Call for the Saint (7 page)

“Thank you, sir. God bless you,” Simon said, and the florid man, who does not hereafter appear in this record, vanished into the Chicago evening.

The Saint stood in a broad high-ceilinged hall. There were doors and a drab carpet and merciless light bulbs overhead. Fresh paint could not disguise the essential squalor of the place. A few framed mottoes” told any interested unfortunates it might concern that there was no place like home, that it was more blessed to give than to receive, that every cloud had a silver lining, and that a fixed and rigid smile was, for some unexplained reason, an antidote to all ills. The effect of these bromides was to create a settled feeling of moroseness in the beholder, and Simon had no difficulty in maintaining his patiently resigned expression beneath the dark glasses.

Through an open door at the Saint’s left a radio was playing. At the back of the hall were closed doors, and facing Simon was the desk clerk’s cubbyhole, occupied now by an inordinately fat woman who belonged in a freak show, though not for her obesity. The Saint greatly admired the woman’s beard.

It was not so black as a skunk’s nor so long as Monty Woolley’s; but ‘twas enough, ‘twould serve.

The woman said: “Well?”

Simon said tremulously: “I’m looking for Miss Green. Miss Hazel Green?”

“Big Hazel Green?”

“Yes-yes, that’s right.”

“You’re talking to her,” the woman said, placing enormous forearms on the counter and leaning forward to stare at the Saint. “What is it?”

“I was advised to come here. A Mr. Weiss …” Simon let his voice die away.

Big Hazel Green rubbed her furry chin, “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Mr. Weiss, huh? I guess you want to move in here. Is that it?”

Simon nodded.

Big Hazel said: “Shouldn’t you have been here before?”

“I don’t know,” Simon said feebly. “Mr. Weiss did say something about … But I had my rent paid in advance at- at the place where I was staying. I couldn’t afford to waste it. I-I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”

He could feel her eyes boring into him like gimlets.

“That isn’t for me to say. I just take reservations and see who checks in.”

The woman rang a bell. A thin meek little man came from somewhere and blinked inquiringly.

Big Hazel said: “Take over. Be back pretty soon.” She forced her bulk out of the cubbyhole and took Simon’s arm in strong fingers. “I’ll show you your room. Right up here.”

The Saint let her guide him toward the back of the hall, through a door, and up winding stairs. Behind the glasses, his blue eyes were busy-charting, noting, remembering. Like many old Chicago structures, this one was a warren. There was more than one staircase, he saw, which might prove useful later.

“How much higher is it?” he asked plaintively.

“Up top,” Big Hazel told him, wheezingly. “We’re crowded. But you’ve got a room all to yourself.”

It was not a large room, as the Saint found when Big Hazel conducted him into it. The single window overlooked a sheer drop into darkness. The furniture was clean but depressingly plain.

Big Hazel said: “Find your way around. I’ll register you later.”

She went out, Closing the door softly. Simon stood motionless, listening, and heard the lock snap.

The shadow of a smile touched his lips. In his pocket was a small instrument that would cope with any ordinary lock. The lock didn’t bother him-only the reason why it had been used. The vital point was whether it was merely a house custom, or a special courtesy. …

He felt his way methodically around the room. Literally felt it. There were such things as peepholes; there were creaking boards, and floors not soundproofed against footsteps. He was infinitely careful to make no movement that a blind man might not have made. He tapped and groped and fumbled from one landmark to another, performing all the laborious orientations of a blind man. And in fact those explorations told him almost as much as his eyes.

There was an iron bedstead, a chair, a lavatory basin, a battered bureau-all confined within a space of about seventy square feet. The walls were dun-painted plaster, relieved only by a framed printing of Kipling’s If, There was the one little window, of the sash variety, which he was able to open about six inches. He stood in front of it, as if sniffing the grimy air, and noted that the glass panes had wire mesh fused into them.

After a while he took off some of his clothes and lay down on the bed. He did not switch off the one dim light that Big Hazel had left him. He might have been unaware of its existence.

He dozed. That was also literally true. The Saint had an animal capacity for rest and self-refreshment. But not for an instant was he any more stupefied than a prize watchdog; and he heard Big Hazel’s cautious steps outside long before she unlatched the door.

He didn’t know how much time had gone by, but it must have been about three hours.

He was wide awake, instantly, and alert as a strung bow, but without the least movement.

“Who is it?” he mumbled grumpily; and even then he could see her clearly in the doorway.

“It’s Hazel Green. I didn’t mean to disturb you” Some people came in late and held me up.”

“That’s all right,” he said, and sat up.

She came in and shut the door behind her, and stood looking down at him.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, thank you, ma’am.”

“What’s your name?”

He remembered that she had never asked him before.

“Smith,” he said. “Tom Smith.”

“Like all the rest of “em,” she observed, without rancor. “You been in town long?”

“No, not long.”

“How’s it going?”

“Not bad.”

“You’re not a bad-looking guy to end up in a dump, like this.”

“That’s how it goes.” He took a chance, keeping his eyes averted. “You’ve got a nice voice, to be running a dump like this.”

“It’s a job.”

“I suppose so.” He ventured another lead, making himself querulous again. “Why did you lock me in? I wanted to go to the bathroom—
“There’s a thing under the bed. We lock everybody in. It isn’t only men who come here. You have to keep a place like this respectable. Women stop here too.”

For no good reason, an electric tingle squirmed up the Saint’s spine. There was nothing he could directly trace it to, and yet it was unmistakable, a fleeting draught from the flutter of psychic wings. Without time to analyze it, without knowing why, he deadened every response except that of his mind, exactly as he had controlled his awakening when she walked in, and turned the instinctive quiver into a bitter chuckle.

“You wouldn’t expect them to give people like me any trouble, would you?”

“You never can tell.” Big Hazel moved closer, her hands dropping into the pockets of her voluminous skirt. Her voice was still brisk and businesslike as she went on: “I’ll make out your registration tomorrow, and you can put a cross on it or whatever you do.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Would you like a drink?”

The Saint stirred a little on the bedside, as if in mild embarrassment, as the same reflex prickle retraced its voyage over his ganglions. But he still kept his face expressionless behind the blank windows of his smoked glasses.

“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t drink anything. Not being able to see, it sort of makes me a bit dizzy.”

“You won’t mind if I do?”

Without encouraging an answer, she pulled a pint bottle of a cheap blend out of the folds of her skirt and attacked the screw cap. She held the bottle and the cap in pleats of her clothing for a better purchase, but even her massive paws seemed to make no impression on their union.

The Saint paid only incidental attention to her heavy breathing until she said: “The damn thing’s stuck. Can you open it?”

He found the bottle in his hands, and unscrewed the cap with a brief effort of steel fingers.

“Thanks, Mr. Smith.”

She took a quick gulp from the bottle, and guided his groping hand to replace the cap.

“Well, have a good night,” she said.

She went out, and the door closed behind her. And once again he heard the lock click.

Simon lay back on the hard bed, remembering vividly that she had never touched the bottle except through the cloth of her skirt pocket. He rested all night in the same vigilant twilight between sleep and waking, revolving a hundred speculations and surmises; but nothing else disturbed him except hisown goading thoughts.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was surprisingly easy to get out- almost too easy. In the early morning feet crept past the door again, and the lock clicked stealthily. When he tried the door, after a while, it opened without obstruction. He tapped his way downstairs, and the thin meek man at the desk scarcely looked up as he went by. Big Hazel was nowhere to be seen.

In the role of a blind man it would have been difficult to shake off any possible shadowers, but that seemed an unnecessary precaution. If he was suspected at all, everything would be known about him anyway; if not, he would not be shadowed. But he thought he knew which it was.

He showered and shaved at his own hotel; and he was finishing a man-sized breakfast of bacon and eggs when the telephone rang.

“Listen, Mr. Templar,” Lieutenant Kearney said. “You’re not figuring on leaving town, are you?”

“My plans are nearly completed,” Simon informed him. “At the stroke of midnight a small blimp, camouflaged as a certain well-known Congressman, will drop a flexible steel ladder to the roof of this hotel. I shall mount it like a squirrel and flee southward, while the sun sinks behind beautiful Lake Michigan. It all depends on the sun,” he added reflectively. “If I can only induce it to put off sinking until midnight, and do it in the east for a change, the plan will go off without a hitch.”

“Listen—” Kearney said, and sighed. “Oh, well. So you know the Commissioner. So I’ve got to give you a break. Just the same-” His tone changed. “I’ve been getting some information around Chicago.”

“Fine,” Simon approved. “If you run across a good floating crap game, by all means tell me. I need a stake before I make my getaway.”

Kearney went on doggedly: “This stiff we got in the morgue-we found out who he was. His name’s Cleve Friend. He’s a grifter from Frisco.”

“You ought to make a song out of that,” Simon told him.

“Yeah. Well, anyhow, what was the idea saying you didn’t know him?”

“Did I say that?” Simon asked blandly.

“You implied it,” Kearney snapped. “And that don’t check with what I’ve been hearing.”

Simon paused.

“Just what have you been hearing?” he asked.

“Things from people. People around town. Not in your social circle, of course.” Kearney’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Bums, poolroom touts, beggars.”

“Beggars?”

“We ran Friend’s picture in the paper today,” Kearney said. “The photographer retouched it a little-that hole in his head, you know. And some people came in to look at him. They recognized him. He’s a grifter, or I mean he was, and quite a few people have seen him around Chicago the last month or so. Some of them saw you, too. Some of them even saw you both together.”

“Those chatterboxes knew me by name, of course?”

“Listen,” Kearney said, “don’t kid yourself. The Saint’s picture has been in the papers, too, a lot of times. What was it you were seeing Friend about lately?”

“I can’t tell you,” Simon said.

“You won’t?”

“I can’t. I’m too shy.”

“God damn it,” Kearney roared. “Maybe you can tell me why the autopsy on Friend showed he’d been shot full of scopolamin, then!”

Simon’s eyes changed. “Scopolamin? That wasn’t what killed him?”

“You know damn well what killed him. You saw the bullet hole. I’m not doing any more talking to you. Not yet. I will later. I don’t care if you know the Commissioner or the Mayor or the President of the United States! Just don’t leave town, understand?”

“Yes,” Simon said. “I get it. All right, Alvin. I’ll string along. In fact—” He hesitated. “I’ll even tell you why I was seeing Cleve Friend.”

Kearney said suspiciously: “Yeah? Another gag?”

“No. You might as well know, I suppose. I can’t’ keep it quiet forever.”

“Okay,” Kearney snapped. “Spill it.” He could not quite keep the eagerness out of his voice.

The Saint said mildly: “We were plotting his murder. Good-by, Alvin.”

He hung up, leaving the detective gibbering inarticulately, and poured himself another cup of coffee.

“This is what is known as a cumulative frame,” he remarked to Hoppy, who was starting his morning target practice. “I wonder how thorough it’s going to be.”

Mr. Uniatz bounded a BB accurately off the coffeepot.

“I don’t get it, boss,” he said automatically.

“It works backwards,” Simon explained. “First an unidentified body is found, and the only connection between it and me was a deed of gift. Now some people have recognized the body and say that I’ve been seen foregathering with Junior, hereinafter referred to as the unlamented Mr. Cleve Friend, a grifter from Frisco. It’s significant that some of these witnesses are beggars. Later, perhaps, a witness to the murder will pop up: By sheer accident, he happened to be passing when I bumped off Friend.”

“But ya didn’t bump him off,” Hoppy said. “Did ya?”

“No, Hoppy, I didn’t.”

“Den it’s okay, ain’t it?”

The Saint lighted a cigarette and leaned back.

“I wish I could be sure of that.” He blew a procession of three reflective smoke rings towards the ceiling. “Do you happen to know anything about scopolamin?”

“I never hoid of him. Is he in de same mob wit’ dat Gordian?”

“It’s a drug, Hoppy. It makes people tell the truth. And it seems that somebody gave it to Friend before he was bumped off. They wanted to know how much he’d spilled, and he must have told them. We can also be sure that they asked him all he knew about us. … So we can take it that the blind-beggar act is dead and has been for some time.”

A scowl of dutiful concentration formed like a sluggish cloud below Mr. Uniatz’s hairline as he worked this out and tried to reconcile its components. His mental travail appeared to deepen through successive minutes to a painful degree, and at last he brought forth the root of it.