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

She caught her breath for an instant; and suddenly she seemed to see him again for the first time, and the flicker of fear came and went in her brown eyes. He stood with his hands in his pockets, lean and dark and dangerous and debonair, smiling at her with a cigarette between his lips and a wisp of smoke curling past his eyes; and it is only fair to say that he enjoyed his moment. But still he smiled, at himself and her.

"Well, I'm not a cannibal," he murmured, "although you may have heard rumours. Why don't you sit down and let's finish our talk?" She sat down slowly.

"About--pillows?" she said, with the ghost of a smile; and he began to laugh. "Or something."

He sent Hoppy Uniatz out to the kitchen to brew coffee and gave her a cigarette. She might have been twenty-two or twenty-three, he saw-- the indifferent lighting of Bond Street had had no need to be kind to her. He was more sure than ever that her red mouth would smile easily and there would be mischief in the brown eyes; but he would have to lift more than a corner of the shadow to see those things.

"I told you the Barnyard Club was no place to go," he said, drawing up a chair. "Why wouldn't you take my advice?"

"I didn't understand."

All at once he realized that she was crediting him with having known that the raid was going to take place; but he showed nothing in his face.

"You've got hold of it now?"

She shrugged helplessly.

"Some of it. But I still don't know why you should have--bothered to get me out of the mess."

"That's a long story," he said cheerfully. "You ought to ask Chief Inspector Teal about it some day--he'll be able to tell you more. Somehow, we just seem to get in each other's way. But if you're * thinking that you owe me something for it, I'm afraid you're right."

He saw the glimmer of fear in her eyes again; and yet he knew that she was not afraid of him. She had no reason to be. But she was afraid.

"You--kill people--don't you?" she said after a long silence.

The question sounded so startlingly naive that he wanted to laugh; but something told him not to. He drew at his cigarette with a perfectly straight face.

"Sometimes even fatally," he admitted, with only the veiled mockery in his eyes to show for that glint of humour. "Why--is there anyone you'd like to see taken off? Hoppy Uniatz will do it for you if I haven't time."

"What do you kill them for?"

"Our scale is rather elastic,'' he said, endeavouring to maintain his gravity. "Sometimes we have done it for nothing. Mostly we charge by the yard------"

"I don't mean that." She was smoking her cigarette in short nervous puffs, and her hands were still unsteady. "I mean, if a man wasn't really bad --if he'd just made a mistake and got into bad company------"

Simon nodded and stood up.

"You're rather sweet," he said humorously. "But I know what you mean. You're frightened by some of the stories you've heard about me. Well, kid--how about giving your own common sense a chance? I've just lifted you straight out of the hands of the police. They're looking for you now, and before tomorrow morning every flat-footed dick in London will be joining in the search. If I wanted to get tough with you I wouldn't need any third degree--I'd just have to promise to turn you right out into the street if you didn't come through. I haven't said a word about that, have I?" The Saint smiled; and in the quick flash of that particular smile the armour of worldlier women than she had melted like wax. "But I do want you to talk. Come on, now-- what's it all about?"

She was silent for a moment, tapping her cigarette over the ashtray long after all the loose ash had flaked away; and then her hands moved in a helpless gesture.

"I don't know."

Her eyes turned to meet his when she spoke, and he knew she was not merely stalling. He waited with genuine seriousness; and presently she said: "The boy who got into bad company was my brother. Honestly, he isn't really bad. I don't know what happened to him. He didn't need to be dishonest--he was so clever. Even when he was a kid at school he could draw and paint like a professional. Everyone said he had a marvellous future. When he was nineteen he went to an art school. Even the professors said he was a genius. He used to drink a bit too much, and he was a bit wild; but that was only because he was young. I'm eighteen months older than he is, you see. I didn't like some of his friends. That man who was --arrested with me--was one of them."

"And what's his name?"

"Jarving--Kenneth Jarving. ... I think he used to flatter Tim--make him feel he was being a man of the world. I didn't like him. He tried to make love to me. But he became Tim's best friend. . . . And then--Tim was arrested. For forgery. And it turned out that Jarving knew about it all the time. He was the head of the gang that Tim was forging the notes for. But the police didn't get him."

"Charming fellow," said the Saint thoughtfully.