Leslie Charteris The Saint 25 The Saint On Guard

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He was outside another door then, listening, when the voice came firmly
through it to his ears. Just a voice: the voice of Siegfried Maris, generally
known as Joe. But coming with a clear suddenness that was like traveling back
in time and never having heard a talking picture, and suddenly hearing a
screen speak.
It said: "Keep your hands well up, Lieutenant. Please don't try anything
stupid. It wouldn't do you any good."
And then Kinglake's savage growl: "You son of a bitch how did you get out of
the Blue Goose?"
The Saint's mouth opened and closed again in a noiseless gasp, and a ripple
of irresistible laughter rose up through him like a stream of bubbles to break
soundlessly at his lips. Even at a moment like that he had to enjoy the
perfection of that finishing touch.
"We have our own way out," Maris replied calmly. "It's very useful, as you
see. But if you didn't know about it, how did you follow us here?"
"I didn't. When I didn't find Templar at the Blue Goose, I thought he might
have come here with Ivanovitch."
"An excellent deduction, Lieutenant. And quite correct. He did come here with
Ivanovitch. But that wasn't his choice. . . . It's very fortunate that you're
a detective and not a burglar, isn't it? If you'd been a burglar you wouldn't
have made such a clumsy entrance, and it mightn't have been half so easy to
catch you."
Simon settled his fingers on the door knob as if it had been a wafer-shelled
egg. He began to turn it with micrometric gentleness.
"You bastards," Kinglake said. "What have you done with them?"
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"You'll see for yourself, when you join them in just a few minutes."
"So you're Maris, are you? I should have known it."
"A pardonable oversight, Lieutenant. But you may still call me Joe, if it
will make you feel more comfortable."
Simon waited through an infinitesimal pause, with the door handle fully
turned.
Kinglake said: "I guess you can have oversights too. You aren't getting away
with anything, Joe. I've got men outside "
The low hard chuckle of Maris came through the door.
"An old bluff, Lieutenant, but always worth trying. I know that you came
alone. Fritzie was watching you outside, and we made sure of that before we
let you break in. Now if you'll be very careful about holding your arms up
while Blatt takes your gun "
That was the pleasantly dramatic moment when it seemed right to the Saint to
throw the door wide open.
It was a nice composition that framed itself through the opening, a perfect
instant of arrested motion, artistic and satisfactory. There was Lieutenant
Kinglake standing with his hands up and his jaw tensed and a stubborn snarl
around his eyes, with Johan Blatt advancing towards him. Fritzie Weinbach
stood a little off to the right, with a big snub-nosed automatic leveled at
the detective's sternum. Simon could identify them both without ever having
seen them before the tall blond man and the fat red man with the cold bleached
eyes.
He saw Siegfried Maris too, for the first time as the man he was instead of
the forgotten bartender called Joe. It was amazing what a difference there
was. He sat behind a desk, without the disguise of the white coat and the
quick obsequious serving movements, wearing an ordinary dark business suit,
and obviously the dominant personality of the group. For ultimate proof, he
even had a flat light tan case and a shabby pocket memorandum book among some
papers on the blotter in front of him. Simon knew even from where he stood
that they must be the notes of Henry Stephen Matson and the diary of Nick
Vaschetti. It was all there.
And Maris was there, with his square powerful face that hadn't a natural
smile in any line of it; and he was turning towards the interruption with his
eyes widening and one of his strong swift hands already starting to move; and
the Saint knew without any further study, without a second's hesitation, that
this was the one man he had to get and be sure of, no matter what else
happened afterwards.
The knife sped from his hand like a glitter of leaping silver, flying like a
splinter of living light straight for the newly retired bartender's throat.
Then Lieutenant Kinglake had taken advantage of the diversion to make a grab
for his gun, and the room was full of thunder and the dry stinging tang of
cordite.
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13Simon Templar didn't carve notches in the handle of his knife, because they
would eventually have affected the balance, and he was used to it and he hoped
it would last for a long time. He did worry about rust and the way it could
dull a blade. He wiped the blade very carefully on Maris's shirt before he put
the knife back in its sheath.
"Let's face it," he said; "he did pour some of the lousiest drinks I ever
paid for." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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