By the time he had finished his dinner Simon had no more thoughts of quitting left in his head. His mind was simmering with plans and possibilities, and he was as eager as a hound for the chase.
As if in reward for his determination, there was a little surprise waiting for him when he opened the folded bill which Abdul himself left on his table. A hasty hand had pencilled five words in the margin which had nothing to do with the menu.
“Don’t! They would kill anybody.”
2
How the Saint Met Tam Rowan, and They Heard of a Rendezvous
1
The Saint placed a five-pound note — one pound for each word of the pencil-scribbled warning — on the small tray with his dinner bill, and Abdul Haroon immediately scooted over from the centre of the room and confiscated it.
“Thank you, sir! Thank you very much! One moment for the change...”
“Give it to Mahmud,” Simon said, getting to his feet. “He won’t be picking up many tips for a few weeks.”
He searched the restaurant-owner’s round perspiring face for some trace of admission that it was Abdul himself who had written the note, but he met only an impenetrable determinedly smiling mask.
“You are most kind,” Abdul said.
He was bowing the Saint to the door. The bill and the five-pound note had already disappeared into his pocket.
“And you are very good about looking after your customers,” Simon rejoined.
“I must try to look after them well,” Abdul said gloomily. “They are few enough!”
Even as the Saint nodded goodnight just before stepping into the street Abdul’s expression betrayed nothing. He bowed again with elaborate politeness and held the door open. Simon left without another word, deciding to accept the remembered message for what it was worth and not press matters any further at the Golden Crescent.
But just what was the warning worth? When he was alone on the sidewalk outside the restaurant he thought it over briefly. There had been no information in it, nothing he could draw any help from. He was still just where he had been after Mahmud’s implausible accident. He had a newspaper story bylined by a man who claimed to know more about the illegal immigration racket than he apparently dared to reveal, and he had in his head the name of a wholesale food-distribution company whose employees had shown conspicuous alacrity in getting on to their next job after doing whatever they had done at the Golden Crescent that evening.
Simon stood on the street corner and watched the cars and taxis and evening crowds hurrying by, regretting that he had not memorized the delivery van’s licence. But at the time he had noticed the truck there had been no reason to believe he would ever need to know its number.
There was a telephone outside a pub not far down the street. The Saint walked down to it, stepped into the tobacco-acrid atmosphere of the red kiosk, and swivelled the “S” volume of the directory up so he could have a look at it. He soon satisfied himself, without any great astonishment, that there was no Supreme Imports Ltd. in the London area — or at least that Supreme Imports (whatever it might be they imported) did not feel the need of a listed telephone in the transaction of their business. To make sure, he dialled directory inquiries, asked if Supreme Imports had a number, and received the expected negative answer.
Without leaving the telephone booth the Saint glanced at his wristwatch. It was still early in the evening, but any respectable importing company would have closed its doors by now anyway — and those which specialized in not quite so respectable imports were not likely to make wassail for the stranger at their gates at any hour. Simon put the “S” volume of the directory back to bed and opened the one that contained “R.”
There were half a column of “Rowans” inhabiting London, but of that illustrious clan only one, fortunately, possessed the first name of “Tam.” He also, fortunately, maintained a telephone, and he dwelt at Belsize Square.
The existence of Mr. Rowan’s telephone was of use to Simon mainly as a guide to the address. He had had enough of the silent treatment at the Golden Crescent. He was not going to risk giving Rowan the same easy way out by making his approach over the phone. He would beard the star reporter in his own lair.
The theatre crowds were in their playhouses by now, and the restaurant rush had not yet begun, so the streets in Simon’s vicinity were swarming with whole schools of unoccupied taxis. He commandeered one and was soon carried out of the whirlpool of the Piccadilly Circus-Leicester Square area into the more smoothly flowing streams farther north.
The street where he eventually stopped might have been two hundred miles in space or fifty years back in time from the thronged centre of London he had left behind just a few minutes before. Around Belsize Square Simon’s departing taxi was the only moving vehicle. Not even one solitary human being strolled the lamplit sidewalks. The trees were big, and so were the quiet houses — three and four-storey buildings shoulder to shoulder, with hedged gardens in front. Each garden, it seemed, was the property of a cat, and each cat Simon passed (he had gotten out of the taxi some distance from his destination so as not to advertise his arrival) was constructed on the same ample scale as the trees and the houses. They were great fat lazy trusting beasts ready to roll over on the sidewalk for a stomach rub by any human who happened to wander past their respective territories.
Simon obliged several friendly felines with a scratch and a pat, and thought that he rather admired Tam Rowan for choosing a neighbourhood so rich in animals, old trees, and nostalgia. It was not exactly the sort of section he would have expected an ambitious journalist to roost in — especially a journalist who got his name printed above lavish articles which were mentioned on the front page of his newspaper.
Rowan’s address led the Saint up a short walk presided over by a ginger cat too sluggish even to watch him go by. Simon mounted the cement stairs at the end of the walk, which brought him to a heavy oak door, the only part of the three-storey house which was not painted white. To the right of the door was a battery of six bell-buttons variously stained with use according to the popularity of their owners. Identifying cards, ranging from the finest engraved script to ballpoint longhand on a piece of wrapping-paper, were inserted in the slots next to the push-buttons.
The Saint passed over Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, grimaced at Laverne Larousse, Private Tutor, and was gratified to learn that his own Tarn Rowan lived in flat number 4.
The oak door of the house was not locked, so Simon opened it and walked into the dark hall. There was a pleasant smell of chocolate cake baking, and the muted sound of a television set or radio. The only light in the entrance hall came from under the door of one of the flats. Simon found the electric switch just inside the main entrance, wondering if perhaps the landlord had removed the bulbs from the public corridors for reasons of economy. But an overhead light came on at a flick of his finger and he could see his way up the broad heavily bannistered stairway to the next floor.