Saint in New York (26 page)

“How did we know he’d be any use to us?
Say, he showed
us. Ya can’t get around facts. He had it all worked
out.”

“Yes, I know; but he must have started
somewhere. How
did he get in touch with you? What was the first you
heard
of him?”

Maxie grunted and peered ahead through the
windshield.

“I guess you’ll have to figure that out
yourself—you’ll have
plenty of time,” he said; and Simon
looked out and saw that
the car was slowing down.

Chapter 7

How Dutch Kuhlmann Saw a Ghost,
and
Simon Templar Returned Home

At first the Saint could see nothing but a
stretch of de
serted highway that seemed to reach for endless miles
into the
distance; and then the driver spun the wheel sharply to
the
right, and the car bounced off the road into a narrow lane.

Simon was not surprised that he had failed to
spot it. The
sweeping branches of trees almost met over the bumpy
disused
bypath: their foliage scraped the top of the sedan and brushed
with a
slithering sound against the sides as they went down the
side road
at a considerably reduced speed. Before they had
gone five yards they
were effectively screened from the view of
any car that might be travelling along the
main thoroughfare.

With both hands clinging to the wheel, which leapt and
shuddered in his grasp like a live thing, the
driver headed
deeper and deeper along
the narrow track. If the combined
bulks of Joe and Maxie had not formed
a system of human
wedges pinning him
tightly to the cushions, the Saint would
have been bumped clear of the seat each time the tires car
omed off the boulders that studded the roadbed.

Simon Templar was aware of the quickened
beating of his
heart. There was a dryness in his throat and a vague
feeling of
constriction about his chest that made him breathe a
little
deeper than normally; but the breathing was slow, steady, and
deliberate,
not the quick, shallow gasps of fear. The tension
of his nerves had
passed the vibrating point—they were strung
down to a terrific
immobility that was as impermanent as the
stillness of a
compressed spring. The waiting and suspense was
over; now there was
nothing but the end of the ride to see, and
a chance for life to
be taken if fate offered it. And if the chance did not offer, that was the end
of adventures.

The lane was growing even narrower as they went on; the
trees and bushes that lined its sides closed in
upon them.
Plainly it had been
derelict for years: the march of macadamized arteries had swept by and left it
for no other service
but for such
journeys as they were on, and its destination, if it
had ever had one, had long since found other and
faster com
munications with the
outside world. At last, when the stream
lined body of the sedan could make no further headway, the driver jammed
on the brakes and brought the car to a lurching
halt. Then he snapped off the headlights, -leaving only the
bright glow of the parking lights to illuminate the
scene.

A good enough spot for a murder, the Saint was
forced to admit; and he wondered how many other men had dared the
vengeance
of Dutch Kuhlmann and the Big Fellow, only to
pay for their
temerity in that lonely place. With the switching
off of the purring
engine all sound seemed to have been blotted out of the night, as if the world
had been folded under a
dense pack of wool; even the distant hum of
other cars away
back on the highway they had left, if there were any, was
in
audible. As far as the Saint could see, there was nothing around
them but a
wilderness of trees and shrubbery scattered over
an undulating stony
common; a man could die there with no
sound that the world would ever hear,
and his body might lie there for weeks before some chance passer-by stumbled on
it and sent a new blare of headlines screaming across the front
pages.
Suddenly the Saint guessed why he had been taken so
far, with such
precautions, instead of simply being pushed out
on any New York
street and riddled with bullets as the car
drove away. It had
been sufficient often enough for other victims; but this case was different. The
handling of it linked up
with certain things that Orcread and Yeald
had discussed. The Saint was not to become a martyr or even a sensation: he was
to disappear, as swiftly and unaccountably as he had come,
like a
comet—all questions could go unanswered perhaps for ever, and the fickle public
would soon forget… .

Something creaked at the back of the car,
breaking the still
ness; and Maxie roused himself. He climbed out
unhurriedly
and turned round again as soon as he was outside, his automatic
glinting dully in the subdued light. He jerked it at the
Saint
expressively.

“Out, buddy.”

Behind the Saint, Joe’s gun added its subtle
pressure to the
command.

Simon pulled himself up slowly. Now that the
climax of the ride was reached, he had ceased speculating upon the reactions
of a doomed man. Every cell in
his keen brain, every nerve and
fibre of his
body, was dynamically alive and watchful. His
mind had never worked more clearly and smoothly, his body
had
never been keyed to a more perfect pitch of physical fitness, than they were
at that moment in the deepening shadow
of
death. It was impossible to think that in a few brief mo
ments, with one inconceivably numbing, crashing
shock, that
vibrant, pulsing life could be stilled, the brilliant mind
dulled
for ever, the play and delight of
sensual experience and the
sweet
awareness of life swallowed up in a black nothingness
from which there was no return.

He stepped down gradually to the running
board. A yard
from him, Maxie’s automatic was levelled steadily at his
chest;
behind him, Joe’s gun pushed no less steadily into his back.
The wild
thought crossed his mind that he might launch himself onto Maxie from the
running board in a desperate smothering leap, trusting to the surprise to bowl
him over before he could shoot, and to the beneficent darkness to take care of
the
rest. But in
the next instant he knew that there was no hope
there. In spite of his outward stolidity, Maxie was watching
him like a cat; and he had measured his distance
perfectly. To
have jumped then would have been to jump squarely into a
bullet, and Joe would probably have got him from
behind at
the same time.

With a face of iron the Saint lowered
himself to the ground and straightened up, but his eyes met Maxie’s calmly
enough.

“Is this as far as we go?” he
inquired.

“You said it,” Maxie assented
curtly.

Behind him, Simon could hear the crunch of Joe’s brogans on the
soil as the other gunman followed him out, and the
brusque click of the door closing again. The weight of the gun
muzzle touched his back again. He was gripped
between two
potential fires as
securely as if he had been held in a pair of
tangible forceps; and for
the second time that icy qualm of
doubt
squirmed clammily in the pit of his stomach. In every
movement that was made there was a practised
confidence, an
unblinking vigilance,
such as he had never encountered be
fore. No other two men he had ever
met could have held him in the car so long, talking to him and lighting his
cigarettes,
without giving him a moment’s
chance to take them off their
guard. No other two men that he could
think of could have
manoeuvred him in and
out of it without offering at least one
even toss-up on a break for freedom. He had always known, at
the back of his mind, that one day he must meet
his match—
that sometime, somewhere, the luck which had followed him
so faithfully throughout his career must turn
against him, as it
does in the life of every gambler and adventurer who
refuses
to acknowledge any limits. But he
had not thought that it
would happen
there—just as no man ever believes that he will
die tomorrow, although he knows that there must come a to
morrow when he will die.
…
A
thin shadow of the old
Saintly smile
touched his lips and did not reach his eyes.

“I hope you’re going to do this with all
the regular formali
ties,” he said gently. “You know, I’ve often
wondered just how
the thing was done. I’d be awfully disappointed if you
didn’t
bump me off in the most approved style.”

At the back of him, Joe choked on an oath;
but Maxie was
unimpressed.

“Sure,” he agreed affably.
“We’ll give you a show. But there ain’t much to it. Just in the line of
business, see?”

“I see,” said the Saint quietly.

The complete unconcern, the blandly brutal
callousness of Maxie’s reply, seemed to have frozen something deep in his
heart. He
had faced death before—death that flamed out at
him in violent,
seething hate, death that dispassionately proposed his annihilation as a
matter of cold expedience. He had
dealt out death himself, in various
ways. But never had he
known a man to attempt to snuff out another’s
Life so casually,
with such an indescribable absence of all personal feeling,
as
this ruthless killer who was preparing to send a bullet through
his
vitals—“just in the line of business… .”

The Saint had had his own rules of the game;
but at that
moment they were forgotten. If he ever broke loose from
the
trap in which he was held, if Destiny offered him that one lone
ghost of a
break to get away and join in the game again, for
the rest of that
adventure he would play it as his opponents
played it—giving no
quarter. He would be the same as they
were—utterly without mercy or compunction.
He would have
only one remedy for all mistakes—the same as theirs.

In the dim light his eyes had lost all
expression. Their gaze
was narrowed down to a mere frosty gleam of
jagged ice.

“Over by that tree,” directed Maxie
conversationally.
“That’s the best spot.”

His phrasing of the words held a sinister
implication that
many other spots in that locality had been tried, and that
his
choice was based on the findings of long experience; but the
suggestion was absolutely
unconscious. He seemed even more
indifferent
than if he had been posing the Saint for a photo
graph.

Simon looked at him for a moment and then
turned away.
There was nothing else he could do. Sometimes he had won
dered why
even on the way to certain death a man should still
submit to the
dictation of a gun; now, with a terrible clarity
of reason, he knew the
answer. Until death had actually struck
him, until the
ultimate unanswerable instant of annihilation,
he would cling to the
hope that some miracle must bring re
prieve; obedient to some illogical
blind instinct of self-pres
ervation, he would do nothing to precipitate
the end.

Under the turning muzzle of Maxie’s gun, the
Saint took up
his position against the trunk of a towering elm and
turned
round again. Joe nodded approvingly and at a sign from
Maxie
stepped closer to prepare the victim for execution ac
cording to the
gangland code.

Methodically he unbuttoned the Saint’s coat
and opened it;
then began a similar task upon his shirt.

“Some guys started wearin’ bullet-proof
vests,” Maxie explained cheerfully.

Simon’s nerves were tensed to the last
unbearable ounce; his body was rigid like a steel bar. Now there was only Maxie
cov
ering him: Joe was fully taken up with his gruesome ritual,
and the
voiceless driver had raised the hood of the car and was
seemingly
engrossed in some minor ailment that he had detected in its mechanism. If he
was to have a chance at all, it
could only be now.