Enter the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page B

Saint and going to prison, and we could guess which he’d try first. The Saint had figured out that Hayn wouldn’t simply try a quick assassination, because it wouldn’t help him to be wanted for murder. There had got to be a murder, of course, but it would have to be well planned. So the Saint guessed he’d be kidnapped first and taken away to some quiet spot to be done in, and he decided to play stalking horse. He did that because if Hayn were arrested, his checks would be stopped automatically, so Hayn had got to be kept busy till tomorrow morning. I was watching outside the Saint’s flat in a fast car last night, as I’d been detailed to do, in case of accidents. The Saint was going to make a fight of it. But they got him somehow-I saw him taken out to a car they had waiting-and I followed down here. Tremayne was to be waiting at the Splendide for a ‘phone call from me at two o’clock. I’ve been trying to get him ever since, and you as well, touring London over the toll line, and it’s cost a small fortune. And I didn’t dare to go back to London, because of leaving the Saint here. That’s why I’m damned glad you’ve turned up-“
    “But why haven’t you told the police?”
    “Simon’d never forgive me. He’s out to make the Saint the terror of the underworld, and he won’t do that by simply giving information to Scotland Yard. The idea of the gang is to punish people suitably before handing them over to the law, and our success over Hayn depends on sending five figures of his money to charity. I know it’s a terrible risk. The Saint may have been killed already. But he knew what he was doing. We were ordered not to interfere and the Saint’s the head man in this show.”
    Stannard sprang up. “But Hayn’s got Gwen!” he half sobbed. “Roger, we can’t hang about, not for anything, while Gwen’s––”
    “We aren’t hanging about any longer,” said Roger quietly.
    His hand fell with a firm grip on Jerry Stannard’s arm, and the youngster steadied up. Conway led him to the window of the smoke-room, and pointed.
    “You can just see the roof of the house, over there,” he said. “Since last night, Hayn’s gone back to London, and his car came by again about two hours ago. I couldn’t see who was in it, but it must have been Gwen. Now-“
    He broke off suddenly. In the silence, the drone of a powerful car could be heard approaching. Then the car itself whirled by at speed, but it did not pass too quickly for Roger Conway to glimpse at the men who rode in it. “Hayn and Braddon in the back with Dicky Tremayne between them!” he said tensely. He was in time to catch Stannard by the arm as the boy broke away wildly.
    “What the blazes are you stampeding for?” he snapped. “Do you want to go charging madly in and let Hayn rope you in, too?”
    “We can’t wait!” Stannard panted, struggling.
    Conway thrust him roughly into a chair and stood over him. The boy was as helpless as a child in Conway’s hands. “You keep your head and listen to me!” Roger commanded sharply. “We’ll have another drink and tackle this sensibly. And I’m going to see that you wolf a couple of sandwiches before you do anything. You’ve been in a panic for hours, with no lunch, and you look about all in. I want you to be useful.”
    “If we ‘phone the police-“
    “Nothing doing!”
    Roger Conway’s contradiction ripped out almost automatically, for he was not the Saint’s right-hand man for nothing. He had learnt the secret of the perfect lieutenant, which is the secret of, in any emergency, divining at once what your superior officer would want you to do. It was no use simply skinning out any old how-the emergency had got to be dealt with in a way that would dovetail in with the Saint’s general plan of campaign. “The police are our last resort,” he said. “We’ll see if the two of us can’t fix this alone. Leave this to me.”
    He ordered a brace of stiff whiskies and a pile of