VI

The Sleepless Knight

If a great many newspaper cuttings and references to newspapers find their way into these chronicles, it is simply because most of the interesting things that happen find their way into newspapers, and it is in these ephemeral sheets that the earnest seeker after unrighteousness will find many clues to his quest.

Simon Templar read newspapers only because he found collected in them the triumphs and anxieties and sins and misfortunes and ugly tyrannies which were going on around him, as well as the results of races in which chosen horses carried samples of his large supply of shirts; not because he cared anything about the posturing of Transatlantic fliers or the flatulence of international conferences. And it was solely through reading a newspaper that he became aware of the existence of Sir Melvin Flager.

It was an unpleasant case; and the news item may as well be quoted in full.

JUDGE CENSURES TRANSPORT

COMPANY

Driver's four hours' sleep a week

—

"MODERN SLAVERY"

—

Mr. Justice Goldie.

—

Scathing criticisms of the treatment of drivers by a road transport company were made by Mr. Justice Goldie during the trial of Albert Johnson, a lorry driver, at Guildford Assizes yesterday. Johnson was charged with manslaughter following the death of a cyclist whom he knocked down and fatally injured near Albury on March 28th. Johnson did not deny that he was driving to the danger of the public, but pleaded that his condition was due to circumstances beyond his control. Police witnesses gave evidence that the lorry driven by Johnson was proceeding in an erratic manner down a fairly wide road at about 30 miles an hour. There was a cyclist in front of it, travelling in the same direction, and a private car coming towards it. Swerving to make way for the private car, in what the witness described as "an unnecessarily exaggerated manner," the lorry struck the cyclist and caused fatal injuries. The police surgeon who subsequently examined Johnson described him as being "apparently intoxicated, although there were no signs of alcohol on his breath." "I was not drunk," said Johnson, giving evidence on his own behalf. "I was simply tired out. We are sent out on long journeys and forced to complete them at an average of over 30 miles an hour, including stops for food and rest. "Most of our work is done at night, but we are frequently compelled to make long day journeys as well. "During the week when the accident occurred, I had only had four hours' sleep. "It is no good protesting, because the company can always find plenty of unemployed drivers to take our places." Other employees of the Flager Road Transport Company, which employs Johnson, corroborated his statement. "This is nothing more or less than modern slavery," said Mr. Justice Goldie, directing the jury to return a verdict of Not Guilty. "It is not Johnson, but Sir Melvin Flager, the managing director of the company, who ought to be in the dock. "You have only to put yourselves in the position of having gone for a week on four hours' sleep, with the added strain of driving a heavy truck throughout that time, to be satisfied that no culpable recklessness of Johnson's was responsible for this tragedy. "I would like to see it made a criminal offence for employers to impose such inhuman conditions on their employees."

Sir Melvin Flager was not unnaturally displeased by this judicial comment; but he might have been infinitely more perturbed if he had known of the Saint's interest in the case.

Certain readers of these chronicles may have reached the impression that Simon Templar's motives were purely selfish and mercenary, but they would be doing him an injustice. Undoubtedly his exploits were frequently profitable; and the Saint himself would have been the first to admit that he was not a brigand for his health; but there were many times when only a very small percentage of his profits remained in his own pocket, and many occasions when he embarked on an episode of lawlessness with no thought of profit for himself at all.

The unpleasantness of Sir Melvin Flager gave him some hours of quite altruistic thought and effort.

"Actually," he said, "there's only one completely satisfactory way to deal with a tumour like that. And that is to sink him in a barrel of oil and light a fire underneath."

"The Law doesn't allow you to do that," said Peter Quentin pensively.

"Very unfortunately, it doesn't," Simon admitted, with genuine regret. "All the same, I used to do that sort of thing without the sanction of the Law, which is too busy catching publicans selling a glass of beer after hours to do anything about serious misdemeanours, anyway… But I'm afraid you're right, Peter — I'm much too notorious a character these days, and Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal isn't the bosom pal he was. We shall have to gang warily; but nevertheless, we shall certainly have to gang."

Peter nodded approvingly. Strangely enough, he had once possessed a thoroughly respectable reverence for the Law; but several months of association with the Saint had worked irreparable damage on that bourgeois inhibition.

"You can count me in," he said; and the Saint dapped him on the back.

"I knew it without asking you, you old sinner," he said contentedly. "Keep this next week-end free for me, brother, if you really feel that way — and if you want to be specially helpful you can push out this afternoon with a false beard tied round your ears and try and rent a large garage from which yells of pain cannot be heard outside."

"Is that all?" Peter asked suspiciously. "What's your share going to be — backing losers at Hurst Park?"

The Saint shook his head.

"Winners," he said firmly. "I always back winners. But I'm going to busy myself. I want to get hold of a Gadget. I saw it at a motor show once, but it may take me a couple of days to find out where I can buy one."

As a matter of fact it took him thirty-six hours and entailed a good deal of travelling and expense. Peter Quentin found and rented the garage which the Saint had demanded a little more quickly; but the task was easier and he was used to Simon Templar's eccentric commissions.

"I'm getting so expert at this sort of thing, I believe I could find you a three-humped camel overnight if you wanted it," Peter said modestly, when he returned to announce success.

Simon grinned.

The mechanical details of his scheme were not completed until the Friday afternoon, but he added every hour and penny to the private account which he had with Sir Melvin Flager, of which that slave-driving knight was blissfully in ignorance.

It was barely possible that there may survive a handful of simple unsophisticated souls who would assume that since Mr. Justice Goldie's candid criticism had been pronounced in open court and printed in every newspaper of importance, Sir Melvin Flager had been hiding his head in shame, shunned by his erstwhile friends and treated with deferential contempt even by his second footman. To these unfledged innocents we extend our kindly sympathy, and merely point out that nothing of the sort had happened. Sir Melvin Flager, of course, did not move in the very Highest Society, for an uncle of his on his mother's side still kept and served in a fried-fish shop near the Elephant and Castle; but the society in which he did move did not ostracise him. Once the first statement-seeking swarm of reporters had been dispersed, he wined and dined and diverted himself and ran his business exactly the same as he had done before; for the business and social worlds have always found it remarkably easy to forgive the trespasses of a man whose prices and entertainments are respectively cheaper and better than others.

On that Friday night Sir Melvin Flager entertained a small party to dinner, and took them on to a revue afterwards. Conscience had never troubled him personally; and his guests were perfectly happy to see a good show without worrying about such sordid trifles as how the money that paid for their seats was earned. His well-laden lorries roared through the night with red-eyed men at the wheel to add to his fortune; and Sir Melvin Flager sat in his well-upholstered seat and roared with carefree laughter at the antics of the comedian, forgetting all about his business until nearly the end of the first act, when a programme girl handed him a sealed envelope.

Flager slit it open and read the note.

One of our trucks has had another accident. Two killed. Afraid it may be bad for us if this comes out so soon after the last one. May be able to square it, but must see you first. Will wait in your car during the interval.

It was in his business manager's handwriting, and it was signed with his business manager's name.

Sir Melvin Flager tore the note into small pieces and dumped it in the ashtray before him. There was a certain forced quality about his laughter for the next five minutes; and as soon as the curtain came down he excused himself to his guests and walked down the line of cars parked in a side street adjoining the theatre. He found his own limousine, and peered in at the back.

"You there, Nyson?" he growled.

"Yes, sir."

Flager grunted, and opened the door. It was rather dark inside the car, and he could only just make out the shape of the man who sat there."

"I'll fire every damned driver I've got tomorrow," he swore, as he climbed in. "What the devil do they think I put them on the road for — to go to sleep? This may be serious."

"You've no idea how serious it's going to be, brother," said the man beside him.

But the voice was not the voice of Mr. Nyson, and the mode of address was not that which Sir Melvin Flager encouraged from his executives. For a moment the managing director of the Flager Road Transport Company did not move; and then he leaned sideways to stare more closely at his companion. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, but the movement did not help him at all, for with a sudden shock of fear he saw that the man's features were completely covered by a thin gauzy veil which stretched from his hat-brim down to his coat collar.

"Who the hell are you?" rasped Flager uncertainly.

"On the whole, I think it would be better for you not to know," said the Saint calmly.

Another man had climbed into the driver's seat, and the car vibrated almost imperceptibly as the engine started up. But this second man, although he wore a chauffeur's peaked cap, had a silhouette that in no way resembled that of the chauffeur whom Sir Melvin Flager employed.

Under his touch the car began to edge out of the line; and as he saw the movement Flager came back to life. In the stress of the moment he was unable to form a very clear idea of what was happening, but instinct told him that it was nothing to which he wanted to lend his tender person.

"Well, you won't kidnap me!" he shouted, and lashed out wildly at the veiled face of the man beside him.

Which was the last thing he knew about for the next half-hour, for his desperate swing was still far from its mark when a fist like a ball of iron struck him cleanly on the point of the jaw and lifted him back on to the cushions in a dreamless slumber.

When he woke up, his first impulse was to clasp his hands to his painfully singing head; but when he tried to carry it out his wrists refused to move — they felt as if they were anchored to some solid object. Blinking open his eyes, he looked down at them. They were handcuffed to what appeared to be the steering wheel of a car.

In another second the memory of what had happened to him before he fell asleep returned. He began to struggle frantically, but his body also refused to respond, and he saw that a broad leather strap like the safety belt of an aeroplane had been passed round his waist and fastened in front of his abdomen, locking him securely to his seat. Wildly he looked about him, and discovered that he was actually sitting in the driving seat of a lorry. He could see the bonnet in front of him, and, beyond it, a kind of white screen which seemed vaguely familiar.

The feeling that he had been plunged into some fantastic nightmare seized him, and he let out a stifled yell of fright.

"That won't help you," said a cool voice at his side; and Flager jerked his head round to see the veiled face of the unknown man who had sat at his side in the car.

"Damn you!" he raved. "What have you done to me?"

He was a large fleshy man, with one of those fleshy faces which look as if their owner had at some time invited God to strike him pink, and had found his prayer instantaneously answered. Simon Templar, who did not like large fleshy men with fleshy pink faces, smiled under his mask.

"So far, we haven't done very much," he said. "But we're going to do plenty."

The quietness of his voice struck Flager with a sudden chill, and instinctively he huddled inside his clothes. Something else struck him as unusual even as he did so, and in another moment he realised what it was. Above the waist, he had no clothes on at all — the whole of his soft white torso was exposed to the inclemency of the air.

The Saint smiled again.

"Start the machine, Peter," he ordered; and Flager saw that the chauffeur who had driven the car was also there, and that he was similarly masked.

A switch clicked over, and darkness descended on the garage. Then a second switch clicked, and the white screen in front of the truck's bonnet lighted up with a low whirring sound. Bewildered but afraid, Flager looked up and saw a free moving picture show.

The picture was of a road at night, and it unrolled towards him as if it had been photographed from behind the headlights of a car that was rushing over it. From time to time, corners, cross-roads, and the lights of other traffic proceeding in both direction swept up towards him — the illusion that he was driving the lorry in which he sat over that road was almost perfect.

"What's this for?" he croaked.

"You're taking the place of one of your own drivers for the week-end," answered the Saint. "We should have preferred to do it out on the road under normal working conditions, but I'm afraid you would have made too much noise. This is the best substitute we were able to arrange, and I think it'll work all right. Do you know what it is?"

Flager shook his head.

"I don't care what it is! Listen here, you "

"It's a gadget for testing people's ability to drive," said the Saint smoothly. "When I turn another switch, the steering wheel you have there will be synchronised with the film. You will then be driving over the road yourself. So long as you keep on the road and don't try to run into the other traffic, everything will be all right. But directly you make a movement that would have taken you off the road or crashed you into another car — or a cyclist, brother — the film will stop for a moment, a red light will light up on top of the screen, and I shall wake you up like this."

Something swished through the air, and a broad stinging piece of leather which felt like a razor strop fell resoundingly across Sir Melvin's well-padded shoulders.

Flager gave a yelp of anguish; and the Saint laughed softly.

"We'll start right away," he said. "You know the rules and you know the penalties — the rules are only the same as your own employees have to obey, and the penalties are really much less severe. Wake up, Flager — you're off!"

The third switch snapped into place, and Flager grabbed blindly at the steering wheel. Almost at once the picture faltered, and a red light glowed on top of the screen.

Smack! came the leather strap across his shoulders.

"Damn you!" bellowed Flager. "What are you doing this for?"

"Partly for fun," said the Saint. "Look out — you're going to hit that car!"

Flager did hit it, and the strop whistled through the darkness and curled over his back. This shriek tortured the echoes; but Simon was without mercy.

"You'll be in the ditch in a minute," he said. "No… Here comes a corner… Watch it!.. Nicely round, brother, nicely round. Now mind you don't run into the back of this cart — you've got plenty of room to pass… Stick to it… Don't hit the cyclist… You're going to hit him… Mind the fence — you're heading straight for it — look out… Look out!"

The strap whacked down again with a strong and willing arm behind it as the red light sprang up again.

Squealing like a stuck pig, Sir Melvin Flager tore the lorry back on to its course.

"How long are you keeping this up for?" he sobbed. "Until Monday morning," said the Saint calmly. "And I wish it could be a month. I've never seen a more responsive posterior than you have. Mind the cyclist."

"But you're making me drive too fast!" Flager almost screamed. "Can't you slow the machine up a bit?"

"We have to average over thirty miles an hour," answered the Saint remorselessly. "Look out!"

Sir Melvin Flager passed into a nightmare that was worse than anything he had thought of when he first opened his eyes. The mechanical device which he was strapped to was not quite the same as the cars he was used to; and Simon Templar himself would have been ready to admit that it might be more difficult to drive. Time after time the relentless leather lashed across his shouder-blades, and each time it made contact he let loose a howl of pain which in itself was a reward to his tormentors.

After a while he began to master the steering, and long periods went by when the red light scarcely showed at all. As these intervals of immunity lengthened, Flager shrugged his aching back and began to pluck up courage. These lunatics who had kidnapped him, whoever they were, had taken a mean advantage of him at the start. They had fastened him to an unfamiliar machine and promptly proceeded to shoot it through space at forty miles an hour: naturally he had made mistakes. But that could not go on for ever. He had got the hang of it at last, and the rest of it seemed more or less plain sailing. He even had leisure to ponder sadistically on what their fate would be when they let him go and the police caught them, as they undoubtedly would be caught. He seemed to remember that the cat-o'-nine-tails was the punishment invariably meted out by the Law for crimes of violence. Well, flogging him with that leather strap was a crime of violence. He brooded savagely over various tales he had heard of the horrors of that punishment…

Whack!

The red light had glowed, and the strap had swung home again. Flager pulled himself together with a curse. It was no good getting careless now that he had mastered the machine. But he was beginning to feel tired. His eyes were starting to ache a little with the strain of keeping themselves glued watchfully to the cinematograph screen ahead. The interminable unwinding of that senseless road, the shirr of the unseen projector, the physical effort of manipulating the heavy steering wheel, the deadly monotony of the task, combined with the heavy dinner he had eaten and a long sequence of other dinners behind it to produce a sensation of increasing drowsiness. But the unwinding of the road never slackened speed, and the leather strap never failed to find its mark every time his wearying attention caused him to make a mistake.

"You're getting careless about your corners," the Saint warned him tirelessly. "You'll be in the ditch at the next one. Look out!"

The flickering screen swelled up and swam in his vision. There was nothing else in the world — nothing but that endlessly winding road uncoiling out of the darkness, the lights of other traffic that leapt up from it, the red light above the screen, and the smack of the leather strop across his shoulders. His brain seemed to be spinning round like a top inside his head when at last, amazingly, the screen went black and the other bulbs in the garage lighted up.

"You can go to sleep now," said the Saint.

Sir Melvin Flager was incapable of asking questions. A medieval prisoner would have been no more capable of asking questions of a man who released him from the rack. With a groan he slumped back in his seat and fell asleep.

It seemed as if he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was roused again by someone shaking him. He looked up blearily and saw the strange chauffeur leaning over him.

"Wake up," said Peter Quentin. "It's five o'clock on Saturday morning, and you've got a lot more miles to cover."

Flager had no breath to dispute the date. The garage lights had gone out again, and the road was starting to wind out of the cinematograph screen again.

"But you told me I could sleep!" he moaned.

"You get thirty-five minutes every night," Peter told him pitilessly. "That averages four hour a week, and that's as much as you allowed Albert Johnson. Look out!"

Twice again Flager was allowed to sleep, for exactly thirty-five minutes; four times he watched his two tormentors change places, a fresh man taking up the task while the other lay down on the very comfortable bed which had been made up in one corner and slept serenely. Every three hours he had five minutes' rest and a glass of water, every six hours he had ten minutes' rest, a cup of coffee, and a sandwich. But the instant that these timed five or ten minutes had elapsed, the projector was started up again, the synchronisation switch was thrown over, and he had to go on driving.

Time ceased to have any meaning. When, after his first sleep, he was told that it was only five o'clock on Saturday morning, he could have believed that he had been driving for a week; before his ordeal was over, he felt as if he had been at the wheel for seven years. By Saturday night he felt he was going mad; by Sunday morning he thought he was going to die; by Sunday night he was a quivering wreck. The strap fell on his shoulders many times during the last few hours, when the recurrent sting of it was almost the only thing that kept his eyes open; but he was too weary even to cry out…

And then, at the end of what might have been centuries, Monday morning dawned outside; and the Saint looked at his watch and reversed the switches.

"You can go to sleep again now," he said for the last time; but Sir Melvin Flager was asleep almost before the last word was out of his mouth.

Sunken in the coma of utter exhaustion, Flager did not even feel himself being unstrapped and unhandcuffed from his perch; he did not feel the clothes being replaced on his inflamed back, nor did he even rouse as he was carried into his own car and driven swiftly away.

And then again he was being shaken by the shoulder, woken up. Whimpering, he groped for the steering wheel — and did not find it. The shaking at his shoulder went on.

"All right," he blubbered. "All right. I'm trying to do it. Can't you let me sleep a little — just once…"

"Sir Melvin! Sir Melvin!"

Flager forced open his bloodshot eyes. His hands were free. He was sitting in his own car, which was standing outside his own house. It was his valet who was shaking him.

"Sir Melvin! Try to wake up, sir. Where have you been? Are you ill, sir?"

Flager found strength to move his head from one side to the other.

"No," he said. "I just want to sleep."

And with a deep groan he let his swollen eyelids droop again, and sank back into soothing abysses of delicious rest.

When he woke up again he was in his own bed, in his own bedroom. For a long time he lay without moving, wallowing in the heavenly comfort of the soft mattress and cool linen, savouring the last second of sensual pleasure that could be squeezed out of the most beautiful awakening that he could remember.

"He's coming round," said a low voice at last; and with a sigh Flager opened his eyes.

His bed seemed to be surrounded with an audience such as a seventeenth-century monarch might have beheld at a levee. There was his valet, his secretary, his doctor, a nurse, and a heavy and stolid man of authoritative appearance who held an unmistakable bowler hat. The doctor had a hand on his pulse, and the others stood by expectantly.

"All right, Sir Melvin," said the physician. "You may talk for a little while now, if you want to, but you mustn't excite yourself. This gentleman here is a detective who wants to ask you a few questions."

The man with the bowler hat came nearer.

"What happened to you, Sir Melvin?" he asked.

Flager stared at him for several seconds. Words rose to his lips, but somehow he did not utter them.

"Nothing," he said at length. "I've been away for the week-end, that's all. What the devil's all this fuss about?"

"But your back, Sir Melvin!" protested the doctor. "You look as if you'd had a terrible beating—"

"I had a slight accident," snapped Flager. "And what the devil has it got to do with you, sir, anyway? Who the devil sent for all of you?"

His valet swallowed.

"I did, Sir Melvin," he stammered. "When I couldn't wake you up all day yesterday — and you disappeared from the theatre without a word to anybody, and didn't come back for two days—"

"And why the devil shouldn't I disappear for two days?" barked Flager weakly. "I'll disappear for a month if I feel like it. Do I pay you to pry into my movements? And can't I sleep all day if I want to without waking up to find a lot of quacks and policemen infesting my room like vultures? Get out of my house, the whole damned lot of you! Get out, d'you hear?"

Somebody opened the door, and the congregation drifted out, shaking its heads and muttering, to the accompaniment of continued exhortations in Flager's rasping voice.

His secretary was the last to go, and Flager called him back.

"Get Nyson on the telephone," he ordered. "I'll speak to him myself."

The secretary hesitated for a moment, and then picked up the bedside telephone and dialled the number dubiously.

Flager took the instrument as soon as his manager answered.

"Nyson?" he said. "Get in touch with all our branch depots immediately. From now on, all our drivers will be on a five-hour day, and they get a twenty per cent rise as from the date we took them on. Engage as many more men as you need to make up the schedules."

He heard Nyson's incredulous gasp over the line.

"I beg your pardon, Sir Melvin — did you say—"

"Yes, I did!" snarled Flager. "You heard me all right. And after that, you can find out if that cyclist Johnson killed left any dependents. I want to do something for them…"

His voice faded away, and the microphone slipped through his fingers. His secretary looked at him quickly, and saw that his eyes were closed and the hemispherical mound of his abdomen was rising and falling rhythmically.

Sir Melvin Flager was asleep again.