The Saint Bids Diamonds (26 page)

Graner was watching him with an anxiety over which his habitual pose of inscrutable dominance was wearing very thin. And the Saint smiled at him beatifically.

“It sounds fine to me,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Do you know what you intend to do ?”

Simon beckoned the waiter and counted coins to pay for their drinks.

“I guess we go up to the house,” he said. “That’s where all the other vultures are roosting, isn’t it? After all, they’re expecting you to bring me back, and I’d hate to disappoint them.”

“They will be waiting to hold you up.”

“Good. Let ‘em. But they won’t interfere with you just yet, because they’re still divided among themselves. And neither side is sure enough of the other for them to act together against you. So they’ll keep on pretending to play in with you. You can play their game and pretend to help them hold me up. All I want you to do is to see that I have a chance to grab your gun at the right moment; and don’t get the wind up if I point it at you for the sake of appearances. Just see that I get it when I want it, and you can leave the rest to me. Now let’s get moving before they have a chance to organise any new combinations between themselves.”

He pocketed his change and stood up decisively; and Graner followed his lead without question. The reversal was complete-even more so than when the Saint had turned him upside down in the hotel that morning. If he had had time to think about it, the Saint would have suffered the agonies of another bottled-up internal explosion at the supreme climax of Graner’s submission.

The Saint led the way out of the bar with a spring in his step and an impudent swagger in the set of his shoulders. He was on his way to the great moment which he had been living for for nearly twenty-four hours, the time when he could sweep the board clear of all niggling chicaneries and complex deceptions and sail into battle as a buccaneer should sail, with the Jolly Roger nailed to the mast and the trumpets of outlawry sounding in his ears. It was for things like this that the Saint had lived all his life.

And as they crossed the road to where Graner’s car was parked, he saw that it was the Buick.

It was the one thing needed to complete his ecstasy. The one lurking doubt in his mind had been what Lauber might be doing up at the house while Graner was away. If for any reason Graner had used the other car … But Graner. hadn’t. And Lauber would be fuming and sweating, roaming the house like a caged lion in a frenzy of impotent rage. Meanwhile a great many of the inhabitants of Santa Cruz had been ambling innocently around what had probably been the most valuable car in the history of automobile engineering, untroubled by the thought that they could have stretched out their hands and helped themselves to wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

The idea filled the Saint’s whole horizon as Graner started the car and drove it round to speed up the square. Was the ticket still in the same place ?

Where had Lauber ridden when he was picked up the night before? If he had been in the front, where the Saint was now sitting, he could have done something about the ticket when he was driving down with Graner that afternoon. Or had he been too uncertain of his own position, too afraid that Graner might catch him, to take the risk?

Simon’s hands explored all the hiding places which might have been reached by a man sitting in the same seat. He felt in the door pocket, under the floor mat, around the cushions.

He found nothing.

Therefore the ticket must be somewhere in the back, and Lauber had had to leave it there when he was putting Palermo in for fear that Palermo might see him take it.

The Saint stretched out his legs and relaxed comfortably as the car purred up the La Laguna road. It was pleasant to think that he was riding in company with two million dollars, which he could have transferred to his own pocket whenever he chose. He could have put one hand around Graner’s scraggy neck, switched off the engine and choked him gently but firmly off the wheel; after which he could have dropped him in a ditch and taken the car away to dissect it at his leisure. But he had to get Christine out of the house first. He had to discipline himself, to make a virtue of spinning out the luscious anticipation.

Always assuming that the ticket was still there… .

He tried not to think too much about that; and he was still diligently keeping his mind off such unwelcome complications when the car stopped outside the house. Graner held out a key.

“Will you open the gates?”

“What about the dogs?” said the Saint dubiously.

“I left them chained up. If you stay out of their reach you will be quite safe.”

Simon went forward into the flare of the headlights, unlocked the big doors, and pushed them back. The car turned into the drive and flowed past him. He closed the gates again and rammed the bolts home with a series of thuds which Graner would be able to hear. What Graner would not notice was that the thud of each bolt sinking into its socket concealed the noise of another bolt being withdrawn again.

The car had gone on around the house when he finished, and the Saint walked after it. Behind him he heard the sinister snuffling of the dogs straining against the chains that held them to the electrically operated mooring post.

The lights were on in the living room which opened off the hall, and the door was open, but any conversation that might have been going on was silenced at the sound of their approaching footsteps. Simon sauntered in ahead of Graner and cast his blithe and genial glance over the three men who were already there.

“Good evening, boys,” he murmured amicably. “It’s nice to see all your smiling faces gathered together again.”

Their faces were not smiling. There was something about their silent and menacing immobility which reminded him of the first time he had seen them, and the impression was heightened by the fact that they were grouped around the table in the same way as before. They sat facing the door, with their faces turned towards him, watching him like wild beasts crouched for a spring. One of Palermo’s evil-smelling cigars polluted the atmosphere, and his one open eye was fixed on the Saint in a steady stare of venomous hatred. The scenic effects on his face had been augmented by a blackened bruise that spread over his chin beyond the edges of a piece of sticking plaster and a pair of painfully swollen lips for which the Saint was not really to blame. Aliston drooped opposite him, in his flabby way, with the pallor of anxiety making his aristocratic countenance look like a milky mask. Between them sat Lauber, with his heavy brows drawn down in a vicious scowl. He was the only one who moved as the Saint came in. He put a hand inside the breast of his coat and brought out a gun to level it across the table.

“Put ‘em high,” he said harshly.

Simon put them high. Aliston got up and undulated round the table to get behind him. His hands slid over the Saint’s pockets.

The Saint grinned at Graner with conspiratorial glee.

“Is this the way you always receive your guests, Reuben?” he drawled.

Graner’s eyes gave back no answering gleam of sympathy.

“I am not receiving a guest, Mr Tombs,” he said, and there was just something about the way he said it that made the Saint’s heart stop beating.

Graner might have been going to say something more, but whatever might have been on the tip of his tongue was cut off by Aliston’s sudden exclamation.

The Saint looked round, and his heart started off again. It started so violently that his pulses raced.

Aliston was backing away from him, and he held an envelope in his hand. Simon recognised it at the first glance. It was the belated letter which had been handed to him at the hotel, which he had stuffed carelessly into his pocket and completely forgotten under the pressure of the other things that were on his mind. Aliston was gaping at it with dilated eyes, and his face had gone even whiter. With an abrupt jerky movement he flung it on the table in front of the others.

“Tombs!” he said hoarsely. “His name isn’t Tombs! Look at that. His name’s Simon Templar. You know what that means, don’t you? He’s the Saint!”

3
Simon could feel the ripple of electricity that quivered through the room, and was philosophical enough to recognise that there were advantages as well as disadvantages in possessing a reputation like his. Palermo and Lauber seemed to be clinging to their chairs as if the revelation had brought them a stronger feeling of apprehension than of triumph. Aliston was frankly trembling.

Graner stepped forward and peered closely into the Saint’s face.

“You!” he barked.

Even he was shaken by the shock which had hammered the others back to silence. The Saint nodded imperturbably.

“That’s right.” He knew that it would be a waste of time to try and deny it. “I don’t mind letting you in on the secret-I was getting tired of being called Tombs, anyway.”

A moment went by before Graner recovered himself.

“In that case,” he said, with his voice smooth and sneering again, “it only makes our success more satisfying.”

“Oh yes,” said the Saint. “Nobody’s going to stop you collecting your medals. It was a nifty piece of work, Reuben-very nifty.”

He needed no further confirmation of that. The intuitive comprehension of Graner’s cunning which had cramped his intestines a few seconds ago was now settled into his understanding as one of the immutable facts of life.

He had been caught-very niftily. Graner had opened his parlour door, and the fly had walked in on its toes. Simon realised that he had underrated Reuben Graner’s talents as a strategist. If he had been a little less sure of himself, he would have stopped to admit that a man whose plotting had amassed the collection of jewels which he had seen in the safe upstairs couldn’t be the complete sucker which Graner had sometimes appeared to be. Graner had been on the wrong track, that was all. When he got moving in the right direction, he had a beautiful style. The Saint admitted it. Only a consummate tactician, a past master of the arts of psychology and guile, could have thought up the story which had led him so neatly into the trap-the one story in all the realms of unwritten fiction which could possibly have hooked an old fish like the Saint. It had been so adroitly put together that Graner hadn’t even suggested going to the house, If he had shown the least sign of eagerness for that move, the Saint might have been put on his guard. But Graner hadn’t needed to. The Saint had proposed the visit himself, which was exactly what a consummate psychologist and tactician would have known he would do; and Graner had even been able to raise a few halfhearted objections to the proposal… . Oh yes; Graner was entitled to help himself to his medal. Simon bore no malice about it. It had been a grand story, and he still liked it.

After which perfunctory raising of the mental hat,.he passed rapidly on to consider the next move. And nothing was more obvious than that it would have to be made quickly.

Graner’s recovery was having a restorative effect on the others. Simon could feel their relaxation in the diminishing tension of the atmosphere. Aliston was regaining control of his jittered nerves. Palermo was pulling again at his unsavoury cigar, and the red lights in his one good eye were burning hotter. Only Lauber was still hunched stiffly over his gun, as though he could not quite convince himself that the alarming situation was well in hand.

“Perhaps you would like to sit down, Mr Templar,” Graner said softly.

“That’s quite an idea, Reuben, since we’re booked for a conference. This position does get a bit tiring —”

“You can quit that line of talk, see ?”

Palermo jumped out of his chair, with one clenched fist raised. Graner checked him.

“Wait a minute.”

“I’ll knock that grin off his face”

“I said wait a minute. There will be plenty of time for that.”

“That’s right, Art,” said the Saint kindly. “Sit down and save what’s left of your nasty little face. It’s the only one you’ve got, and if you hit me I shall certainly hit you again.”

“If you try to hit anyone,” grated Lauber,“I’ll —”

“You’ll put your gun away and hope for the best. You’re not going to shoot me if you can possibly help it, because you still want to ask me too many questions.”

Graner drew up a chair.

“I should not advise you to rely too much on that,” he remarked sleekly. “If you attempt to fight anybody you will certainly be shot.”

Palermo subsided slowly into his chair. He was still shaking with passion. The Saint opened his cigarette case on the table and continued to smile at him.

“That’s something for you to look forward to, Art. And believe me, It does the heart good to see you so full of virtue and esprit de corps again.” He glanced back at Graner. “In a way, you disappoint me, Reuben. I told you I thought you’d be a mug to swallow all the tales these birds have been telling you, and I’m still thinking it.”

“Seems to me that this proves we did the right thing,” Aliston contradicted him aggressively.

Graner giggled-a queerly incongruous sound that was not at all comic to listen to.

“I think you are still wasting your time, Templar,” be said.

The Saint shook his head reproachfully, although inwardly he was nodding. If you looked at it that way, the revelation of his identity did seem to have thinned away the chances of picking holes in Aliston’s story. In fact, it must almost have made Aliston seem entitled to a medal of his own; but the Saint wasn’t going to award it.

“You jump to too many conclusions, brother. Certainly I’ve been interfering with all of you. But I didn’t start it. You were all so busy double-crossing each other that the obvious thing seemed to be to join in. Just because you’ve discovered that I wasn’t the one dumb innocent in the party doesn’t make the rest of you into a lot of little mothers’ darlings. Now suppose you look at each other-if. you can stand the strain for a few minutes”

“Suppose you let me do the talking,” Graner put in acidly.

Simon spread out his hands.

“But my dear soul, I know it all so well. I’ve listened to it so many times that I’ve lost count of them. You’re going to say that you want to ask me some questions.”