Call for the Saint (21 page)

“Chees,” Hoppy said in admiration, “I hit it right in de middle. Dey musta felt de breeze when it goes by.”

“I hope it gave them as bad a chill as theirs gave us,” said the Saint.

They walked back to the house and went up the broad stone steps and rang the bell. After a while the door opened a few inches. Simon leaned on it and opened it the rest of the way. It pushed back a long lean beanpole of a man with a sad horse face and dangling arms whose wrists stuck out nakedly from the cuffs of his sweater. And as he saw him, a gleam of recognition shot through the Saint’s memory.

The tall man’s recognition was a shade slower, perhaps because his faculties were slightly dulled by the surprise of feeling the door move into his chest. He exhaled abruptly, and staggered back, his long arms flying loosely as though dangling on strings. As he recovered his balance he took in Hoppy’s monstrous bulk, and then the slim supple figure of the Saint closing the door after him and leaning on it with the poised relaxation of a watchful cat, the gun in his hand held almost negligently… . Slowly, the long bony wrists lifted in surrender.

The young pawnbroker’s description repeated itself in the Saint’s memory. Also he recalled Mike Grady’s office and a tall thin character among the loiterers in the reception. This was the same individual. The odyssey of the gun was beginning to show connections.

“Who are you, chum?” Simon asked, moving lightly towards him.

“I know him, boss,” Hoppy put in. “De name is Slim Mancini. He useta be a hot car hustler.”

“I work here,” the beanpole said in a whining nasal tenor that had a distinct equine quality about it. He sounded, the Saint thought, just like a horse. A sick horse. “I’m the butler,” Mancini added. He glanced back at a door down the hall and opened his mouth a fraction of a second before the Saint stepped behind him and clamped a hand over it.

“No announcements, please,” the Saint said, his other arm curving about Mancini’s neck like a band of flexible steel. “This is strictly informal. You understand, don’t you?”

The man nodded and gasped a lungful of air as the Saint removed the pressure on his throat.

“Slim Mancini-buttlin’!” Hoppy sneered hoarsely. “Dat’s a laugh.” He grunted suddenly as Simon jabbed a warning elbow into his stomach.

The muffled voices in the room down the hall had gone silent.

“Walk ahead of us to that door,” the Saint whispered to Spangler’s cadaverous lackey, “and open it and go in. Don’t say anything. We’ll be right behind you. Go on.”

Mancini’s sad eyes suddenly widened as he stared over the Saint’s shoulder, apparently at something behind him.

Simon rather resented that. It implied a lack of respect for his experience, reading background, and common intelligence that was slightly insulting. However, he was accommodating enough to start to turn and look in the indicated direction. It was only a token start, and he reversed it so quickly that Mancini’s hand was still inches from his shoulder holster when the Saint’s left exploded against his lantern jaw.

Simon caught the toppling body before it folded and lowered it noiselessly to the carpet.

Mr. Uniatz kicked it carefully in the stomach for additional security.

“De noive of de guy,” he said. “Tryin’ a corny trick like dat. Whaddas he t’ink we are?”

“He’ll know better next time,” said the Saint. “But now I suppose we’ll have to open our own doors—”

Blam!

The stunning crash of a heavy-caliber pistol smashed against their eardrums and sent them diving to either side of the hallway.

The Saint lay there, gun at the ready, waiting. The shot had come from the room ahead, where they’d heard the voices; but he noticed that the door was still shut… . Seconds passed. … A weak moan, muffled by the closed door, punctuated the silence.

Simon signaled Hoppy with a lift of his chin, and they stood up again and advanced noiselessly. He motioned Hoppy back into the shadows as they reached the door. Then he turned the knob, kicked the door open, and stayed to one side, out of reach of possible fire.

There was silence for a moment. All he could see in the sunlit portion of the room visible to him was a huge fireplace and a corner of a desk… . Then from within came a challenge in an accent that was unmistakable.

“Well?” Dr. Spangler barked impatiently. “Come in!”

The Saint stood there a moment, looking into the triangle of the interior visible to him, estimating his chances of meeting a blast of gunfire if he showed himself. In the two seconds that he stood there, weighing the odds, he also realized that an unexpected diversion had taken place. What it was he didn’t know. But it did lend some excuse for hoping his presence might yet be miraculously undiscovered. … It was a flimsy enough hope, but he decided to gamble on it. He signaled Hoppy to stay back and cover him as best he could, and stepped into the room.

Doc Spangler was seated at the desk, leaning forward, his arms on the desk, staring at him. Beyond him in a corner of the big room was Karl, down on one knee beside the prostrate body of a man whose head was concealed by the squat body of Spangler’s ursine lieutenant. There was a gun in his hand, pointed at the Saint from his hip, as if he had been interrupted in his examination of the man he had apparently just shot.

For one second it was quite a skin-prickling tableau; and then Simon took a quick step to one side which placed Spangler’s body between him and Karl’s gun muzzle.

“Better tell your baboon to lay his gun on the floor, Doc,” he suggested, and his smile was wired for sudden destruction. ”You might get hurt.”

Spangler half turned in his swivel chair toward Karl.

“You imbecile!” he spat, his usual fat complacency temporarily disconnected. “I told you to put up that gun! It’s gotten me into enough trouble for one day. Put it on the floor as he says.”

Karl laid the gun down slowly, grudgingly, glooming balefully past Spangler at the Saint.

“Thank you,” said the Saint. “Now get up and stand away.”

Karl rose to his feet slowly and shuffled aside as the Saint stepped around the desk and came to a startled halt.

He was looking down incredulously at the face of the man lying on the floor. One side of it was caked with blood and the hair was red with it, but that presented no obstacle to recognizing the owner. It was Whitey Mullins.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mr. Uniatz’s heavy breathing reverberated in Simon’s ear.

“Dey got Whitey!” His head jerked up suddenly at Karl and Spangler, his gun lifting. “Whitey was me pal!” he snarled. “Why, you—”

Simon stopped him.

“Don’t shoot the Doc-yet. Whitey may need him.” ‘The Saint’s eyes were cold blue chips. “Let’s have the score, Spangler, and make it fast.”

“He isn’t dead,” wheezed the fat man damply. “It’s only a graze. He brought it on himself, coming here to my home to assault me. Karl had to stop him, but he didn’t hurt him much. You can see that for yourself. The bullet just grazed his scalp and went into the wall there-see?”

He pointed a plump finger to a hole in the wall above Mr. Mullin’s prostrate form.

Whitey moaned and opened his eyes.

“Saint!” he mumbled feverishly.

Simon pocketed his automatic and bent over him.

“Take it easy, Whitey. It’s okay.” He went on without turning his head: “Doc, I’ll bet you a case of Old Forester that Karl doesn’t live to draw that gun he’s trying to sneak out of his pocket.”

“Eh?” Spangler grunted blankly.

Hoppy’s attention flashed back to the danger on hand, swiveling his gun to the thug’s belly. One of Karl’s hairy paws had already dipped halfway into a coat pocket.

“Reach!” Mr. Uniatz rasped.

“Hands empty, please,” Simon smiled pleasantly over his shoulder.

The squat gunman slowly dragged his hand out of his pocket and raised both arms over his head.

Simon stepped over to him and extracted a Colt automatic from his pocket. Then he proceeded to run his hands with expert deftness down Karl’s sides, under his arms, inside his thighs, and along his back. He patted his sleeves, paused, and plucked another gun from inside one of the gunman’s cuffs. It looked like a toy, no larger than a magnified watch charm, but it held a .22-caliber shell in its chamber.

“Forgive me for underestimating you, comrade,” he said. “You’re a walking arsenal, aren’t you?”

He pulled what seemed to be a fountain pen from Karl’s breast pocket and examined it briefly. He chuckled, pushing Karl so that he stumbled backwards. Simultaneously, Simon exploded a capsule of tear gas from one end of the “fountain pen” squarely into the gangster’s nose. Karl clutched his face with both hands and reeled halfway across the room, tripping over a chair and crashing to the floor.

“That stuff spreads!” Spangler gasped. “We’ll all get it—”

“Take it easy,” said the Saint. “The windows are open, and there isn’t enough in one of those pills to do much harm unless it’s shot straight at you.”

“What do you want?” Spangler demanded, a glister of panic in his eyes. “Why did you come here?” He looked down at Whitey as the trainer gripped the edge of the desk for support and pulled himself to his feet with Hoppy’s quick aid. Spangler pointed at him, his eyes narrowing. “I understand. You’re working for him now!”

Simon lighted a cigarette.

“Don’t confuse yourself, Doc. Hoppy and I represent our own business only-the Happy Dreams Shroud and Casket Company. I’m sorry we weren’t able to accommodate your boy Karl last night. We’d have liked to give him a fitting, but he was in such a hurry …”

He glanced at Karl, who, on all fours, was crawling blindly toward the door.

A leer of gargoyle delight transfigured Hoppy’s features as he observed the proffered target. He took three steps across the room and, with somewhat better form than the previous night, launched a thunderous drop kick that caught the unfortunate thug squarely, lifting his entire body off the floor in a soaring ballotade, and dropped him sprawling in a corner.

Spangler stared fascinated at his limp cohort, and then again at Hoppy. His gaze swung uncertainly back to the Saint. He cleared his throat.

“I fail to comprehend,” he began, with an attempt to regain his habitual pomposity, “why you should—”

“I’m quite sure you do comprehend,” the Saint broke in suavely, “why I should resent your sending that goon over to my apartment last night to kill me.”

Spangler opened and shut his mouth like a frog.

“I sent him to your apartment?” he said in shocked tones.

“You hoid him!” Hoppy growled.

“But my dear boy, I did no such thing!” Doc Spangler plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his shining pink brow. He frowned at Karl, who was beginning to stir again in the corner. “If he took it upon himself to- uh-visit you last night, it must have been a matter of personal inspiration. I had nothing to do with it, believe me.”

“Strangely enough,” said the Saint surprisingly, “I do.”

“He’s lyin’,” Whitey grated fiercely. “He was gonna knock me off if you hadn’t come when ya did.”

“That’s entirely untrue,” Spangler said. “Mullins forced his way in here; he was abusive and threatening, and when he tried to attack me physically Karl had to fire a shot in my defense.”

“However,” the Saint continued, “a repeat performance was staged less than an hour ago near Sixth Avenue, with three characters and a black sedan taking the chief roles in another attempt to reunite Hoppy and me with our illustrious ancestors.”

“I assure you, sir, that I—”

“Excuse me,” the Saint interrupted. “I’m willing to believe that Karl might attempt a solo mission on account of the kicking around we gave him in the dressing room, but there were three men in the second try. I’m rather certain the driver was Karl. He might have done that to grind a private axe, but the other two must have had other inducements, Doc, old boy. Inducements supplied by you, perhaps.”

Spangler shook his head bewilderedly.

“But-you’re entirely off the track, dear boy. Karl has been here in the house for the past three hours.”

“Then he must have a twin running around loose gunning for me. … As for the other two-I’d lay some odds that one of them was your new butler, Jeeves Mancini, the demon majordomo, who seemed to be sort of lying down on the job when I saw him. The third man,” said the Saint dispassionately, “may very well have been you.”

Spangler’s expression of outraged innocence would have done credit to a cardinal accused of committing bigamy.

“But that’s simply preposterous. I haven’t left the house yet today. As a matter of fact, Karl and Slim and I were about to leave for the gym to meet the Angel when you arrived.” He spread his hands. “Surely you’re not serious when you say you actually expected to find three anonymous snipers-men who tried to shoot you from a car like movie gangsters-here in my house?”

“I don’t say I had that idea all along,” Simon admitted. “It just kind of grew on me when I found their car parked in front of this house. Your Stanley Steamer, I presume, Dr. Livingstone?”

“What!” Spangler”s eyes were round with appalled amazement. “My dear boy, are you sure you’re not feeling the heat? My car has been parked there all day.”

“I did feel the heat,” said the Saint gently, “of your car’s engine. For a jalopy that hadn’t been moved all day, it was awfully feverish.”

“Standing out there in the sun—”

“It might get the chill off. But I hardly think the sun was quite hot enough to burn those holes through the rear window and the windshield.”

Spangler sank back into his chair, shaking his head helplessly.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to prove,” he protested earnestly. “But if you mean those bullet holes, they’ve been there for nearly a month now. One of the boys became a little exuberant one night and—”

“Skip it,” said the Saint amiably. “I didn’t come here to torment you by putting the stretch on your imaginative powers. Any time a good story is needed, I’m sure you can come up with one. I just wanted to make one point for the record. The next time any uncomfortable passes are made at me or any of my friends-among whom I am going to include Steve Nelson -I am just automatically going to drop by and beat the bejesus out of you and any of your teammates who happen to be around. It may seem rather arbitrary of me, Doc; but an expert like you should be able to allow for my psychopathic fixations… . Let’s go, Whitey.”