The Saint Meets the Tiger (19 page)

Lapping had delivered this discourse in a kindly and charitable way, such as a man might use who had seen too much of the world to judge anyone hastily and who understood enough to be able to pardon much, and Patricia found it hard to doubt his sincerity. Still, she had a card or two yet to play, and she did not intend to let the Saint down by allowing herself to be too easily won.

“You’re a wonderful help, Sir Michael,” she said. “You’ve more or less expressed what I feel myself…. It’s a comfort to know that I’m not alone in my lunacy.”

“I think, though,” he warned her, “you ought to ask the young man to give his own explanation. If he trusts you, and if he’s the type I gather he is, he’ll make a clean breast of it all. Hasn’t he told you anything about himself?”

She was instantly on her guard.

“What sort of things?” she countered, and he showed surprise that she should ask such a question.

“Well, things! He can’t have expected you not to be at all curious about the reason for these extraordinary goings-on.”

“He just told me I must be patient and believe in him. He said it would be dangerous for me to know too much, but that once it was all cleared up and the enemy was out of the way he’d be able to explain it all.”

“And who is this mysterious enemy?”

“Mr. Templar calls him the Tiger—I don’t know why.”

Lapping knitted his brows for a time in thought.

“I seem to recognize the nickname,” he said. “Wait a minute…. Wasn’t there a sensation in the papers some time ago? A Chicago gang called the Tiger Cubs had broken a bank and escaped with an enormous sum of money in gold—something of the sort.”

She kept her face perfectly blank.

“I can’t remember,” she said. “It doesn’t convey anything to me.”

“I can’t place it on the spur of the moment, but I’m certain it was something like that. But a Chicago gang leader in Baycombe! That sounds rather far-fetched.”

“I know it does,” she granted ruefully, “But so do some of the true things I’ve told you this afternoon.”

His hand just touched her arm. He smiled again —his frequent friendly smile that was so nearly irresistible even to her newborn suspicion of everything and everybody. But one thing checked her impulse to believe in him and look for enemies elsewhere. She was looking into his face, and she would have sworn that there lurked in his eyes a glimmer of suppressed amusement.

“Then shall we give it up?” he said. “We could argue for hours, and get no farther. All you can do is to possess your soul in patience. Sooner or later events will prove whether your intuition is right or wrong, and then you will be able to make your decision with a clearer vision. Meanwhile, you can only act as your heart dictates. There’s a trite and priggish piece of sentimental moralizing for you! But what else can an old fogey offer?”

“You’re too silly!” she iaughed. “I’m awfully grateful.”

“Then, having temporarily settled the fate of the greatest romance in history; what about the tea you promised yourself?”

She thanked him, and he rose and went into the house to give the order and tidy himself up.

She was glad of the respite, for she was finding it a strain to obey the Saint’s injunction and maintain the pose of a kind of cross between a sleuth, a conspirator, and a fugitive with a price on her head., And Lapping, after so obligingly leading the conversation into the path she wanted it to follow, had given her no help at all. He was very winning and benevolent, and quite at his ease. All her baiting of the trap and stealthy stalking of her quarry had yielded not a trace of a guilty conscience. But there was still the disturbing matter of his amusement to account for. She had an uncomfortable and exasperating feeling that he was quietly making fun of her—that her crude and clumsy attempts to make him give himself away afforded him a secret malicious delight. He had given nothing away, and that fact only reenforced her growing belief that he had something to give if he chose to do so.

It was a disconcerting realization to have to face —that Lapping had read through her studied innocence and seen her for nothing more or less than the emissary of the Saint, and that he was simply playing with her. Would any law-abiding man, however tolerant, have been quite so broad-minded? She began to doubt it, while she had to admit that her grounds for doing so were very flimsy. If Lapping were high up in the Tiger Cubs, he would be a clever man, and a clever man would know that to try to turn her against the Saint would immediately arouse suspicion of his motives; whereas by taking the Saint’s part he might hope to inveigle her into regarding him as a potential ally. But how could an ex-judge, most of whose life had been led in the glaring light of publicity, have managed to enter such a gang as the Tiger’s? Her brain reeled in a dizzy maze of impossible theories, of profound subtleties and super-crafty countersubtleties. If Lapping were in league with the Tiger, and had seen through her, how high would he be likely to rate her intelligence? For according to that rating he would be skilfully gauging her psychological reactions to his insidious attack, so that on the very points where she thought he had betrayed himself he would have fooled her into making exactly the deductions he wanted her to make. And to beat him at that game she would have to be just a shade cleverer than he gave her credit for being—and how clever was that? For the first time she got an insight into the true deadly technique of the “sport” she had taken up so light-heartedly.

Now Lapping emerged from the house, carrying a folding table. Behind him followed his housekeeper with the tray of teachings. For an instant Patricia was seized with panic. Suppose Lapping were one of the Tiger Cubs—even the Tiger himself —and had discovered her object and decided to remove her? The tea could be drugged, cakes could be poisoned. She choked back an impulse to rush away, forcing herself to think of Simon. What would the Saint have done in the circumstances? Well, for a start, he’d never have allowed them to arise. But how would he face them if they had arisen? She compelled herself to deal logically with her fear, and the answer came. Whatever Lapping might be, and however much he suspected, he wouldn’t dare to do anything to her just then, because of the possibility that the Saint might be keeping an eye on the proceedings, watching and waiting to see if Lapping would fall for the temptation and so incriminate himself. The answer was sound. Patricia relaxed, and greeted Lapping with a friendly smile when he arrived.

“I feel I’m giving you a lot of trouble,” she apologized.

He waved her excuses aside.

“Not at all, my dear Miss Holm. It’s a pleasure. And the trouble is negligible—for a bachelor, I’m very domesticated, and dispensing tea is one of my social, assets.”

He was genial and unreserved. The secret amusement which she had noticed was no longer evident. Either he had ceased to see the funny side of the situation, or his pleasure in it had become too great to show. She found herself again falling under the spell of his avuncular bonhomie, but the memory of that half-hidden mockery in his eyes continued to bother her. Wouldn’t a man with nothing to conceal have shown his amusement openly, if he found anything comic in being appealed to for advice on such a matter? What other explanation could there be except the one that Lapping was playing a shrewd game?

Perhaps the Saint would know. The bare facts must be placed in his possession at once, for Patricia felt that she was hopelessly out of her depth. She ate and drank sparingly, praying for the earliest moment at which she could take her leave without seeming in too great a hurry. Lapping, either ignoring her perturbation or failing to see any signs of it, chatted pleasantly; Patricia did her best to keep up the part she was playing. She must have done it successfully, for he appeared pained and surprised when she made a tentative move to gather up her belongings.

“Must you leave me so soon?”

“I’ve promised to see my aunt before dinner,” she said. “There’s some business to talk over— something about my investments. It’s an awful bore, but the letter’s got to be written to-night so that it can go off first thing in the morning.”

It was amazing what a fluent and convincing liar she had become of a sudden.

“Needless to say, I’m heartbroken,” he vowed, pressing her hand. “But perhaps I can hope that you’ll come again? I’ll talk as seriously as you want me to—I think I can understand your difficulty, and perhaps, with all due respect to Miss Girton, I’m the best qualified person in Baycombe to advise you. Perhaps you could even arrange to bring Mr. Templar with you? He needn’t know that I have your confidence.”

“I’ll try to get him to see you,” she averred truthfully.

“I’d be delighted. I’m very idle, and I hate ceremony, so we don’t have to bother about a formal invitation. Just drop in without notice—you’ll find me at your service.”

She thanked him, and he escorted her to the gate. She had just passed through it when an inspiration struck her. And the blow staggered her, so desperate and daring was the idea. But she carried it out before she had time to falter.

“By the way,” she said, “how’s Harry the Duke?”

The question sprang to her lips so artlessly and naturally, so apropos of nothing that they had been talking about for a long time, that she could not have contrived it better to take him off his guard. She was watching his face keenly, knowing how much depended on his reaction. But not a muscle twitched and his eyes did not change—she was studying those intently, well aware that the expression of the eyes is a hard thing for even the most masterly bluffer to control. He looked surprised, and thought for a second.

“Why, whatever makes you ask that?” he inquired in frank bewilderment.

“Simon—Mr. Templar mentioned that you’d once sentenced a dangerous criminal of that name, and he said he thought the man might make an attempt on your life.”

He nodded.

“Yes, I remember—Templar said as much to me the first time we met. Harry the Duke swore from the dock that he’d get even with me. But I’ve heard the same threat several times, and I’m still alive, and it hasn’t spoiled my sleep.”

Patricia made her escape as soon after that as she could. She had to confess herself utterly baffled. However Lapping had behaved earlier in the afternoon, his response to that startling question of hers could not have been more open or more genuine. The name of Harry the Duke conveyed nothing more to Lapping than a crook he had sent to prison in the course of his duty—she would have given her oath for it. He had been unaffectedly taken off his guard, and yet there had been no vestige of fear or suspicion in his puzzlement. Could a guilty man have accomplished such a feat—even if he were the most consummate actor that was ever born?

The girl felt a crying need for Simon Templar*s superior knowledge and acuter judgment. She was helpless—beaten. But for the amusement she had detected in Lapping’s eyes, she would not have hesitated to acquit him. Even now she was strongly impelled to do so, in the light of developments subsequent to that, and she was casting around for some theory that would eliminate any malevolent motive and still account satisfactorily for the indisputable fact that he had seen at once what she had been driving at and had calmly and effectively refused to allow himself to be inveigled into saying any more than he chose to say.

But then—the realization only came fb her with stunning conviction when she was walking up the drive to the Manor—if Lapping were blameless, then the only person who could be the Tiger was Agatha Girton!

Chapter XIII

THE BRAND

She was aghast at the thought.

Could she have been living for months and years in the home of the Tiger? It seemed impossible, and yet the theory seemed to get more watertight with every second. It would account for Agatha Girton’s continual absences abroad, and the letters which came from the Riviera could easily have been fake alibis. But in that case the trip to South Africa would have been real enough—the Tiger would naturally have gone there to look for a derelict gold mine to salt with his plunder, as the Saint had explained. And she remembered that Agatha Girton had been away just about the time when the Tiger had broken the Confederate Bank.

So the Tiger was a woman! That was not outside the bounds of credibility, for Miss Girton would have had no trouble in impersonating a man.

Patricia had to fight down her second panic that afternoon before she could open the front door and center the house. It struck her as being unpleasantly like walking into the Tiger’s jaws as well as walking into his den—or her den. If Miss Girton were the Tiger, she would already be suspicious of Patricia’s sudden friendship with Simon Templar; and that suspicion would have been fortified by the girl’s adventure of the previous night and her secre-Itiveness about it. Then, if Lapping was suspect also, it would not be long before the Tiger’s fears would be confirmed, and she would be confronted with the alternatives of making away with Patricia or chancing the girl’s power to endanger her security. And, from all Simon’s accounts of the Tiger, there seemed little doubt on which course the choice would fall.

The Tiger must be either Lapping or Miss Girton. The odds about both stared Patricia in the face–and it looked as if Aunt Agatha won hands down.

At that moment the girl was very near to flying precipitately back to the Pill Box and surrendering all the initiative to Simon: the thought of his trust in her checked that instinct. She had been so stubbornly insistent on being allowed to play her full part, so arrogantly certain of her ability to do it justice, so impatient of his desire to keep her out of danger—what would he think of her if she ran squealing to his arms as soon as the fun looked like becoming too fast and furious? To have accepted his offer of sanctuary would not necessarily have lowered her in his eyes; but to have refused it so haughtily and then to change her mind as soon as she winded the first sniff of “battle would’ be a confession of faintheartedness which he could not overlook.

“No, Patricia Holm,” she said to herself, “that’s not in the book of the rules, and never has been. You would have a taste of the soup, and now you’ve fallen in you’ve jolly well got to swim. He wouldn’t say anything, I know, and he’d be as pleased as Punch—for a day or two. But after a bit he’d begin to think a heap. And then it’d all be over—smithereened! And that being so we’ll take our medicine without blubbering, even if the jam has worn a trifle thin…. Therefore, Patricia Holm, as our Saint would say, where do we go from here?”