“I’m on my way,” Peake cut in. “You will be there?”
“’Fraid not, Charlie. You can have the tiddlers. I’ve got a bigger fish to fry.”
“Listen, Saint, if you...”
But the Saint was not listening. He dropped the receiver into its bracket, got back into the car, which was now loaded with the violin case and his own attaché case, and pointed the radiator towards Soho.
10
Vic Reefly was not of a nervous disposition at any time, and in his office, with a quick escape route to the shop above via a trap door in the ceiling and a bevy of muscular employees outside, he felt at his most secure. So much so that he did not even bother to see what the fuss was about when the crash of glass and the thud of toppling tables reached him. At that time of night there were often fights and, far from objecting, the patrons welcomed them as part of the floor show. The noise subsided, and when the door opened he expected to hear only a brief report of the damage.
What he heard that night was a mocking drawling voice that seemed to lower the temperature of his blood by about sixty degrees Fahrenheit.
“What cheer, Victor. I was just passing so I thought I’d drop in. Unfortunately I seem to have landed on some of your staff.”
Reefly froze. He was kneeling beside the safe in the corner of the room with his back to the door when the Saint entered, and for several seconds seemed incapable of movement. When he did stir it was to send his hand darting towards the back of the safe.
“Don’t be silly, Vic,” cautioned the Saint.
Simultaneously Reefly recognised both the click of a safety catch being flicked and the sense of the Saint’s words. He withdrew his hand. Slowly he stood up and turned. The Saint was sitting on the edge of the table opposite the desk just as he had the previous morning, except that this time he was holding a .38 automatic.
“Sit down, chum, and let words pass between us,” Simon instructed, and Reefly did as he was told. “I’m afraid I’ve done some damage to your furniture and even more to two of your waiters who seemed to think you didn’t want to be disturbed. I didn’t expect it to be quite so easy, but then your regiment was under strength, what with your doorman, your barman, and your pet gorilla being otherwise engaged.”
“What have you done with them?”
The Saint smiled briefly as if he found a passing memory amusing.
“Not as much as I would have liked to do. But it was fun while it lasted.”
Reefly said nothing because there was nothing he could say. He had been in the game long enough to know when to throw in his hand. His best tactic now was just to keep silent and improvise when the chance came.
Simon Templar was happy to accept the stage. His tone was conversational, but the business end of the .38 never wavered from its target between the third and fourth buttons of Reefly’s flowery waistcoat.
“I suppose it wasn’t a bad idea from your point of view,” he conceded. “You tell the Prof about a possible buyer, you find out where the meet is going to be and arrange for a reception committee. That way you not only get to keep the chalice and the money but you get rid of me. Not permanently, of course, that would have caused too much fuss, but you figured that even I would have difficulty exacting my revenge with both legs in traction. And while I was out of action you could get on with those ambitious little schemes I warned you about yesterday. Correct?”
Reefly stage-managed a shrug.
“You’re the one who’s doing the talking.”
He tried to sound offhand but his mouth was too dry and his throat too tight to achieve the proper insouciant inflection.
Simon beamed across at Reefly.
“Don’t I sound interesting? It would have been a great scheme if it had worked — but unfortunately for you it didn’t.”
“So what are you going to do about it? You can’t use that popgun of yours in here.”
“What am I going to do about it?” echoed the Saint, as if considering the question for the first time. “Well, let’s consider the options. They’re building a new flyover at Kew and you could always help prop it up. No, I’ve done something similar to that before, and I do try not to repeat myself.”
He paused for a moment and in the silence Reefly seemed to hear his own heart beating.
“I could feed you to the jackals at the London Zoo, but I hear they’re a bit particular about the quality of their diet,” Simon said at last. “Then again there’s always the traditional cement booties and a swim down to Greenwich, but I hear they’re trying to clean the pollution from the Thames and I’d hate to add to their problems.” He sighed. “So I suppose it’s just going to have to be prison. Not very original and even less personally satisfying, but I’m getting so damned respectable these days.”
Reefly stared as if he could not believe his ears. And then he laughed.
“The police?” he demanded incredulously. “You’re going to go to the law and tell them I tried to nick a stolen chalice from you? They’d run you in as fast as me.”
The Saint shook his head, and that simple movement drained Reefly of all his suddenly found confidence.
“I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong, Vic. Right now, Inspector Peake is picking up what’s left of your enforcement squad, plus the Prof. And Brother Dankin at least is sure to sing, even if the others don’t. He’ll tell them that you sold him the chalice. So you’re going to admit you stole it.”
“Like hell I am,” said Reefly from between clenched teeth.
“Oh yes, you are, dear heart,” Simon corrected. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to give Peake a complete rundown on all the little gems of information I’ve collected about you over the years. Admit you stole the chalice and you’ll go down for five years and be out in three with remission. Refuse, and by the time I’m finished they’ll be throwing away the keys.”
Silence ensued while Reefly considered his options and made the choice the Saint had known he would have to make. Finally he nodded.
“I thought you’d see it my way,” said the Saint. “Two more things. First, who really brought you the chalice?”
The answer was the one Simon had expected but he felt no pleasure in having been proved right. He stood up and crossed the room.
“Second, this has been a rather expensive business so I’m sure you won’t mind contributing to my expenses.”
Reefly watched sullenly as the Saint knelt by the safe and extracted the wads of banknotes he had placed inside it a few minutes earlier. Simon stuffed the money into his jacket pockets. At a rough guess he put the total at around three thousand pounds. He wiped the door clean of his fingerprints, closed it on Reefly’s gun, and spun the dial.
“Bye, Vic. I’ll think of you every time I have porridge for breakfast.” He stopped at the door and turned. “You may think about trying to double-cross me. Try it and I guarantee you’ll never think about anything again.”
11
The chalice stood in the centre of Father Bernardo’s desk. Even minus its ornate lid, which the Saint had left in the Rolls beside the Prof to support the story he had built, it looked imposing, but to the Saint somehow less beautiful than when he had first seen it in that same room such a short while before.
He had just recounted the full story to the pastor and his niece — or almost the full story. Father Bernardo looked steadily at the chalice and said wearily: “I am happy it has been returned, even if now we again have the problem of keeping St. Jude’s open.”
Simon produced the banknotes he had lifted from Vic Reefly’s safe not very long before.
“A donation,” he said.
“From you?” asked Mila. “But we couldn’t—“
The Saint shook his head and smiled.
“No, not from me, from Vic Reefly. He experienced his own road to Damascus — or should it be Dartmoor?”
“There is one thing you have not told us,” said Father Bernardo. “Who really stole the chalice?”
It was the question Simon had been dreading, but fate decided that he would not have to answer it.
At that moment the study door opened and Taffy Owen stepped into the room. He saw the chalice and stopped, hesitated for a moment as he looked into the three faces turned towards him, and then turned and ran.
They listened in silence as his steps thudded on the un-carpeted stairs. The Saint made no attempt to follow him. Presently the front door slammed.
Simon looked at Mila and understood the effort she was making to hold back her tears. Father Bernardo studied his hands.
“He must have heard us discussing stealing the chalice. It was easy for him to slip out, hide, and cosh me as I climbed down the drainpipe. He took it straight to Reefly, and that’s how he came by the hundred pounds the police found. I’m sorry, Mila.”
The girl said nothing but rose shakily to her feet and walked out of the room.
Father Bernardo looked at the Saint.
“So what do we do now?” he asked wearily.
“We do nothing,” Simon said. “If we tell the police that Taffy stole the chalice, then he’s going to point the finger at me because I stole it in the first place, and if that happens you’re going to be dragged in as an accomplice. Anyway, it would only mean prolonging the misery for Mila.”
“Then Taffy gets away with it,” said Father Bernardo. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“It’s not,” Simon admitted. “But that kid hasn’t got the brains to stay out of trouble for long, and next time he won’t be so lucky. At least you won’t be seeing him around here any more.”
“You know, I really thought he had changed,” said Father Bernardo. “I thought that I — we had changed him.”
“Like the man said, you can’t win ’em all,” said the Saint. “What is important is that you don’t stop trying.”
“You are right of course,” Father Bernardo said. And then he smiled. “But then, as a priest, how could I disagree with a Saint?”