets
under the pulse of the city while seekers after excitement crowded into movie
theatres and sleek men and shrill women danced on overcrowded floors and smug
or frustrated nonentities paced under the bright lights or hurried through
quiet squares. All this happening under the deep monotonous murmur of London
which penetrated even through closed windows and solid walls, a continuous
thrum of life of which one would be unaware unless it stopped, out of which an
isolated squeal of brakes or the toot of a passing horn close by came
sometimes like an abrupt reminder of its far-spread reality. . . .
The time passed so quickly, Simon thought, and stole another glance at his
watch. At any moment now they would be here. And then there would be trouble
for himself, whoever else was in it. He had still been guilty of burglary, and
there were several items of information which he had condoned or concealed.
And on the desk in front of him there were still forty thousand pounds in
ready cash, which any efficiently organized buccaneering concern could have
used.
He had done the only thing he could have done, in the circumstances. And
Chief Inspector Teal, not being completely solid ivory above the bowler
hatbrim, had grasped enough of the idea to save the situation, as the Saint
had known he would. But it didn't end there.
Even at that moment, probably, Teal was gloating over the fact that for the
first time in his life the Saint had had to appeal to him and the majesty of
the Law for help; and he was doubtless elaborating in his mind the various
sarcastic comments with which he would rub home the unpleasantness that could
be visited on the Saint impartially with any other malefactors who might be
collected at the same time. On that visitation at least the assistant
commissioner must have been insistent if Mr Teal needed any encouragement.
But the Saint had done what Quintana wanted. And after he had done it the
certainty of success had had its own demoralizing effect on the opposition.
The' sharp edge of vigilance on which Simon had felt his life balancing had
been dulled little enough, he knew, but with a subtle definiteness.
Quintana was rocking his swivel chair backwards and forwards, his hands
supporting him on the edge of the desk. Urivetzky was lounging back as the
Saint was, his hands folded and his deep-set eyes lost in thought. Perez was
sprawling, his cigarette drooping limply from the corner of his mouth, his
hands in his pockets. But in one of those same pockets, Simon knew, was a
loaded automatic.
And at that moment in a complete silence the Saint heard the soft pad of
footsteps outside that suddenly broke into the sharp rap of knuckles on the
door.
It was one of the servants who looked in in answer to Quintana's summons.
"There are some people downstairs," he said in Spanish. "They will give no
names, but they say you are expecting them."
Page 42
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"How many?" asked Quintana without ceasing his measured rocking in his chair.
"Four."
"Let them come up."
The tension was back in the room, under the surface, evident in the slight
motions which Urivetzky and Perez made. Only the Saint did not stir from his
reclining position; but his left hand, on the arm of the chair, imperceptibly
tested the effort that would be necessary to raise him quickly out of it.
There was only one light in the room, he noted a single bulb hung from the
ceiling under a painted parchment shade. As he was lying back he could see
under the shade straight to the bulb beneath.
Quintana turned to Perez.
"Search them before they come in," he said.
Perez's flat eyes hid a gleam of approval. He got up and slouched through the
door as other footsteps approached along the passage.
Quintana looked at the Saint.
"A formality," he said, "but we must be careful. There are only three of us."
There were only two of them now, to be exact; and Quintana was still balanced
with his fingers against the edge of the desk, in a position where it would
take him a fraction of a second longer to recover himself than if he had been
sitting up. The last vital difference in the odds had been adjusted when Perez
left the room. . . .
The Saint seemed to lounge even more lazily, while his left hand took a
firmer grip of the arm of his chair. He waved his cigarette case back
aimlessly, so that it was near his ear.
"Of course," he said very clearly, "I'm not worried about that. The only
thing I'm bothered about is this bloke Graham. You know, the police might [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Archiwum