He said nothing about the long legs of Russell Vail. He may have felt instinctively that it would be diplomatic not to make Vail and the Saint sit together, though he had asked no questions about Vail’s puffy mouth. And Vail seemed to think it best not to reopen the subject in front of Usebio.
“You can drop me off at my sister’s.” Vail said, as they came down Abbey Road, and Iantha obviously knew where that was. Vail got out and said, “Goodnight. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He looked in at the Saint and said, “I hope I see you again soon.”
“Any time,” said the Saint, exactly as he had once said to Iantha.
She drove to Claridge’s, and Usebio said, “I will get out, but you must take Mr Templar home.”
“Nonsense,” said the Saint. “I’ll get a taxi. Or I’d just as soon walk. She has to take care of you.”
“To that, I say nonsense,” said Usebio. “I am all right. Only a few bruises. I will sit in a hot bath and tomorrow I am all right. It is nothing like a cornada.” He was out of the car already, and put his hand in at Simon’s window. “I insist. Tonight you saved my life. Is it so much to take you home? Va con Diós, amigo.” The thin lips smiled coldly, but the dark eyes glowed like hot coals. “You would have made a good bullfighter. You understand what is pundonor.”
The Jaguar pulled away, and Simon Templar leaned back at the fullest length that his seat would let him.
“Do you understand what is pundonor?” she asked at length.
“It’s a sort of romantic-chivalric concept of an honor that’s bigger than just ordinary honor, or honesty,” he said very quietly and remotely. “A sort of inflexible pride that would make you go through with a bet to dive off the Brooklyn Bridge even after you found out that the East River was frozen solid.”
She said, “Or that would make you try to live up to your reputation because a hero was needed, and there was nobody else around?”
“Russell isn’t a coward,” said the Saint. “Don’t sell him short.”
“Then why didn’t he fight you after you hit him?”
“Because it was safer to be consistent, and go on looking like someone who couldn’t have helped Elías. Why did you scream?”
“I couldn’t help it. Something touched me, and with all those jungle creatures around I naturally thought of snakes, and—”
“And that was all you could think of.”
“Russell must have goosed me.”
The Saint sighed.
“It’s possible. I wouldn’t ask him, because he’d deny it anyhow. But somebody must have wanted Elías to die. It was thrilling, wasn’t it?”
“You were wonderful.”
“Morituri te salutamus — we who are about to die salute you. I think I said you were born in the wrong century. And if Elías had been killed, Russell and I could have fought it out. And if I killed him, some day some new young upstart would be challenging me. Just like the cave men.”
They turned into the Grosvenor House courtyard off Park Street and she braked the Jaguar and said, “Ask me in.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to be one of your gladiators.”
In one smooth movement he was outside the car and she was staring out at him like a perplexed and perverse pixie.
“Nobody,” she said in a low unbelieving voice — “nobody ever turned me down.”
“That’s why I’ll be the one man in your life that you’ll never forget,” he said wickedly. “And there’s one other thing I want you to remember.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s none of my business how you work out your personal problems with Elías. But if I ever hear of him having a fatal accident, it had better be very convincing. Or you can be sure that whatever the jury says, I shall take the trouble to arrange another accident for you. Please never forget that — darling.”
He blew her a kiss off his fingertips, and smiled, and walked into the hotel.
The cleaner cure
Copyright © 1959 by Great American Publications, Inc.
Simon Templar suffered neither fools nor pests gladly, but he was never too stubborn to admit that even the most obnoxious person could have something to offer him that might be useful at some remote time in some odd way.
He did not like Dr Wilmot Javers, whom he met at a cocktail party in London for which the occasion has no bearing on this story, but he talked with him. Or, rather, he listened and made a few conventionally encouraging noises while Dr Javers talked.
“I came across a case recently that would interest you,” Dr Javers stated, in a tone that defied contradiction. “I said to myself at the time, this would be one for the Saint.”
“Did you?” responded the Saint politely.
“Of course, I never dreamed I’d have the chance to find out whether you could solve it. But now you’ll have to show me whether you’re as clever as they say you are.”
“I couldn’t be,” Simon responded promptly.
But Dr Javers was not to be diverted. As a medico, he may have been extremely competent and conscientious, sympathetic and indefatigable in affliction, dedicated to his profession and his patients, but as an individual he was one of those opinionated and aggressive types that can only assert themselves by reducing somebody else.
There are physical specimens of the same mentality who, with a certain reinforcement of alcohol, upon spotting a former or even current boxing champion in a bar, are impelled to try their best to pick a fight with him — an occupational hazard of which every career pugilist is acutely aware. What can they lose? If he declines the challenge, he is yellow. If the loud mouth can score with a sneak punch, he can boast about it for ever. But if the pro gives him the beating that he deserves, then the champ is nothing but a big bully picking on a poor helpless amateur. Even actors who portray tough-guy parts before movie or TV cameras, merely to support their wives and children, are the recurrent targets of hopped-up heroes who feel inspired to prove that these actors are not as tough as the script makes them.
The Saint was exposed to this psychosis on two planes — not merely the physical, but also the intellectual, which in several ways was harder to cope with, requiring more patience than muscular prowess. But he had learned to roll with the abstract punches as well as the other kind.
“Here’s the situation,” said Dr Javers. “The subject is a man thirty-eight years old, married, two children, more than averagely successful in business. Never had a serious illness in his life, but is somewhat overweight. His business calls for a lot of expense-account wining and dining. His only trouble is that the wining is often too much for him. He isn’t an alcoholic, and he holds it like a gentleman, but he goes to bed drunk two or three nights a week, regularly. I mean, when he lies down, it’s a fine question whether he falls asleep or passes out.”
“So?”
“One night, after taking a foreign buyer out to dinner and a couple of night clubs, he comes home and goes to bed in his dressing-room, as he always does when he’s out late. His wife is an understanding soul, and she doesn’t wait up for him. The next day, he has the usual hangover, only it’s much worse than usual.”
“Must have been an extra big night.”
“He has the splitting headache and the nausea, of course, but much worse than he can ever remember having them. And a bad cough, though he can’t remember whether he smoked a lot more than his normal quota of cigarettes. Naturally, he has no appetite for breakfast. But he doesn’t improve during the day. He feels worse all the time, he can’t eat, and his eyeballs turn yellow. The following day, his wife thinks he must have an attack of jaundice, and calls me in. By that time he has stopped passing urine. I do what I can, but in two days he is dead.”