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

Simon's eyes settled into blue pools of quiet, and he put the cigarette to his lips again rather slowly in a moment's passive hesitation. And then, with an infinitesimal reckless steadying of his lips, he stretched out a lazy arm and lifted the instrument from its rack.

"Hullo," said a girl's voice. "Can't I speak to------"

"Pat!" The Saint straightened up suddenly and smiled. "I was wondering why I hadn't heard from you."

"I tried to get through twice before, but------"

"I guessed it, old darling," said the Saint quickly. He had detected the faint tremor of strain in her voice, and his eyes had gone hard again. "Never mind that just now, lass. I've got no end of news for you, b'ut I think you've got some for me. Let's have it."

"Teal's been here," she said. "He's on his way to Hawk Lodge right now. Are you all right, boy?"

He laughed; and his laughter held all of the hell-for-leather lilt which rustled through it most blithely when trouble was racing towards him like a charging buffalo.

"I'm fine," he said. "But after I've seen Claud Eustace, I'll be sitting on top of the world. Get the whisky away from Hoppy, sweetheart, and hide it somewhere for me. I'll be seein' ya!"

He dropped the microphone back on its perch and stood up, crushing his cigarette into an ashtray, seventy-four inches of him, lean and dynamic and unconquerable, with a dancing light shifting across devil-may-care blue eyes.

"Listen, Erik," he said, standing in front of the man who looked so much like Nordsten, "a little while ago I tried to tell you who I was. Do you think you can take it in now?"

The man nodded.

"I'm Simon Templar. They call me the Saint. If it was only two years ago when Ivar put you away, you must have heard of me."

The other's quick gasp was sufficient answer; and the Saint swept on, with all the mad persuasion which he could command in his voice, crowding every gift of inspired personality which the gods had given him into the task of carrying away the man who looked, like Nordsten on the stride of his own impetuous decision:

"I'm here because I pretended to be a man named Vickery. I pretended to be Vickery because Ivar wanted him for some mysterious job, and 1 wanted to find out what it was. I heard about that from Vickery's sister, because I got her away last night in London after she'd been arrested by the police. If I hadn't butted in here, Ivar wouldn't have rushed into your murder without a proper stage setting: he wouldn't have been killed, but you would. If you like to look at it that way, you're free and alive at this moment for the very same reason that the police are on their way here to arrest me now."

"I don't understand it altogether, even yet," Erik Nordsten said huskily, "But I know I must owe you more than I can ever repay."

"That's all you need to understand for the next half-hour," said the Saint. "And even then you're wrong. You can repay it--and repay yourself as well."

There was something in the quiet clear power of his voice, some quality of contagious urgency, which brought the other man stumbling up out of his chair, without knowing why. And the Saint caught him by the shoulders and swung him round.

"I'm an outlaw, Erik," he said. "You know that.

But in the end I don't do a lot of harm. You know that, too. Chief Inspector Teal, who's on his way here now, knows it--but he has his duty to do. That's what he's paid for. And he has such a nasty suspicious mind, wherever I'm around, that he couldn't come in here and see--your brother--as things are--without finding a way to want me for murder. And that would all be very troublesome."

"But I can tell him------"

"That it wasn't my fault. I know. But that wouldn't cover what I did last night. I want you to say more than that."

The man did not speak, and Simon went on: "You look like Nordsten. You are Nordsten-- with another first name. With a bit of good food and exercise, it'd be hard for anyone to tell the difference who didn't know Ivar very well; and from the look of things I shouldn't think he encouraged very many people', to know him well. You were intended to take his place eventually-- why not now?"

Erik Nordsten's breath came in a jerk.

"You mean------"