The Saint Sees it Through

by Charteris Leslie

"I simply couldn't. Get down there again. I want that information immediately."

Simon pulled Avalon away from the door, and they fled on cat feet down the corridor and stood very still pressed against the wall. Dr. Zellermann came out of Ferdinand's room and went downstairs without a glance in their direction.

Now the Saint had purpose. Each task in its turn, and the silencing of the golden boy was first. He strode to the door and flung it open. Ferdinand, clad in a pale cerise dressing gown, turned and saw the Saint.

He looked up casually and a little irritably, as if he only expected to see Zellermann coming back with an afterthought excuse. When he saw the Saint, his expression remained outwardly unchanged. His reaction came from deep under his skin, instead of being the muscular contortion of a moment's shock. It came out as a dew of sweat on his face that swelled into an established wetness; and only after that was established his pretty face went pinched and pallid with terror. He didn't have to say anything to make a complete confession that he was answering his own questions as fast as they could spiral through his reeling mind, and that he knew that the answers were all his own and there was nothing he could say to anyone else, anywhere. He wasn't the first dilettante in history who had been caught up with by the raw facts of life in the midst of all the daffodils and dancing; and he would not be the last.

The Saint felt almost sorry for him; but all the pity in the world didn't alter the absolute knowledge that Mr. Pairfield constituted a very real menace to the peace and quiet which Simon wanted for a few seconds more. Mr. Pairfield's eyes inflated themselves like a pair of small blowfish at what they divined; his mouth dropped open, and his throat tightened in the preliminary formation of a scream. These were only the immediate reflex responses blossoming out of the trough of terror that was already there, but they were no less urgent and dangerous for that. Something had to be done about them, and there was really only one thing to do.

Simon put out his left hand and grasped the lapels of Mr. Pairfield's dainty silk dressing-gown together, and drew him closer with a sympathetic smile.

"Ferdy," he said, "don't you know that it's time for all good little girls to be asleep?"

And with that his right fist rocketed up to impinge on Mr. Pairfield's aesthetic chin, and sleep duly followed...

Simon slid an arm under him as he crumpled, and carried him back into the room and dumped him on the bed. It was a nice encouraging thing to discover and prove that he still had that much strength and vitality in him, even though he knew very well that the power and agility that were required to anesthetise Ferdinand Pairfield would not necessarily be enough to cope with anyone who was at least averagely tough of mind and body. It made him feel a new sureness of himself and a new hope that slipped looseningly and warmingly into his limbs as he tore one of Cookie's fine percale sheets into wide ribbons to tie Ferdinand's wrists and ankles to the bed and then to stuff into his slackly open mouth and gag him.

He found himself working with the swift efficiency of second nature; and that was a good feeling too, to be aware of the old deftness and certainty flowing into his own movements with increasing ease all the time, and the gossamer bubble of his wakefulness holding and not breaking but growing more clear and durable with each passing minute..