So when he saw his daughter about to cry, Angelworth got spontaneously to his feet and hurried to put his arms round her.
“Are you telling me he’s a crook or something?” Carole asked, holding stiffly back from co-operating in the embrace, and struggling to control her voice.
“He pretends to be some sort of modern Robin Hood.” Angelworth looked into Carole’s face as he let his arm slip away from her shoulder. “Simon Templar is well known to operate on both sides of the law, taking the law into his own hands. He may have some misguided good intentions, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he thinks nothing of breaking the law. Somehow or other he seems to have gotten away with it very well, financially; but that’s no excuse for him either.”
“Well, at least he has some excuse! What about Richard?” Carole pointed in the general direction of the absent Hamlin. “He’s a convicted criminal, but you trust him.”
“That’s different,” her father said. “I investigated him, got to know him, proved him over a long period, decided to give him a chance, promoted him gradually. And I’m not married to him, which is apparently what you have in mind with Simon Templar.”
“You might as well be married to Richard,” Carole retorted. “He’s round here day and night.”
Angelworth shook his head and paced across the room and back.
“It disappoints me very much to see us on the verge of quarrelling with one another,” he said in a new, deeper, quieter voice. “I’m only thinking of what’s best for you, but I can understand that it’s hard for you to see the other side of the picture—”
“But if what you’ve told me is true, the police would have done something about it.”
“They’ve been trying to, for years. I suppose you didn’t connect his real name with things you must have read in the papers. They usually call him The Saint.”
It was almost as if he had struck her physically with the revelation.
“Oh, no!” she breathed. “The Saint...”
“Dick Hamlin thinks — and I agree — that if he has any business here, it’s liable to have something to do with our local crime boss, the ‘Supremo.’ And you wouldn’t want to get involved with that, on any side.”
Her eyes were wide, but the rest of her face was still blank with shock, a mask behind which her father tried vainly to read her innermost feelings.
“Carole, there are dozens of men in this town who’d give their right arms for a second glance from you — men with good solid backgrounds, homes, big futures ahead of them.”
“You know how they’ve always bored me,” she said, as if she was barely listening.
Angelworth stood up and raised both arms in a gesture of exasperation. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’ve known this man for approximately one day, and I’ve just explained to you that he’s a dubious character. Why don’t you at least take the attitude I took with Dick Hamlin? Before you go overboard, find out what he’s like. For a start, does he feel the same way about you that you feel about him?”
“Yes, I think so,” Carole answered, with a kind of toneless impatience.
“Has he told you?”
“Not exactly, but I can tell.”
He scrutinised her then with an intensity that made her drop her gaze to the floor. “Have you already... become seriously involved with him?”
The connotation of the question was not lost on her.
“Yes,” she lied. “I’ll admit I threw myself at him. And I’ll die if I don’t see him again.”
Angelworth sighed and went back to his desk chair.
“Good heavens, the man’s just a little late getting home tonight. You can bet it isn’t the first time in his life, and it won’t be the last!”
“I know something’s happened to him,” she said flatly. “I just know it. He’s in trouble... and now that you’ve said what you’ve said about him, I’m more worried about him than ever.”
Without any warning, tears suddenly overflowed. She sank into the chair Richard Hamlin had vacated, let her arms and head rest on her father’s desk, and began to sob.
Hyram Angelworth had never seen her cry since her mother had died, and he was dismayed. Like many men who have risen to the top of the power game, he was unnerved by feminine emotion. And his devotion to Carole was the most utterly genuine and unselfish thing in his life.
“What can I do, Carole?” His own voice was unsteady. “What can I possibly do?”
“You can help me, Daddy.” She raised her head a little and looked at him with reddened, flooded eyes. “If I call the police they’ll just laugh at me. But you know everybody. They respect you. You’ve given I don’t know how much to police charities, and your committee... how could they turn you down on anything? Find out if they know anything about Simon trying to take on the Supremo. Or work with him.”
Her father did not want to risk bringing on another cloudburst with more discussion.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m afraid most personal friends of mine will be in bed by now.”
Carole stood up, dabbing her eyes.
“Thank you, Daddy.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Just come tell me as soon as you hear anything, no matter what time it is.”
“Well, I hope we’re not going to have to sit up all night because of this,” Angelworth said, with a composure he did not feel.
As he watched her go, he was trying to adjust himself to the discovery that underneath the bright brittle front she presented to the world she had a secret half that he had never known or understood.
Carole passed through the living-room with hardly a glance at Richard Hamlin, who sat there turning the pages of a glossy magazine, and gave him a purely perfunctory “Good night.” But she felt certain in her own mind that a few seconds before he must have been listening at the study door.
Chapter 7
The Saint’s exiled consciousness made a slow and hobbling return. First he became vaguely aware that he was waking up, although at first he saw and heard nothing, and when he opened his eyes he was surprised, for just an instant, to see dusty, scuffed wood instead of the sheets of his bed. Then he felt the pain caused by some diabolical throbbing engine trying to drill up through the roof of his skull. That, after a moment’s puzzlement, brought back to his mind a sharp memory of the fight in the private office of The Pear Tree, and the blow that had knocked him out of action.
How long had he been unconscious? Now he remembered the one previous moment of awareness, when something had pricked his arm, and he realised that he must have been injected with some drug designed to keep him comatose for the convenience of his captors.
With the past gradually forming a pattern in his mind, the Saint began to take in more of his surroundings than just the dusty boards on which his cheek rested. He started to move, to pick himself up off the floor; and discovered that his wrists were tied behind him. His legs were also immobilised by ropes, as he could see when he gingerly pressed his chin towards his chest and looked down the length of his body. He felt as if his brain had come loose within his skull and had the weight of a cannon-ball; nevertheless he clenched his teeth together and endured the pain that resulted from the movements he had to make in order to see round the room.
It was not large, about the size of an ordinary living-room, but with a much higher ceiling, so that he guessed it was part of a big building, possibly an old warehouse. The walls as well as the floors were made of rough wood. Below the tin ceiling hung a single light-bulb. There were no windows. The only things in the room besides himself, other than an interested roach or two, were a few plywood packing crates. A door at the other end of the room was closed.