The Unlicensed Victuallers
I
Somewhere among the black hills to the southwest dawned a faint patch of light. It moved and grew, pulsing and brightening, like a palely luminous cloud drifting down from the horizon; and Simon Templar, with his eyes fixed on it, slid his cigarette case gently out of his pocket.
"Here it comes, Hoppy," he remarked.
Beside him Hoppy Uniatz followed his gaze and inhaled deeply from his cigar, illuminating a set of features which would probably have caused any imaginative passer-by, seeing them spring suddenly out of the darkness, to mistake them for the dial of a particularly malevolent banshee.
"Maybe dey got some liquor on board dis time, boss," he said hopefully. "I could just do wit' a drink now."
Simon frowned at him in the gloom.
"You've got a drink," he said severely. "What happened to that bottle I gave you when we came out?"
Mr Uniatz wriggled uneasily in his seat.
"I dunno, boss. I just tried it, an' it was empty. It's de queerest t'ing…" An idea struck him. "Could it of been leakin', woujja t'ink, boss?"
"Either it was, or you will be," said the Saint resignedly.
His eyes were still fixed on the distance, where the nimbus of light was growing still brighter. By this time his expectant ears could hear the noise that came with it, a faraway rattle and rumble that was at first hardly more than a vibration in the air, growing steadily louder in the silence of the night.
He felt for a button on the dashboard, and the momentary whirr of the starter died into the smooth sibilant whisper of a perfectly tuned engine as the great car came to life. They were parked on the heath, just off the edge of the road, in the shadow of a clump of bushes, facing the ghostly aurora that was approaching them from where the hills rose towards the sea. Simon trod on the clutch and pushed the gear lever into first and heard a subdued click beside him as Mr Uniatz released the safety catch of his automatic.
"Howja know dis is it?" Mr Uniatz said hoarsely, the point having just occurred to him.
"They're just on time." Simon was looking down at the phosphorescent hands of his wrist watch. "Pargo said they'd be leaving at two o'clock. Anyway, we'll be sure of it when Peter gives us the flash."
"Is dat why you send him down de road?"
"Yes, Hoppy. That was the idea."
"To see de truck when it passes him?"
"Exactly."
Mr Uniatz scratched his head, making a noise like wood being sandpapered.
"How does he know it's de right truck?" he asked anxiously.
"By the number plate," Simon explained. "You know — that bit of tin with figures on it."
Mr Uniatz digested this thought for a moment and relaxed audibly.
"Chees, boss," he said admiringly. "De way you t'ink of everything!"
A warm glow of relief emanated from him, an almost tangible radiation of good cheer and fortified faith, rather like the fervour which must exude from a true follower of the Prophet when he arrives in paradise and finds that Allah has indeed placed a number of supremely voluptuous houris at his disposal, exactly as promised in the Quran. It was a feeling which had become perennially new to Mr Uniatz, ever since the day when he had first discovered the sublime infallibility of the Saint and clutched at it like a straw in the turbulent oceans of Thought in which he had been floundering painfully all his life. That Simon Templar, on one of those odd quixotic impulses which were an essential part of his character, should have encouraged the attachment was a miracle that Mr Uniatz had never stopped to contemplate: he asked nothing more than to be allowed to stay on as an unquestioning Sancho Panza to this dazzling demigod who could Think of Things with such supernatural ease.
"Dis is like de good old days," Hoppy said contentedly; and the Saint smiled in sympathy.
"It is, isn't it? But I never thought I'd be doing it in England."
Suddenly the haze of light down the road flared up, blazed into blinding clarity as the headlights of the lorry swung round a bend like searchlights. It was still some distance away, but the road ran practically straight for a mile in either direction, and they were parked in the lee of almost the only scrap of cover on the open moor.
Simon held up one hand to shield his eyes against the direct glare. He was not looking at the headlights themselves but at a point in the darkness a little to the right of them, waiting for the signal that would identify the lorry beyond any doubt. And while he watched the signal came — four long equal flashes from a powerful electric torch, strong enough for him to see the twinkle of them even with the lorry's headlights shining towards him.
The Saint drew a deep breath.
"Okay," he said. "You know your stuff, Hoppy. And don't use that Betsy of yours unless you have to."
He flicked his lighter and touched it to the end of the cigarette clipped between his lips. The light thrown upwards by his cupped hands brought out his face for an instant in vivid sculpture — the crisp sweep of black hair, the rakehell lines of cheekbone and jaw, the half smile on the clean-cut reckless mouth, the glimmer of scapegrace humour in the clear and mocking blue eyes. It was a face that fitted with an almost startling perfection, as faces so seldom do, not only into the mission that had brought him there that night but also into all the legends about him. It was a face that made it seem easy to understand why he should be called the Saint and why some people should think of him almost literally like that, while others called him by the same name and thought of him as a devil incarnate. It might have been the face of a highwayman in another age, waiting by the roadside on his black horse for some unsuspecting traveller — only that the power of a hundred horses purred under the bonnet waiting for the touch of his foot and the travellers he was waiting for were not innocent even if they were unsuspecting.
The flame went out, dropping his face back into the darkness; and as he slipped the lighter back into his pocket he sent the car whirling forward in a short rush, spinning the wheel to swing it at right angles across the road, and stopped it there, with the front wheels a foot from the grass verge on the other side.
"Let's go," said the Saint.
Hoppy Uniatz was already halfway out of the door on his side. This at least was something he understood. To him the higher flights of philosophy and intellectual attainment might be forever barred; but in the field of pure action, once the objects of it had been clearly and carefully explained to him in short sentences employing only the four or five hundred words which made up his vocabulary, he had few equals. And the Saint grinned as he disembarked on to the macadam and melted soundlessly into the night on the opposite side of the road from the one Mr Uniatz had taken.
The driver of the lorry knew nothing of these preparations until his headlights flooded the Saint's car strongly enough to make it plain that the roadway was completely blocked. Instinctively he muttered a curse and trod and hauled on the brakes; and the lorry had groaned to a standstill only a yard from the obstacle before he realized that he might have been unwise.
Even so, there was nothing much else that he could have done unless he had driven blindly on off the road onto the open heath, with the chance of landing himself in a ditch. Belatedly it dawned on him that even that risk might have been preferable to the risk of stopping behind such a suspicious-looking barricade, and he groped quickly for a pocket in his overalls. But before he could get his gun out the door beside him was open, and another gun levelled at his middle was dimly visible in the reflected light of the head lamps.
"Would you mind stepping outside?" said a pleasant voice; and the driver set his teeth.
"Not on your mucking life—"
He had got that far when a hand grasped him by the front of his clothing. What followed was something that puzzled him intermittently for the rest of his life, and he would brood over it in his leisure hours, trying to reconcile his own personal impressions with the logical possibilities of the world as he had previously known it. But if it had not been so manifestly impossible he would have said that he seemed to be lifted bodily out of his seat and drawn through the door with such force that he sailed through the air almost to the edge of the road in a graceful parabola comparable to the flight of the cruising flamingo before a large portion of the county of Dorset rose up and hit him very hard in several places at once.
As he crawled painfully up onto his hands and knees he saw the performer of this miracle standing over him.
" 'Ere," he protested dazedly, "wot's the idear?"
"The idea is that you ought to be a good boy and do what you're told."
The voice was still cool and genial, but there was an undertone of silky earnestness in it which the driver had overlooked before. Staring up in an effort to make out the details of the face from which it came, the driver realized that the reason why it seemed so curiously featureless was that a dark cloth mask covered it from brow to chin, and something inside his chest seemed to turn cold.
Simon took hold of him again and lifted him to his feet; and as he did so a shrill yelp and a thud came from the other side of the lorry.
"That will be your mate going to sleep," said the Saint cheerfully. "Will you have one of our special bedtime stories, or will you just take things quietly?"
His left hand had been sliding imperceptibly over the man's clothing while he spoke, and before the driver knew what was happening the automatic which he carried in his overalls had been whisked away from him. All he saw of it was the glint of metal as it vanished into one of the Saint's pockets, but he clutched at the place where it had been and found nothing there. The Saint's soft laugh purled on his eardrums.
"Come along, sonny boy — let's see what you've got in that beautiful covered wagon."
With that stifling lump of ice swelling under his ribs the driver felt himself being propelled firmly towards the rear of the van. Simon slipped a tiny flashlight out of his pocket as they went; and as they reached the back of the lorry the masked face of Mr Uniatz swam round from the other side into the bright beam.
"I heard music," said the Saint.
Hoppy nodded.
"Dat was de udder guy. He tries to make a grab at my mask, so I bop him on de spire wit' my Betsy, an' he dives."
"That's what I love about you," murmured Simon. "You're so thoughtful. Suppose he'd got your mask off. He might have died of heart failure, and that would have been bloody awkward. You ought to keep that face-curtain on all the time — it suits you."
He gave the driver a last gentle push that almost impaled him on the muzzle of Mr Uniatz's ever-ready Betsy and turned his attention to the rear doors of the van. While he was fumbling with them footsteps sounded on the road behind him, and another flashlight split the darkness and focussed on the lock from over his shoulder.
"What ho," said Peter Quentin.
"Ho kay," said the Saint. "The operation went off without a hitch, and one of the patients has a bent spire. Keep that light steady a minute, will you?"
Actually it was not a minute but only a few seconds before the lock surrendered its share of the unequal contest with a set of deft fingers that could have disposed of the latest type of burglar-proof safe in rather less time than an amateur would have taken to empty a can of asparagus with a patent tin opener. Simon pocketed the instrument he had been using, swung the doors wide and hauled himself nimbly up into the interior of the van.
"What have we won this time?" Peter asked interestedly.
The Saint's torch was sweeping over the rows of cases stacked up inside.
"Looks like a good night's work, soaks," he answered. "There's quite a load of Bisquit Dubouche, and a spot of Otard… a whole raft of Clicquof Veuve… Romanee-Conti… Chambertin… Here's a case of Chateau Yquem—"
"Is dey any scotch?" inquired Mr Uniatz practically.
"No, I don't think so… Oh yes, there are a few cases in the corner. We don't seem to have done too badly."
He switched off his flashlight and returned to spring lightly down to the road and shut the doors again. For a moment he stood gleefully rubbing his hands.
"Bisquit Dubouche," he said. "Clicquot Veuve. Chambertin. Romanee-Conti. Chateau Yquem. Even Hoppy's scotch. Think of it, my perishing pirates. Cases and cases of 'em. Hundreds of quids worth of bee-yutiful drinks. And not one blinkin' bottle of it has paid a penny of duty. Smuggled in under the noses of the blear-eyed coastguards and potbellied excise men. Yoicks! And all for our benefit. Do we smuggle? Do we defraud the revenue? No, no — a thousand times no. We just step in and grab the loot. Have a drink with me, you thugs."
"That's all very well," Peter Quentin objected seriously. "But we went into this hijacking game to try and find out who was the big bug who was running it—"
"And so we shall, Peter. So we shall. And we'll have a drink with him. And a cigar and a set of silk underwear, like we got last time. How are those lace panties wearing, Hoppy?"
Mr Uniatz made a plaintive noise in his throat, and the Saint pulled himself together.
"All right," he said. "Let's be on our way. Peter, you can carry on with the lorry. Park it in the usual place, and we'll be over in the morning and help you unload. Hoppy and I will take this team along and see if we can find out anything from them."
He turned away and led off along the roadside to move his car out of the way. In the blackness beside the truck he almost stumbled over something lying on the ground and recalled Hoppy's account of his interview with the driver's mate. As he recovered his balance he switched his torch on again and turned it downwards.
The sprawled figure in grimy overalls lay with its face turned upwards, quite motionless, the mouth slightly open. The upper part of the face was hard to distinguish under the brim of a tweed cap pulled well down over the eyes, but the chin was smooth and white. He could only have been a youngster, Simon realized, and felt a fleeting twinge of pity. He bent down and shook the lad's shoulder.
"How hard did you bop him, Hoppy?" he said thoughtfully.
"I just give him a little pat on de bean, boss—"
"The trouble is, everybody hasn't got a skull like yours," said the Saint.
He dropped on one knee and pulled down the zipper from the neck of the overalls, feeling inside the youngster's shirt for the reassurance of a heartbeat. And the others heard him let out a soft exclamation.
"What's the matter?" Peter Quentin demanded sharply.
"Well, we certainly won something," said, the Saint. "Look."
He took hold of the shabby tweed cap and jerked it off; and the ray of the torch in Peter's hand jumped wildly as a flood of golden hair broke loose to curl around the face of a girl whose sheer loveliness took his breath away.