Of Simon Templar it could truly be said that to him all the world was a stage, and all the men and women merely players in an endless comedy drama designed for his especial entertainment and incidentally his cut at the box office.
To Mr Stratford Keane, all the world was also a stage, with the difference that he was the principal player and all the other men and women merely audience. This attitude persisted in spite of the fact that it was many years since the public had last shown any great desire to see him behind the footlights, and his thespian activities had been largely restricted to giving readings from Shakespeare to women’s clubs and conducting classes in The Drama in the more obscure summer-theater colonies. In spite of these slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, however, he still maintained the fur-collared overcoats, the flowing ties, the long white locks, and the sweeping gestures of his departed day, and wherever he might be, the fruity resonance of his voice was still pitched to the second balcony in rounded periods from which every traditional caricature of a Shakespearean ham might have been taken.
Simon saw him advancing through the Pump Room, not in a perfectly straight line, for one of the causes of Mr Keane’s eclipse was a weakness for the stuff that maketh glad the heart of man, but nevertheless with an unmistakable destination, and the attractions of Chicago fell under a slight cloud.
“Don’t look now,” he said to Patricia Holm, “but we are on the brink of another recital.”
The main attraction of Chicago at the moment glanced up.
“Poor old Stratford,” she said. “He’s a good-hearted old bore. And not such a fool as you think, or why do you think he got the job of directing this new production of Macbeth?”
“Probably it was the only way they could get rid of him,” Simon suggested. “So long as he’s locked up in a theater in rehearsal he can’t be out boring people anywhere else.”
“You and your big heart,” Patricia said. “It’s a wonderful break for him, and he must have needed it badly.”
“I’m thrilled to death at Stratford Keane getting a break,” Simon assured her. “And I should be almost ecstatic if you’d never introduced him to me.”
It was a little late to dream along those lines, for Mr Keane was already upon them and fully determined to make the most of their acquaintance. He held a half-filled glass over his heart and bowed deeply.
“Ah, Miss Holm! And Mr Templar,” he boomed, causing people several tables away to look up and try to locate the loudspeaker. “Well met, well met!”
Patricia smiled.
“How are you this evening, Mr Keane? — Won’t you sit down?” she added hastily, as Mr Keane leaned rather heavily on the table and shook a few drops out of their cocktails.
“A pleasure,” Mr Keane sat down, and heaved a vast and doleful sigh. “Ah, this is indeed a haven in a world where every man must play a part — and mine a sad one...”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“I have just returned from the theater,” stated Mr Keane tragically, as if he were announcing the end of the world. “We went through one of our final rehearsals.”
“Was that bad?” Simon asked.
Stratford Keane surveyed him pityingly.
“Young man,” he said, “to use the word ‘bad’ in that connection is to scorn all the resources of the English tongue. As a masterpiece of understatement, however, it might have some merit.”
“You mean you won’t be able to open on schedule?” Patricia asked sympathetically.
“On the contrary,” said Mr Keane. “I’m afraid we shall.”
Simon raised his eyebrows. “Afraid?”
“My dear boy,” said Mr Keane heavily, “the success of Shakespeare in the emasculated theater of today is uncertain even with the most brilliant of performers, but when the lines of the Bard are assaulted by a gang of bellowing buffoons and dizzy doxies such as have been thrust upon me, the greatest play of all time would be doomed before the curtain rose.”
“But isn’t Iris Freeman a good actress?” Patricia asked.
“As a soubrette, yes. But as Lady Macbeth—” Mr Keane made an expressive gesture which swept an ash tray off the table. “Still, I could almost bear with her if only she would not insist on putting all her friends in the cast regardless of their incompetence — and most especially that tailor’s dummy, Mark Belden, whom she picked as her leading man.”
“I never heard of him,” Simon admitted.
“Would that I shared your happy ignorance. Unfortunately, I have been condemned to get to know Mr Belden so well that his voice will ring in my ears until they sink into the merciful silence of the grave. A vaudeville hoofer who murders Shakespeare with every breath he takes!”
“But aren’t you the director?” Patricia put in. “Don’t you have anything to say about the cast?”
Stratford Keane glowered at her despondently. “My dear, your innocence is equaled by nothing but your beauty. The only voice which has anything to say about the cast is the voice of the money which is backing the production, which happens to belong to Miss Freeman.”
“Shouldn’t you have said that it belonged to Rick Lansing?” Simon put in shrewdly.
Patricia turned to him with a tiny wrinkle forming between her brows.
“Miss Freeman’s latest husband,” Simon answered. “Better known to his business associates as Rick the Barber. Only it probably wouldn’t be tactful to mention that when she’s around.” He shifted his eyes. “Which means starting about now.”
He had seen enough advance publicity pictures of Iris Freeman to recognize her as she came towards the table. It would have been impossible in any event not to notice her, for the furs and jewels which trimmed a face and figure that could have attracted quite enough attention without any artificial adornment at all were obviously worn for the secondary function of practically forcing the observer to ask who they belonged to. And the unhesitating way in which her path was headed for Stratford Keane established a connection between them that was almost enough clue by itself.
“Stratford, darling!” she cried. “I was just betting Mark that we’d find you here as usual.”
“A feat of unparalleled perspicacity on your part,” said Keane. He struggled halfway to his feet, rocking the table dangerously. “May I present two dear friends of mine — Miss Patricia Holm and Mr Simon Templar. This is Miss Iris Freeman, whom I was just telling you about. And — er” — he winced slightly at the exquisitely tailored male who appeared from behind Miss Freeman’s patina—“Mr Belden.”
Iris Freeman’s beautiful dark eyes found Simon and grew wide and worshipful.
“Simon Templar?” she repeated. “You don’t mean — the Saint?”
Simon nodded resignedly. It was not always convenient to be identified so readily with the paradoxical alias under which his identity had once upon a time been concealed, but those days were pretty far in the past, and few people who read newspapers were unaware of the almost legendary career of brigandage which his name stood for. He was getting more used to it all the time, and certainly there was nothing much else to do except make the best of it. Which was not always so bad, either, especially when the vague associations of his name made beautiful women look at him in that excited and expectant way.
He smiled.
“That was the name,” he said, “before I saw the error of my ways.”
Belden said, “This is wonderful. You know, Iris is one of your most devoted fans, Mr Templar. She’s crazy about you.”
Simon restrained an impulse to empty the remains of a Martini over him, and said, “I think that’s a wonderful way to be crazy. But of course I’m prejudiced.”
“I was just telling Mark the other day that the only person in the whole world whose autograph I’d really like to have was the Saint,” Iris Freeman said.
“Isn’t that sort of turning the tables on your public, Miss Freeman?” murmured Patricia sweetly.
The actress laughed gaily, with every note beautifully modulated for imaginary microphones.
“Hardly a habit of mine. But we all have our weaknesses, don’t we? And the Saint’s also one of mine, darling... Mark, do you have a piece of paper?”
Belden fumbled in his pockets and produced a folded sheet.
“Here you are.”
“I suppose if I had more practice I could take these situations in my stride,” said the Saint.
“You’ll do all right,” said Patricia. “Sign the paper and satisfy your adoring public.”
Simon took out a pen and scribbled his name.
“And you must draw the Saint figure,” Iris Freeman insisted. “It wouldn’t be complete without that.”
The Saint patiently sketched his trademark — the straight-line skeleton figure crowned with the conventional halo which had once been enough to give the most hardened citizens an uneasy qualm at the pit of their stomachs — and reflected that a lot of things had changed. Or had they?
“That’s simply wonderful,” Iris Freeman gushed. “You’ll never believe what a thrill this is for me. I only wish I could stay and talk to you for hours, but Mark and I have to run. How would you like to come to our rehearsal tomorrow?”
“He’d love to,” Patricia said firmly. “But I’m afraid he has another engagement.”
“Oh... I see.” The actress bit her lip. “Well, I’ll be sure and send you some tickets for the opening, Saint. And you must come to the party afterwards, I’ll manage to get you off to myself somehow — Come along, Mark.”
“Yes, dear.” Belden gave Simon one of those unnecessarily hearty handshakes. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Templar. And you, Miss Holm. So long, Stratford. Don’t let it get you down.”
They made an exit which should have had an orchestral background, and Stratford Keane stared after them rudely.
“The only party after the opening,” he said, “should be a wake, with those two as the guests of honor.”
“I don’t think Simon agrees with you,” Patricia said. “He’s discovered that there are things in Iris’s favor which you never mentioned in your description.”
Simon reached for her glass and finished her drink for her.
“You’re very unfair to the wench,” he said. “If it’s a crime to be fascinated by me, what are you doing here?”
He produced folding money and handed it to a hopeful waiter.
“Buy Mr Keane another drink,” he said. “And a taxi afterwards, if he needs it.” He stood up. “I’m sorry we have to rush off, but I have to buy Pat some dinner. She doesn’t talk back so much with her mouth full.”
Mr Keane nodded broodingly.
“Good night,” he said. “I shall see thee — at Philippi.”
They made their escape, Simon hoped, before Mr Keane was reminded that the Pump Room was also in the business of serving food.
The encounter was typical of many similar incidents in the Saint’s life — coincidental, casual, and apparently pointless, and yet destined to lead into unsuspected complications. Adventure, for him, moved in a mysterious way. Nothing ever seemed to happen to him that was completely unimportant, or that led nowhere. He had come to accept it as part of an inscrutable fate, like the people who are known to insurance companies as “accident prone”: regardless of whether he took the initiative or not, something was always happening to him. He seldom thought about it much anymore, except that it may have subconsciously contributed to a pleasantly persistent euphoria, an almost imperceptible but continuous excitement which made the colors of his world just a little brighter than anyone else’s.
For several hours he certainly didn’t think much more about any of the three people who had just met at his table, or attach any immediate significance to the meeting — not even when he brought Patricia into his suite at the Ambassador for a nightcap, and switched on the lights and found himself looking down the barrel of a gun in the hand of an unexpected guest who had beat them to it without an invitation.
Simon Templar had looked down the barrels of guns before, and it had ceased to be a surprising experience for him. The turbulent course of his career had left enough survivors to constitute a sizable roster of characters whose principal ambition would always be to view the Saint again from behind the percentage end of a small piece of ordnance. The only remarkable thing about it was that Simon couldn’t at the moment think of any particular person in the vicinity who had reason to be trying to fulfill such a whim at that time.
“Well, well, well,” he murmured. “Look what people are doing now to get a hotel room.”
“Shut the door, bub,” said the man. “But don’t put your hat down. You ain’t staying long.”
He had blue-black hair and a blue chin, and his suit was cut just about the way you would expect a suit behind a gun to be cut. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but Simon couldn’t place it for the moment.
“That’s one way to bring an invitation, anyhow,” said the Saint. “Where is this party we’re going to?”
“You’ll find out when we get there,” said the man. “Just wait till I fix the girl friend so she don’t make a fuss about losing you.”
He took a roll of adhesive tape from his pocket.
“I think I’m going to faint,” said Patricia.
She slumped back against the wall by the door, exactly where the light switch was. As her knees buckled she caught one arm on the switch and the lights clicked out.
The gunman started to move to one side, peering blindly into the dark. He bumped into a standard lamp and set it rattling.
That was the only sound he heard before an arm slid around his neck from behind and a row of steel fingers clamped on his right hand and bent it inwards to within a millimeter of breaking his wrist. His hand opened involuntarily and the gun dropped on the carpet. Simon located it with his toe and put his foot on it.
“Okay, Pat,” he said. “I’ve got him.”
The lights went on again.
“Nice work,” said the Saint. “You read all the right stories.”
He released his pressure on the gunman’s larynx before suffocation had seriously set in, pushed the man away, and picked up the gun.
“Now, chum,” he said, “where did you say we were going?”
The man rubbed his wrists tenderly and glanced at him without answering.
The first vague impression of familiarity that Simon had felt began to come into focus.
“On second thoughts, you needn’t bother,” said the Saint. “I know where I’ve seen you before. At the Blue Paradise. You’re one of Rick Lansing’s boys.”
“I ain’t talking,” said the man.
“Then we’re going to find your company rather dull,” said the Saint. “Why don’t you beat it before you bore the hell out of us?”
The gunman seemed to have difficulty co-ordinating his ideas and his ears.
“Scram, bum,” said the Saint.
The man gulped, opened the door, and departed hastily.
“Nice work yourself,” said Patricia. “Why on earth did you let him go?”
“I didn’t feel excited about having him live with us,” Simon told her. “I might have killed him, but the management wouldn’t like us to keep his body in the room, and if we threw it out of the window it might have hurt somebody.”
“But aren’t you a bit curious about what he was doing here?”
“I already know, darling. He was sent here to fetch me to Rick the Barber, that was obvious as soon as I placed him.”
“But what does Rick Lansing want with you?”
“That,” said the Saint, “is a question that Rick will have to answer himself.”
Patricia picked up her wraps.
“Wait till I powder my nose,” she said.
“Oh no,” said the Saint. “From the type of escort Rick sent with the invitation, I’m afraid he may not be on his strictly Emily Post behavior, and even if he has hitched his wagon to a Broadway star he doesn’t seem to have sworn off his old business methods. You stay here with the Old Curio and don’t open the door to any strange men.”
He kissed her lightly and closed the door on her argument.
The Blue Paradise was one of the gaudier cabarets in the Loop. It was not a rendezvous for the social-register set, but it did a roaring and frequently even howling trade in tourists and tired businessmen, both local and traveling. The specialty dancers specialized mainly in undressing to slow music, and the drinks were thoughtfully diluted just enough to allow the patrons to get an adequate lift without becoming unconscious before they had spent a great deal of money. Simon knew that it was one of Rick Lansing’s operations, and also that there was an office in the back which was the headquarters for Lansing’s other business interests, which were many and various.
Rick the Barber might have left his original vocation far behind, but he was still one of its best customers. He had dark wavy hair that glistened with oil and brushing. The skin over his tough square features was smooth and glowing from many facials. His hands were shinily manicured. He looked far more like a toughened chorus boy than what he was.
He sat behind his desk and listened impassively to the alibi of his ambassador.
“I tell ya, Rick, I couldn’t do anything about it. The Saint musta been tipped off. He had four guys with him, and they was all heeled.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lansing said contemptuously. “But even if it’s the truth, what did you come straight back here for? How do you know one of ’em didn’t tail you?”
“Honest, Rick, I shook ’em clean.”
This was when Simon Templar quietly opened the door and stepped into the room.
“That’s right, Rick,” he corroborated gravely. “He shook all of ’em except me... Just don’t do anything reckless, boys, and I won’t hurt you either.”
The position of his left hand in the side pocket of his coat made his proposition especially persuasive.
Lansing kept his hands on top of the desk and considered the situation without a change of expression.
“Good evening, Mr Templar,” he said at length.
“Good evening, Rick,” said the Saint amiably. “I believe you wanted to see me. So here I am. You didn’t need to make a production of it. I’m only too anxious to hear what’s on your mind. Shall we talk it over in private, or does Sonny Boy here make you feel safer?”
Lansing sat still for a moment, and then made a slight movement of his hand.
“Beat it, Joe.”
“That’s better,” said the Saint. “Now he can collect the rest of the mob outside the door, which will make you feel really comfortable, but they know I’ve got you here, so I haven’t a thing to worry about. We can let our hair down and enjoy it.”
Lansing suddenly smiled, displaying a wide row of perfect white teeth.
“And I thought you were supposed to be smart,” he said. “You’re wasting yourself, Saint. Listen, with your talents you’re just the guy I need for a partner. Petty blackmail isn’t big enough for you. And what if you do tell the D.A. that Jake Hardy didn’t commit suicide? You couldn’t prove a thing.”
A slight frown touched the Saint’s brow.
“Jake Hardy?” he repeated. “You mean your last partner?”
“Go on — kid me.”
The Saint’s memory, which missed very little of the underworld news that reached the papers or circulated through the grapevine, responded again. Jake Hardy, for reasons unknown, had plunged from a penthouse window to his death several months before, leaving Rick Lansing in sole control of a cartel which, while it was not rated by Dun & Bradstreet and had little standing with the Better Business Bureau, was one of the richest enterprises of the Windy City.
“Let me make a guess,” said the Saint slowly. “Do I gather that someone claiming to be me is trying to shake you down for a certain amount of moola on account of they know that Jake’s high dive wasn’t Jake’s own idea?”
“Look,” Lansing said impatiently. “The comedy belongs outside with the floor show. Why, even if you hadn’t given your name on the phone, I can recognize your voice.”
“My voice?”
“Yes, your voice.”
“And that’s why you sent Sonny Boy to bring me in?”
Lansing made a clipped gesture.
“I was upset. So now I’m sorry. No hard feelings, Saint. Believe me, a partnership with me will pay you a lot more than the lousy ten grand you’re asking for hush money. It wouldn’t be just this joint. I could give you a cut in everything, all over town — sports areas, bookies, numbers — the works.”
Simon fished out a cigarette with his right hand and arched an eyebrow over his lighter.
“Even in the Shakespearean drama too?”
The other man blinked.
“Huh? Oh — that.” He smiled again, deprecatingly, with the corners of his mouth turned down. “Just a present for my wife. If she wants to play Shakespeare she can play Shakespeare. I can afford it. It might even make money. There aren’t many things I can’t afford, and most of ’em make money sometime. I can afford you, and make money for both of us. The two of us together could really clean up.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” said the Saint. “But there’s one hitch.”
“What’s that?”
“I wasn’t the guy who tried to blackmail you.”
A slight scowl settled over Lansing’s black eyes.
“I told you before — the comedy belongs outside.”
“I don’t doubt the show could use it,” said the Saint. “Only whether you like it or not, the comedy is right here. Because I give you my word that I’ve never spoken to you on the phone in my life, and I don’t have the least idea how to start proving that Jake was helped out of his window.”
Lansing stared at him for several seconds.
“Is that on the level?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then who is this guy who’s pretending to be you?”
“That,” said the Saint, “is what I’d like to know. I’ll have to try and find out.” He took the hand out of his left side pocket. “Now that we understand each other, I guess you won’t mind if I leave.”
Rick the Barber stood up and came around the desk. He opened the door.
The first gunman, reinforced by two others, stood watchfully in the corridor outside.
“It’s okay,” Lansing said. “The Saint is okay.”
Simon strolled through the goon squad, and Lansing followed him out to the bar.
“Will you let me know if you find out anything, Saint?”
“I will if you will,” Simon agreed. “By the way, how was this dough to be paid?”
“In an envelope addressed to Cleve Wentz at the Canal Street Post Office, general delivery. I can have the boys keep an eye on the window.”
“It might take a long time,” said the Saint. “And it still wouldn’t be easy to spot the pickup. But there’s no harm trying... I’ll be seeing you, Rick. Give my regards to Lady Macbeth.”
Nevertheless, he had no more brilliant ideas himself, and even the nest morning found him without inspiration. The problem of locating an anonymous impersonator who had just spoken to somebody once on the telephone made the proverbial needle in the haystack look simple.
He was brooding over the impasse after a late breakfast when there was a knock on the door, and when he opened it he was confronted by a pair of rather prominent eyes in a lean dyspeptic face which he recognized instantly. Taken in conjunction with the recent trend of his thoughts, the recognition gave him a premonitory qualm which no one could have guessed from the cordiality with which he renewed an old acquaintance.
“Why, Alvin!” he exclaimed. “This is a pleasant surprise. Come in and tell me about your latest triumphs.”
Lieutenant Alvin Kearney came in without a responding smile, but there was a certain amount of smugness in the lines of his normally unhappy countenance.
“I don’t know what sort of a triumph you’d call it,” he said. “But this time I’ve really got the goods on you, my friend.”
The Saint looked puzzled.
“The goods, Alvin?”
“Yeah,” Kearney said grimly. “Although frankly I never thought I’d get you for common blackmail.”
Simon realized that he had been unduly despondent. He didn’t think for a moment that Rick the Barber would have gone to the police, but what he had overlooked was that the impostor was not likely to stop with one victim.
“A lot of people seem to be going nuts these days,” he remarked almost cheerfully. “Who says I’m blackmailing him now?”
“Vincent Maxted.”
“The meat packer?”
“You ought to know,” Kearney said. “You claim to be able to prove that he made a nice piece of change during the war out of black-market steaks.”
Simon lighted a cigarette.
“I keep being amazed by the things I know,” he said. “It’s a little startling to be credited with clairvoyance all of a sudden. The embarrassing thing is that I don’t really deserve it. I assure you, Alvin, this is the first I’ve heard about Maxted’s illegal butchery.”
“Is that so?” Kearney was unimpressed. “Then I guess you’d figured he’d just be scared enough to pay up rather than go through an investigation. It doesn’t make any difference. You made the threat anyhow, and he’ll be able to identify your voice.”
“My voice? On the telephone?” Simon scoffed.
“That’s for your lawyer to fight about. It’s good enough for me to hold you. Let’s go, Saint. I’ve got a nice cozy room reserved for you at headquarters.”
Simon thought for a few moments.
“Okay,” he said at last. “If you want to stick your neck out I suppose I can’t stop you. Do you mind if I throw a few things in a bag?”
“Make it snappy,” Kearney said.
He followed Simon into the bedroom. The Saint pulled out a suitcase and opened it. He took out a crumpled piece of paper, glanced at it, and gave a guilty start. Rather clumsily, he tried to get rid of it under the bed. “What’s that?” Kearney snapped.
“Nothing,” said the Saint unconvincingly. “Just an old bill.”
“Let me see it.”
Simon hesitated, without moving.
Kearney came around the bed, pushed the Saint aside, and went down on his knees to grope underneath.
Simon stepped out of the bedroom, closed the door, and turned the key in the lock, in one fluid sweep of co-ordinated movements. He was out of the suite so quickly that he did not even hear the detective’s roar of rage.
By day, the Blue Paradise had an uninviting drabness which contrasted significantly with its neon-lighted nocturnal glitter. The doors were inhospitably closed and locked, but Simon found a bell to ring, and after a while a beady eye peered out through a two-inch opening and was sufficiently satisfied to let him in.
“Greetings, Sonny Boy,” said the Saint. “Is Rick around yet?”
“I guess he’ll see you,” conceded the gunsel gloomily, and Simon went through the dim deserted bar and down the back corridor to Lansing’s office.
“I’ve got news for you, Rick,” he said. “You’re in good company.”
Lansing looked up from the accounts he was studying. “What does that mean?”
“Someone else I don’t have anything on is being blackmailed by the Saint.”
“Who’s that?”
Simon skipped the question for a moment. “Did you buy any black-market meat during the war?”
“Maybe you really want a job in the floor show,” Lansing said. “I’ll buy the gag. So I had to stay in business. So what?”
“Did you get anything through Vincent Maxted?”
Lansing’s eyelids flickered. “What about him?”
“Only this,” said the Saint. “The first job of blackmail that we met over referred to something which only you or someone very close to you should have known. Maybe the same can be said about this new job. I’ve got an idea it can. And if that’s true, we may be getting somewhere. We don’t want to miss something that might be right under our nose.”
Lansing’s eyes were flat and hard like jet. “I can only think of one guy who might be liable to know as much as I know myself, including about what happened to Jake,” he said. “But don’t ask me how he’d know. I just say I could believe it because I know the kind of guy he is. This guy always seems to know too much about everything that goes on.”
“And who’s that?”
“Some people call him the Saint.” Simon smiled.
“You give me too much credit, Rick. As a matter of fact, I never suspected anything about Jake Hardy until you practically told me yourself. I’d never even given it a thought. From what I hear, he was no great loss to the community, so why should I worry about how he was moved on? I couldn’t have cared less if it had been the other way around, and when somebody does get you one of these days, as they probably will, it still won’t bother me.”
“Then what are you wasting your time here for?”
“Because I hate people taking my name in vain, and because I’m beginning to think it’s someone quite close to you. Someone who knows much more about your affairs than I do,” said the Saint thoughtfully. He went to the door. “Think it over, chum.”
There was a drugstore on the corner of the block, and he stopped there to phone Patricia.
“No doubt you’ve seen Kearney,” he said.
“And heard him.” She was trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice but he still felt it. “What on earth did you do it for?”
“It was the only thing I could do, baby. I couldn’t run down this character who’s impersonating me if Alvin had me in the hoosegow, and if I don’t run him down I can’t clear myself. It’s a stock situation straight out of any pulp detective story, but it can happen.”
“But what’s this now about Vincent Maxted?”
“Well, apparently my alter ego is expanding his business.”
“Can’t I meet you somewhere?” she said.
“Darling, it’s a sure bet that Kearney’ll have you followed, hoping for just that.”
“Then you don’t really think any of the tricks you’ve taught me for losing a shadow are any good.”
The Saint sighed.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the Delphian theater.”
There was a perceptible pause before she said, “Have you gone out of your mind?”
“No,” said the Saint. “But I was invited to a rehearsal, and I happened to remember that Iris Freeman was once Mrs Vincent Maxted.”
He took a taxi to the theater and turned on the radio. He found a local news broadcast, and had the ambiguous satisfaction of hearing his own name on a last-minute flash just before the commercial.
“Must be quite a guy, that Saint,” said the driver chattily.
“He’d better be,” Simon agreed.
There was no janitor at the stage door, and he found his way unchallenged to the stage. Voices grew louder as he approached it, and presently he stopped in the shadow of some stacked scenery and listened.
The rehearsal seemed to be justifying some of Stratford Keane’s gloomy prognostications. The voice of Macbeth, declaiming, did not even have the lush rotundity of Keane’s:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight—”
There was a soft footfall behind him, and he turned and saw Patricia at his shoulder.
“Hullo,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“Hush,” he said. “This is what Stratford was weeping about.”
“... Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder,
Alarum’d by his sentinel—”
“No, no, no!” moaned the anguished voice of Stratford Keane, further off in the hollow of the empty auditorium. “I can’t stand it! Belden, you’re beating those lines with a club! A bludgeon!”
“Oh, dry up,” Iris Freeman said, from the stage. “I think Mark is doing wonderfully.”
Stratford Keane’s groan reverberated like the plaint of a wounded bull.
“You think! Ye gods, what have I done to deserve this? I, Stratford Keane, who have striven all my life to learn understanding and patience! Even Job was at last tried too far, and I am not Job... You think Belden is doing wonderfully.
“That is too much. You may direct this play, Miss Freeman.” His voice was louder but still further off. “I resign. I’m through!”
In the distance a door slammed.
There was an uneasy silence on the stage for a few moments, and then Iris Freeman said with weary disgust, “Oh, for crying out loud! Again?”
“Exit Stratford, pursued by a bear,” Belden said sepulchrally.
And then suddenly the voice of Stratford Keane boomed out again with remarkable verisimilitude. “Ye gods, what have I done to deserve this? I, Stratford Keane, who have striven all my life to learn understanding and patience!”
There was a general chorus of laughter.
Patricia’s fingers tightened on the Saint’s arm.
“Simon! Did you notice—”
“Stratford didn’t really do him justice,” said the Saint.
On the stage, Iris Freeman was saying, “Better run along kids. You’ll probably be called back as usual after Mr Keane cools off.”
In a little while the footsteps and voices of the rest of the cast died away and the theater was silent again. The Saint held Patricia motionless in the shadows. Then Iris Freeman spoke again with a rather tired relaxation.
“You know, Mark, this sometimes seems like doing it the hard way.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” Belden said. “As soon as I collect a few more touches with the dope you’re giving me about the people who’ve used Rick in their various operations — why, I’ll be all set to back the show myself. Then you can divorce him and we can be married.”
“But suppose something goes wrong. And if Rick ever finds out—”
“How can he? And if anything ever does go wrong, the Saint gets it in the neck. Don’t forget we’ve got that piece of paper now with his signature and his fingerprints all over it. We can type anything we like over his name and plant it where it’ll do the most good.”
Simon Templar gently released Patricia and strolled out onto the stage. He was cool and unhurried, putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it as he moved, so easy and natural that the shock of his entrance only held the other two in a kind of misty trance.
“That’s a great idea, children,” he murmured, “only it doesn’t solve any of my problems.” His voice sharpened suddenly as Belden started to come out of his freeze. “Don’t try anything, Mark. I want you to be able to talk when Lieutenant Kearney gets here. Pat, do you think you could find a phone?”
“Don’t bother,” Kearney said.
His angular figure emerged from the shadows on the other side of the stage, and Mark Belden watched him approach in a new and even deeper trance from which even the click of a handcuff on his wrist did not arouse him.
Iris Freeman was less ready to give up. She struggled furiously for one hectic moment before Kearney snapped the other cuff on her wrist, where it made a tasteful contrast with her jewel bracelets.
“You can’t do this to me,” she panted.
“I can try my best,” said the detective. “From what I heard, it sounds like a clear case of conspiracy to me.”
“Don’t let it get you down, darling,” said the Saint. “Cross your legs on the witness stand, and the jury will probably see everything your way. On the other hand, I’m afraid Rick may not be so easy.”
What Iris Freeman said cannot be printed without grave risk to the publisher.
Simon and Patricia strolled south on Michigan Avenue in a rather noticeable silence.
“Kearney was pretty nice about you, wasn’t he?” said Patricia at last.
“He’s not a bad guy,” Simon agreed. “And he’s got something to thank me for. Getting the real blackmailers ought to be worth more to him than trying to hang a shaky rap on me... Of course, it started to be obvious as soon as Iris showed up as a connecting link. It would have been too much for her to imitate my voice, but the only thing left was to identify her stooge. It occurred to me at once that we couldn’t rely on Stratford Keane’s definition of Belden. A ham like Keane wouldn’t know the difference between one vaudeville performer and another, but I’ll bet Belden wasn’t a hoofer. I’ll bet he was one of those dreadful acts which start, ‘I would like to give you my impression of...’ I always wanted to see something unpleasant happen to that kind of artist, but I never hoped I should have the chance to arrange it.”
There was a further silence.
“Now,” said Patricia with difficulty, “I suppose you’re only waiting to tell me that you knew all along I wouldn’t shake Kearney off.”
“I was betting on it,” said the Saint blandly. “And I owe you a lot for your co-operation.” He turned and hailed a passing taxi. “However, I shall let Rick the Barber contribute to your reward. Things may not be too happy for him when Iris blows her top, as she probably will, and I think Rick ought to pay us quite well for a tip-off.”