“Well, precious, I did that rather well, I think.” Precious nodded. “You should have been an actor.”
“I am an actor. I’m sure she was completely convinced.”
“I’m sure she was,” the redhead responded. “The only thing that worried me was that she’d ask questions until somebody came back from lunch and found us there.”
“It was beginning to worry me, rather. But I imagine that Whitehall luncheons tend to run behind schedule. I still don’t observe any mad stampede for the filing cabinets and the dictaphones.”
He said his last words as the lift reached ground floor and opened its doors. The place was relatively deserted. With his curvacious accomplice at his side, the tall man walked briskly through the lobby. The commissionaire glanced at them without interest or recognition. Outside, in the warm air, the erstwhile official adjusted his bowler hat and breathed deeply with a smile of appreciation both of the beautiful summer day and of his own success.
“There’s still one real question,” the girl said to him. “Do you think she’ll really keep quiet?”
“Oh, I think so. She’s got several good reasons for keeping her mouth shut. And if she doesn’t, she’ll damn well wish she was in the gentle clutches of the Special Branch. I would not like to see what our friends would do to her if she spoiled things at this point.”
Chapter 3
As he paused before the window of the Leonardo Galleries, Simon Templar might easily have been taken for an art lover of casual quest for some addition to his collection. Not only was he in the most suitable Mayfair setting, but he also had the inoffensively arrogant air of a connoisseur, and he wore the clothes of a person who has both the taste and the money to patronise a tailor whose clientele includes an impressive number of princes, tycoons, and film stars. His trousers and sport jacket had the same costly simplicity as the white-painted fluted wood and gold-lettered glass of the façade before which he was standing.
But if anyone looked at him more closely — as several ladies did in passing — it is very possible that they would have sensed something incongruous in his appearance. He had none of the pallid softness of a typical rich city-dweller. There was certainly nothing of the aesthete in his movements or bearing. The deep tan of his complexion accented the intense, aerial blue of his eyes; there was not an ounce of excess weight on his body, which despite its entirely natural relaxation gave an impression of containing the pent-up strength of a drawn longbow. An observer might have guessed that this magnetically handsome Londoner, if he was a Londoner, had just returned from a safari in Africa, or had spent the English winter playing polo in South America.
The safari theory might have appealed the most, because this man had such an air of the hunter about him — a quiet but continuously alert watchfulness which gave the impression that even here in sedate Mayfair lions might wait round any corner.
One observer in the street near the Leonardo Galleries on this particular early afternoon did not have to guess at the identity or occupation of the lean, tall man who seemed momentarily absorbed in studying the art dealers’ display. The observer, who was as plump and soft as the observed was sinewy, knew the other man’s name, several of his aliases, and a great deal about his past activities. For the observer was Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal of Scotland Yard, and it was his business to know as many facts as possible about anyone relevantly connected with the world of crime and its borderlands of illegality. In Chief Inspector Claud Teal’s territory, lions of a sort might really lurk at Mayfair crossings, and the most perfectly tailored gentleman might be a hunter far more deadly than any member — or leader — of a Nairobi-based shooting party.
Mr. Teal was feeling pleased with himself for having remained undetected by the man across the road. It was an unusual experience for him to be a step ahead of this particular individual; it was so unusual as to be a rarity akin to the invasion of Hyde Park by grazing giraffes. Mr. Teal, like a habitual loser in the stock market determined to grab his first small profit before it fades, decided to make his move — as his prey moved a step nearer the entrance door of the art gallery and looked as if he might go through it at any moment.
The detective wanted to say something clever when he surprised his victim. As his blue-suited form bobbed like a bubble through the traffic, he tried to think of something superior to “Boo!” or “Surprise!” or “Reach for the sky!” He did not want to say anything too threatening for fear of triggering his quarry’s notoriously swift and accurate reflexes of self-preservation and finding his own rotund body suddenly sprawled on the pavement.
But Chief Inspector Teal need not have worried, either about the wit of his lines or his physical fate. No sooner had he gained the other side of the street and stealthily approached to within two yards of the other man’s back, than without looking round his supposed prey sang out in an embarrassingly full voice:
“Hail, Claudius Eustacious, Conqueror of Soho, Emperor of the Embankment!”
“Templar,” Teal said, “keep quiet!”
He said it in a choked voice, as if by constricting his own throat he might do the same to the other man’s vocal cords.
“Such modesty, Claud,” said the Saint, still without turning to look at him. “Don’t you want all these people to appreciate your innumerable exploits in defending them against the barbarian hordes? I’m surprised that London didn’t invite you to hold a triumphal procession long ago.”
Teal, when flustered, was not good at repartee. Perhaps it was not his greatest gift at any time.
“Don’t go into that gallery until I’ve talked to you,” he said.
Now the Saint faced him, his blue eyes confident, laughing.
“You seem to have taken personal charge of everyone, Claud. I felt sorry for you standing over there in the shade, but now that you’ve come over to the sunny side of the street it hasn’t done your disposition a bit of good. How about a drink? Would that help?”
“I’m not looking for any help from you for anything—” Teal stopped because the Saint was moving closer to the entrance of the Leonardo Galleries. “I’ve asked you not to go into that shop until I’ve talked to you,” he repeated in a fierce tone, which worked wonders with his subordinates but in this case produced only amusement.
“Why are you so obsessed with my stepping into this picture palace, Claud? Don’t alarm yourself. I’d have gone in five or ten minutes ago except that I knew you’d follow me, and I didn’t want to embarrass you by luring you out of your natural culture-less element. I thought the sudden transition into the midst of all that art might prove too much for your undernourished soul.” He peered intensely at the detective. “You do have one, don’t you?”
“What?” Teal asked.
“A soul.”
Teal groped in his pockets until he found a packet of chewing gum. Extracting a stick, he peeled the paper away, and as he spoke he used it as a pointer, for emphasis: “I have an idea what you’re doing hanging around his place,” he said, “and I know that this isn’t the first time you’ve been here.”
Simon looked guiltily through the window into the gallery’s lush interior.
“You won’t tell my mother, will you?”
“We’ve had a peaceful time lately, with you occupied elsewhere, and I don’t want you stirring up trouble where there doesn’t need to be any.”
The detective was waving the bare powdery stick of gum in the Saint’s face, and Simon drew back slightly and said: “Do you intend to do anything useful with that?”
Teal popped it into his mouth and jawed it defiantly.