12 The Saint in London (The Misfortunes of Mr Teal)

Teal heard a gasp and a crash behind him and whirled round. He saw the glass in splinters on the table, the beer flowing across the top and pattering down onto the carpet, the girl clutching her throat and swaying where she stood, with wide horrified eyes.

"What's the matter?" he snapped.

She shook her head and swallowed painfully before she spoke.

"It . . . burns," she got out in a whisper. "Inside. . . . Must have been something in it. ... Meant for . . . Simon. . . ."

Then her knees crumpled and she went down.

Teal went to her with surprising speed. She was writhing horribly, and her breath hissed sobbingly through her clenched teeth. She tried to speak again, but she could not form the words.

Teal picked her up and laid her on the chesterfield.

"Get on the phone," he snarled at Barrow with unnatural harshness. "Don't stand there gaping. Get an ambulance."

He looked about him awkwardly. Water--that was the first thing. Dilute the poison--whatever it was. With a sudden setting of his lips he lumbered out of the room.

Patricia saw him go.

Sergeant Barrow was at the telephone, his back towards her. And the bookcase was within a yard of her. Writhing as she was, the sound of one movement more or less would not be noticed. There was no need for stealth--only for speed.

She rolled over and snatched Her Wedding Secret from its place in the bottom shelf. Barrow had been too practical--too methodical. He had not looked at titles. With a swift movement she lifted the first three volumes of one of the inspected piles which he had stacked on the floor, and thrust the book underneath. . . .

"Thank you," said Teal's drowsy voice.

He was standing in the doorway with a grim gleam of triumph in his eyes; and he had not even got a glass of water in his hand. She realized that he had never gone for one. He had thought too fast.

Barrow was gaping at him stupidly.

"You can cancel that call," said Teal shortly.

Patricia sat up and watched him cross the room and pick the book out of the pile. The trip hammer under her ribs had stopped work abruptly; and she knew the fatalistic quiet of ultimate defeat. She had played and lost. There was no more to do.

Mr. Teal opened the book with hands that were not quite steady. The realization of success made him fumble nervously--it was a symptom which amazed himself. He learned then that he had never really hoped to succeed; that the memory of infinite failures had instilled a subconscious presentiment that he never could succeed. Even with the book in his hands, he could not quite believe that the miracle had happened.

It was in manuscript--he saw that in a moment. Manuscript written in a minute pinched hand that crowded an astonishing mass of words onto the page. Methodically he turned to the beginning.

The first page was in the form of a letter:

Villa Philomene, Nice,

A. M. My dear Mr. Templar :

It is some time now since we last met, but I have no fear that you will have forgotten the encounter. Lest it should have slipped my mind at the time, let me immediately pay you the tribute of saying that you are the only man in the world who has successfully frustrated my major plans on two occasions, and who has successfully circumvented my best efforts to exterminate him.

It is for this reason that, being advised that I have not many more months to live, I am sending you this small token of esteem in the shape of the first volume of my memoirs.

In my vocation of controller of munition factories, and consequently as the natural creator of a demand for their products, I have had occasion to deal with other Englishmen, fortunately in a more amicable manner than you would permit me to deal with you. In this volume, which deals with certain of my negotiations in England before and during the last World War, you will find detailed and fully documented accounts of a few notable cases in which prominent countrymen of yours failed to view my activities with that violent and unbusinesslike distaste which you yourself have more than once expressed to me.

The gift has, of course, a further object than that of diminishing any insular prejudices you may have.

At the same time as this book is sent to you, there will be sent, to the gentlemen most conspicuously mentioned in these notes, letters which will inform them into whose hands the book has fallen. After reading it yourself, you will see that this cannot fail to cause them great perturbation.

Nevertheless, while it would be simple for you to allay their alarm and assure your own safety from molestation, I cannot foresee that a man such as I recall you to be would so tamely surrender such a unique opportunity to apply moral pressure towards the righting of what you consider to be wrongs.