The Saint in Action (27 page)

“Nobody ever knew who Mercia met that night or even where she went,” said Sheila Ireland, her slim white fingers nervously twisting her empty cigarette holder. “I suppose they took her away like—like they thought they were taking Beatrice. Nobody could have blackmailed Mercia. She never had any affairs, and everybody loved her. And she just laughed at the idea of being kidnapped—here in England. When they started demanding money she just laughed at it. She wouldn’t even go to the police. All anybody knows about this is that she once said to her maid: ‘That idiotic Z-Man who keeps phoning must be an escaped lunatic’ And then–-” She shivered. “Since then we’ve all been terrified.”

“It’s an old racket with a new twist,” said the Saint. “The ordinary blackmailer has something on his victim. The Z-Man has nothing–except the threat that he’ll disfigure them and ruin their screen careers if they don’t come across. I seem to remember that some other actress recently had a nervous breakdown, exactly like Mercia Landon. The picture she was in was shelved, too, and it’s still shelved. She went to Italy to recuperate. I take it that she was victim number two. She was threatened, she lost her nerve, and she paid. She saved her good looks, but her bank balance wasn’t big enough to go on paying. So Beatrice is probably victim number three.”

The girl shuddered.

“I know I am,” she said. “During the last three weeks I’ve had three telephone calls—always in a thick, guttural, foreign sort of voice, asking me for ten thousand pounds. I was told to lunch at the Dorchester, and if 1 saw that the knives and forks formed the letter Z I was to have my lunch and then leave the package of money under my napkin. And he said if I went to the police or anything they’d know about it, and they’d do the same to me as they did to Mercia without giving me another chance to pay… . Today was my last chance, and when I saw the knives and forks in the shape of a Z I think I lost my nerve. When you came to my table, Mr Templar, I thought you must be the man who was to take the money. I hardly knew what I was doing–-“

“Take a look at that cunning, will you, Pat?” said the Saint. “It’s a million to one that his victim won’t go to the police; but he’s even ready for that millionth chance. He’s ready to pick up the money as soon as the girl has left the table; disguised as a gentleman, he’s sitting there all the time, and as he walks past the table he collars the package. And he’s got his alibi if the police should be watching and pick him up. He happened to see the young lady had left something, and he was going to hand it over to the manager. No proof at all that he’s the man they’re really after. It also implies that he must be somebody with a name and reputation as clean as an unsettled snowllake and as far above suspicion as the stratosphere… . But who was it? There was a whole raft of people at the Dorchester, and I can’t remember all of them—unless it was good old Sergeant Barrow.”

“If the Z-Man was in the Dorchester today he must have seen your knightly behaviour,” said Patricia thoughtfully. “And he must have seen you pocket Beatrice’s last week’s salary.”

“But he didn’t know who I was, and I expect he beetled off as soon as he saw that something had come ungummed,” said the Saint, stubbing the end of his cigarette into an ash tray and lighting a fresh one. He turned. “What about the picture you’re working on now, Beatrice? I’ll make a guess that it’s nearly finished, and if anything happened to you now the whole schedule would be shot to hell.”

She nodded.

“It would be—and so should I. My contract doesn’t entitle me to a penny if I don’t complete the picture. That’s why–-“

She broke off helplessly.

Simon went to bed with plenty to think about. The Z-Man’s plan of campaign was practically foolproof. Film stars are able to command colossal salaries for their good looks as well as their ability to act—sometimes even more so. All three of his guests were in the twenty-thousand-pounds-a-year class; they were young, with the hope of many more years of stardom ahead of them. Obviously it would be better for them to pay half a year’s salary to the Z-Man rather than suffer the ghastly disfigurement that had been inflicted on Mercia Landon; for then they would lose not only half a year’s salary but all their salaries for all the years to come.

The film world still didn’t really know what was happening. Beatrice Avcry had been afraid to tell even her employers about the threats she had received, for fear that the Z-Man would promptly carry out his hideous promise. Irene Cromwell and Sheila Ireland had each received one message from the Z-Man and had been similarly terrorized to silence. Only Patrica’s blunt statement that the Saint had found their photographs in Raddon’s pocket had made them unseal their lips after she had got them to St George’s Hill.

Simon could well understand why he had never heard of the Z-Man before. Even in the film world the name was only rumoured, and then rumoured with scepticism. These three girls were the only ones who knew, apart from Mercia Landon, who was dead, and the actress who had fled to Italy.

For once in his life he spent a restless night, impatient for the chance of further developments the next day; and he walked into Chief Inspector Teal’s office at what was for him the fantastic hour of eleven o’clock in the morning.

“I thought you never got up before the streets were aired,” said the detective.

“I put on some woolly underwear this morning and chanced it,” said the Saint briefly. “What do you know?”

Mr Teal drew a memorandum towards him.

“We’ve checked up on that address you gave me. I think you’re right, Saint. There’s no such person as Otto Zeidelmann. It’s just a name. He’s had the office about three or four months.”

“His occupation dates from about the time Mercia Landon died,” said Simon, nodding. “Anything else?”

“He never went there in the daytime apparently,” answered the detective. “Always after dark. Hardly anybody can remember seeing him. The postman can’t remember delivering any letters, and we didn’t find a fingerprint anywhere.”

“You wouldn’t,” said the Saint. “A wily bird like him would be just as likely to walk about naked as go out without his gloves. But talking about fingerprints, what’s the report on that gun?—which, by the way, is mine.”

Mr Teal opened a drawer, produced the automatic and pushed it across the desk. Chewing rhythmically, lie also handed the Saint a card on which were full face and profile photographs of one Nathan Everill.

“Know him?”

“My old college chum, Andy Gump—otherwise known as Mr Raddon,” said the Saint at once. “So he has got a police record. I thought as much. What do we know about him?”

“Not very much. He’s not one of the regulars.” Teal consulted his memorandum, although he probably knew it by heart already. “He’s only been through our hands once, and that was in 1933. From 1928 to 1933 he was private secretary to Hubert Sentinel, the film producer, and then he started making copies of Mr Sentinel’s signature and writing them on Mr Sentinel’s cheques. One day Mr Sentinel noticed something wrong with his bank balance, and when he went to ask his secretary about it his secretary was on his way to Dover. He was sent up for three years.”

“What’s he been doing since he came out?”

“He reported in the usual way, and as far as we knew he was going quite straight,” replied Mr Teal. “He was doing some free-lance writing, I think. We’ve lost track of him during the last five or six months–-“

“He’s got a new job—as the Z-Man’s assistant,” said the Saint. “And, by the Lord, he’s the very man for it! He knows the inside of the film business, and he must hate every kind of screen personality, from producers downwards, like nobody’s business. It’s a perfect setup… . Have you seen Sentinel?”

“I’m seeing him this afternoon—he probably knows a lot more about Everill than we do. But you aren’t usually interested in the small fry, are you?”

“When the small fry is in the shape of a sprat, yes,” answered the Saint, rising elegantly to his feet. “You see, Claud, old dear, there might be a mackerel cruising about in the neighbouring waters… . That’s a good idea of yours. I think I’ll push along and see Comrade Sentinel myself.”

The detective’s jaw dropped.

“Hey, wait a minute!” he yapped. “You can’t–-“

“Can’t I?” drawled the Saint with his head round the door. “And what sort of a crime is it to go and have a chat with a film producer? Maybe my face is the face the world has been waiting for.”

He was gone before Teal could think of a reply.

Mr Hubert Sentinel, the grand panjandrum of Sentinel Films, was not an aristocrat by birth or even a Conservative by conviction; but even he might have been slightly upset if he had heard himself referred to as “Comrade Sentinel.” For he was considered a coming man in the British film industry, and obtaining an entry into his presence was about as easy as getting into Hitler’s mountain chalet with one fist clenched and a red flag in the other.

But the Saint accomplished the apparently impossible at the first attempt. He simply enclosed his card in a sealed envelope with a request that it should be immediately delivered to Mr Sentinel, and he waited exactly two minutes.

Mr Sentinel was in conference. He took one look at the card, and during the next half minute one matinee idol, one prominent author, two script writers, a famous director and a covey of yes-men were swept out of the office like leaves before an autumn gale. When Simon Templar was admitted Mr Hubert Sentinel was alone, and Mr Sentinel was looking at the back of the Saint’s card. On it were pencilled the words: Re the Z-Man.

“Take a pew, Mr Templar,” he said, pushing forward a cigar box and inspecting his visitor out of bright and observant eyes. “I’ve heard about you of course.”

“Who hasn’t?” murmured the Saint modestly.

He accepted a cigar, carefully clipped the end, lighted it and emitted a fragrant cloud of blue smoke. It was merely an example of that theatrical timing which so pleased the Saint’s heart. Sentinel waited restively, turning a pencil between his fingers. He was a thin bald-headed man with a birdlike face and an air of inexhaustible nervous vitality.

“If it had been anyone else I should have thought it was some crank with a bee in his bonnet,” he said. “We get a lot of them around here. But you–- Are you going to tell me that there’s anything in these rumours ?”

“There’s everything in them,” said the Saint deliberately. “They happen to be true. The Z-Man is as real a person as you are.”

The producer stared at him.

“But why do you come to me?”

“For the very important reason that you once employed a man named Nathan Everill,” answered the Saint directly. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me something useful about him.”

“Good God, you’re not suggesting that Everill is the Z-Man, are you?” asked the other incredulously. “He’s such a poor specimen—a chinless, weak-minded fool–-“

“But you employed him as your secretary for five years.”

“That’s true,” confessed Sentinel hesitantly. “He was efficient enough—too damned efficient, as a matter of fact. But he always had a weak streak in him, and it came out in the end. He forged my name to some cheques—perhaps you know about that… . But Everill! It doesn’t seem possible–-“

The Saint shook his head.

“I didn’t say he was the Z-Man. But I know that he’s very closely connected with him. So if you can help me to locate Everill you’ll probably help me to get to close quarters with the Z-Man himself. And he interests me a lot.”

“If you can get him, Templar, you’ll not only earn my gratitude, but the gratitude of the whole film business,” said Hubert Sentinel, rising to his feet and pacing up and down with undisguised agitation. “If he’s a real person at least that gives us something to fight. Up to now he’s just been a name that people have tried to stick onto something they couldn’t explain any other way. But when we see our stars having mysterious breakdowns just when pictures are in their last scenes —getting hysterical over something you can’t make them talk about—well, we have to put it down to something.”

“Then you’ve had trouble yourself?”

“I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence or not,” replied Sentinel carefully. “I’ll only say that my production of Vanity Fair is held up while Mary Donne is recovering from a slight indisposition. She has said nothing to me, and I have said nothing to her. But that doesn’t prevent me from thinking. As for the rest, Mr Templar, I believe I can tell you a great deal about Everill.” He sat down again and rubbed his chin in earnest concentration. “You know, I’ve got some ideas of my own about the Z-Man. Can you tell me just what your interest in him is?”

“I have various interests,” said the Saint, leaning back and making a series of perfect smoke rings. “The Z-Man must have collected a fair amount of boodle already, and that’s always interesting. I take it that if I got rid of him nobody would mind me helping myself to a reward. And then I don’t like his line of business. I think it would be rather a good idea if he was put out of the way—for keeps.”

“Unless he puts you out of the way first,” suggested the producer grimly. “If he’s the sort of man he seems to be–-“

The Saint shrugged.

“That’s all in the game.”

The other smiled appreciatively.

“I sincerely hope it won’t be in your game,” he said. “As for Everill—what do you want to know?”

“Anything you can remember. Anything that might give me a lead. What his tastes are—his amusements —his favourite haunts—his habits—why he started forging cheques–-“

“Well, I suppose he’s an extravagant little devil— wants to live like a rich playboy and so on. I suppose that’s why lie had to increase his income. He was trying to run one of my actresses, and he couldn’t keep pace with her. She had a big future ahead of her, and she knew it–-“

It was as if the Saint’s ears had closed up suddenly, so that he scarcely heard any more. All his senses seemed to have been arrested except the sense of sight, and that one filled his brain to the exclusion of everything else. He was staring at Hubert Sentinel’s hands, watching the thin nervous fingers twiddling the pencil they held—and remembering another pair of hands… .