[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
heroically to recover from her last relapse.
"This is Mr. Robert Parker Illet, the legal weasel I was talking about," he
explained kindly. "The Stanley Parker who bought this place, I imagine, is the
ancient uncle who brought him up now in his second childhood, and a convenient
stooge for an operation like buying this house. But it was our boy who had all
the fun out of it: as the caretaker, he could have the same use of it without
anyone bothering him. You were looking for him as Jolly Roger Ivalot, the
playboy of Piccadilly. You were never even close to recognizing him as Bob
Inchpenny, the colored caretaker and apparent candidate for churchwarden."
Illet came slowly across the room, holding his gun very competently.
"You were rather lucky yourself," he said. "If you hadn't met Mrs. Dayne, I
don't think you'd have recognized me."
Simon observed him with critical detachment.
"It's one of the best jobs of blackface I ever saw," he conceded. "You were
smart to shave your head all over nobody didn't risk showing a margin on your
skin made-up. You were lucky to have brown eyes and rather thick lips to begin
with but who ever looks at a Negro and wonders if he could be a white man in
disguise? You only made one conventional mistake. For some strange reason,
four out of five crooks who take an alias don't seem to be able to shake off
the habit of their original initials. That's where you started to click with
me the minute I met you."
"It's a pity you're so clever," Illet said, coming closer. "I'm going to
search you now, and I hope you won't do anything silly, but I'll warn you that
I was a commando in the last war."
Simon drew at his cigarette, deeply enough to inhale enough fumes for a
smoke-ring, but keeping his elbows away from his body and his hands
ingratiatingly above his shoulders, while Illet felt his pockets and around
his waist and under his arms.
"Havelock Dayne never left this island, did he?" said the Saint. "A lot of
this rock is hollow I was remembering a couple of spots where they take
tourists,LeamingtonCaveandCrystalCave, over near theCastleHarbour. I think one
Page 31
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
thing that may have helped sell you on this place is that there's a lovely
little private cave right under our feet."
"There's a door to it in the basement," Illet said, stepping back. "Mr. Dayne
is there now."
"Alive?" Simon inquired, rather carefully.
"Certainly. You remarked very observantly that I'm cautious. It was as easy
to chain him up there alive as to kill him. And if anything had gone wrong,
the penalty for kidnaping here is much lighter than for murder. I hope I can
keep you and Mrs. Dayne alive, too until I'm quite sure that everyone's given
you up and it's safe to kill you."
The Saint shrugged.
"Well, that's almost friendly," he drawled. "We'd better get going, because
that policeman you heard me send for should be here very soon. May I finish my
drink? And did they teach you this in the commandos "
He reached for the glass he had put down, but in the same movement he bumped
clumsily against the couch with his knee. The glass tilted and began to fall.
His hand followed it frantically, but somehow veered off and dived behind the
cushion. It came out again instantly, with his automatic in it, and without
even a fragmentary pause he shot Mr. Ivalot-Inchpenny-Illet having taken
everything into consideration, only through the right forearm.
v
There was no difficulty about finding the entrance to the cave it was a
locked door in the cellar which the "caretaker" had once told Lona Dayne led
only to a store room in which Mr. Parker kept a lot of old trunks full of
personal papers. Nor was there any additional problem about finding Havelock
Dayne, by way of a crooked tunnel that sloped down into a limestone cavarn of
quite spacious dimensions considering the size of the island that covered it.
It must have been discovered long ago in the course of excavating for a
rainwater cistern; but however Illet had come to hear of it, he had evidently
en-visaged an emergency use for it, in his prudent way, for the iron ring set
in concrete to which the missing bridegroom was attached by a long chain was
no antique but had certainly not been installed within the past week.
Mr. Dayne was dirty and unshaven, but looked as if he would be fairly
personable when he was cleaned up. He revealed no physical damage, but he had
been badly frightened, and was correspondingly indignant when he realized that
there was nothing more to be frightened about. He seemed to be a very
serious-minded young man, who did not regard being chained in a cave for three
days and nights as an amusing adventure.
"This settles it you're resigning from that goddam news] paper right away,"
was one of the first thing he said.
"We'll talk about that as soon as I've cabled this one last story," said his
bride, with what a more experienced spouse would have identified at once as
ominous serenity.
Simon Templar was less interested in various other things that they had to
Page 32
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
say to each other than he was in a couple of large mildewed valises which he
located in another corner of the cave. They were not locked, and when he
opened the lids he knew that he had never seen so much cash all in one place
at one time.
"Here are those personal papers you were told about," he murmured. "If this
episode had gone exactly the way I was dreaming when I took up the trail, and
I weren't involved now with you respectable citizens, I suppose I'd have left
Jolly Roger trussed up upstairs just as he is now, but with only my Saint
drawing chalked on his bald head for a souvenir; and I'd still be gone with
the boodle before the cops got here if I'd ever even sent for them. And now
all I can do is hope for a lousy few hundred thousand dollars' reward."
"If you helped yourself to a few handfuls in advance," Lona said, "we'd never
tell anyone. Would we, Havvie?"
An infinitesimal, scarcely perceptible spasm passed over the Saint's face, as
at the twinge of an old wound.
"I wonder if Mrs. Havelock Ellis called her husband that," he said in
suddenly appalled conjecture; but neither of them was even listening to him
again.
THE TALENTED HUSBAND
i
The young man at Heath Row was very impersonal, ver polite. He looked up from
the passport and said: "Oh, Mr. Templar. Would you step this way, please,
sir?"
Simon Templar followed him obligingly from the reception room in which the
other passengers from the plane were being processed. The most respectable
citizen receiving an invitation like that, no matter how courteously phrased,
could have ex-perienced a sensation of vacuum in the stomach; but to Simon
such attention at any port of entry had become almost as rou-tine as a request
for his vaccination certificate. For the days when harassed police officers
and apprehensive malefactors, not to mention several million happily
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]