“He won’t be open this early.”
“We could hardly do this during business hours — that’s why we had to wait out most of the night at that boathouse. But he lives right above the restaurant,” Simon told her. “He’ll probably still be in bed counting cheap sheep jumping into his saucepans.”
When they arrived at the alley behind the Golden Crescent, it was just after six o’clock. The city was barely coming to life, outside of the meat and produce market districts; and in this area dominated by restaurants and theatres, their doors all closed, there was still more an atmosphere of sleeping off the night before than of getting ready for a new day’s business. The few pedestrians seemed on their way to somewhere else, and in the alley there was no sign of life at all.
Simon pulled up at the back door of Haroon’s establishment and switched off the car’s engine.
“Have you ever been to his flat?” Tammy asked.
“No, but he once showed me a separate door around on the street in front. You wait here while I go rouse him and have him open this entrance.”
“You’re not supposed to go anywhere without me,” she said.
The Saint looked momentarily tired.
“I seem to remember that you said that before. Surely we can be parted for three or four minutes without your hurling yourself off Lovers’ Leap.”
“Do you promise you won’t try to give me the slip?” she asked earnestly.
“I do so swear,” he said. “I won’t be gone any longer than it takes to pump up Abdul for the day and roll him down the stairs. All right?”
“All right,” she said. “But I still don’t see why I have to stay here.” She looked over behind her seat. “He certainly can’t get away.”
“That’s what he would have said about us at one point last night,” the Saint reminded her. “But let’s also hope that he hasn’t suffocated by this time. If he has, it might solve Abdul’s meat problem, but it won’t help us.”
He avoided any more discussion by getting quickly out of the car and walking down to the alley’s mouth and around to the front of the restaurant. Next to it was an open doorway exposing worn wooden stairs which led to rooms above the street level. The staircase was dark and smelled sour, like old beer. At the top, to the left and right, Simon found a choice of two doors. The one on the right bore a thumbtacked card signed “Evans” and the one to the left was unmarked.
The Saint knocked on the left-hand door. Presently there was a scuffling sound from within, and then silence. Simon rapped on the door again. More silence.
“Abdul,” he called softly. “This is Simon Templar.”
Reluctant footsteps approached the door.
“Mr. Templar?” Haroon’s voice asked. “It is you, is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What do you want?”
“Are you always this friendly with big-spending customers?” the Saint enquired. “Among other things, I want to help your business.”
A key rattled in the lock and the door opened a fraction.
Then it opened fully and revealed Abdul Haroon in leather slippers, dark trousers, and clean open-collared white shirt. He looked freshly scrubbed and shaven, like a Grade A apple.
“I don’t want any trouble with anybody,” he said hastily, holding one plump hand out as if he might try to fend off the Saint if he tried to cross the threshold.
“You won’t have any if you’re a good fellow and help me,” Simon told him pleasantly. “As I understand the situation, you’ve had a little trouble making up your mind just whose side you’re on in this business of Kalki’s and Fowler’s, and it’s about time—”
Haroon’s shiny round face suddenly stretched into a great tremulous pudding of dismay.
“What are you talking about?” he gasped. “I don’t know anything about it!”
He started to close the door, but before he could do it the Saint pushed into the room.
“Then you’d better listen,” he said. “I know all about Kalki and Fowler and Shortwave now — and also about Mahmud’s fake broken arm. Incidentally, this wasn’t Mahmud’s lucky day. You’ll have to start looking for a new waiter.”
Haroon was shaking his head violently, as if to convince the world and the gods that he was not really there and not really hearing anything at all. He closed the door at the mention of Mahmud’s name, though, to shut himself and the Saint off from any prying ears outside the flat.
“Mahmud?” he mumbled. “What happened to him?”
“He’s booked for a long sea voyage,” said Simon. “But more to the point is your future, which is not going to be terribly rosy if you can’t explain to me and the police why you’ve been letting Kalki and Fowler use your beanery as a clubhouse.”
Haroon wrung his bejewelled hands, creating the clear impression that at any moment he might fall to his knees and dissolve in tears.
“I didn’t do anything!” he protested frantically. “They made me. They would have killed me if I’d told anybody or tried to stop them!”
“I’m inclined to believe you,” Simon admitted. “So do you propose to repent now and help me nail those creeps or shall we take a ride to Scotland Yard?”
Haroon looked less actively distraught and more despairing.
“You work for the police?” he asked.
“No, but I don’t mind giving them a helping hand when it suits me. Which way would you like it?”
Haroon’s hands dropped limply to his widely separated sides like a pair of discarded rubber toys.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked weakly.
Simon smiled and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder — a touch which became a firm grip as he steered Haroon out of the door and on to the stairs.
“I don’t want you to do anything that you’re not already good at. I have a very thin friend downstairs and I want you to help fatten him up. After that you can start preparing a feast to celebrate our final victory over Kalki the Conquered and Fowler the Foundered.”
5
How Shortwave Enjoyed His Breakfast, and the Saint Used a Convenient Cellar
1
Abdul Haroon preceded the Saint down the stairs to the street like an unwilling hippo.
“I’ve parked in back,” the Saint told him. “My friend is a bit shy.”
“I carry only the key to the front,” Haroon replied. “We can go through.”
He walked the few feet to the main door of his restaurant flinging quick glances into the street and over his shoulder as if he were a fat schoolboy sneaking into a forbidden pantry.
“What are you so worried about?” Simon asked. “None of the baddies knows I’m here — and anyway, I’ll protect you if you prove to deserve it.”
Haroon bent stiffly forward and unlocked the glass door so amply identified in gilt lettering as the portal of the Golden Crescent.
“You cannot know what a torment my life has been since these people began to interfere in things and threaten me,” he said in a low voice. “But what could I do? You have seen how they treat people who do not co-operate. Come in, come in...”
He held the door open and closed it quickly behind him as soon as the Saint had entered. The restaurant was dim because of the thick colourless curtains that had been drawn across the plate-glass windows. Haroon threw the bolt, and the shade which covered the door swayed a few times, sending a wing of sunlight fluttering across the wall before the room settled into a kind of undersea gloom again.