The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

He went back to his second breakfast with the con­tented knowledge that another and very different conversation must have been seething over the London wire at about that time, and he was right.

Ronald Nilder did not think it expedient to go into details.

"The Saint caught me in the Solent, Goldman. He didn't say it was him, but it couldn't have been anyone else. He threw the guns overboard and beat me up."

Tex Goldman had the gift of not wasting time on use­less bad language.

"Get back here as quick as you can," he said grimly. "I'll have something waiting for the Saint."

Simon Templar, however, had an equally valuable gift which had stood him in good stead before. On that Friday morning it worked at full pressure. He had a very clear conception of Tex Goldman's psychology. Wherefore he drove back to London by way of Leather-head and Epsom, and Ted Orping waited for him at the end of the Portsmouth Road in vain.

It was a minute or two before twelve-thirty when he entered the doors of Lansdowne House, but Patricia was waiting for him. The Saint ordered cocktails and told her the detailed history of his early-morning escapade.

"If you came back by a roundabout way, I expect Nilder's got home about the same time," she said, and Simon smiled.

"I doubt it, old darling," he said calmly. "I stuck my penknife through both his back tires and the spare for luck, so he could either wait for someone to repair the damage or catch a train that won't get him in for another quarter of an hour. That'll make it a bit too much of a rush for him to catch the two o'clock via Boulogne, so he can either make a dash for the four o'clock Dover-Calais or wait for the eight-twenty via Dieppe or the nine o'clock via Havre-my familiarity with these timetables is remarkable," said the Saint modestly. "In any case, he'll have to go to his bank first, and that's all I'm interested in."

The girl looked at him curiously.

"There was a time when he wouldn't have got off so lightly," she said.

Simon leaned back with his long legs stretched out in front of him and watched the smoke from his ciga­rette curling towards the ceiling.

"I know. But we weren't so businesslike in those days, and the income tax wasn't five bob in the pound. Besides which, the activities of the great Claud Eustace weren't quite so near the mark. No, Pat-in the autumn of his life this young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of subtler things, which includes ingenious methods of getting his dirty work done for him. And I think I know a far, far neater way."

And then he looked round and saw the oval figure of Chief Inspector Teal crossing the lounge towards them. He hitched himself up and called for more Martinis.

"Tell us about things," he murmured.

"There's nothing much to tell," said the detective sleepily, sinking into a chair. "We're still working, and we'll get our men before long. I suppose you read about the Underground hold-up last night?"

Simon shook his head.

"I haven't seen a morning paper."

"They wounded two men and got away with over three thousand pounds in cash-the booking-office takings from several stations. That's where it's so diffi­cult. They've got us guessing all the time. First it's jewellers' shops; then we guard those, and it's banks. Then we watch the banks, and it's a night club. Now it's the Underground. We can't possibly protect every place in London where you can find large sums of money, and they know it."

"No more clues?"

"We're working on several lines," said the detective, with professional vagueness; but Simon Templar was not impressed.

"As I see it," he said, "your trouble is to get hold of the man up top who's producing all these smart ideas. It's no good knocking off Green Cross boys here and there-you can always keep tabs on them in the ordinary way, and it's just this unknown bloke who's got control of 'em who's making 'em dangerous for the time being."

Teal nodded.

"That's about it."

"And if you did find this unknown bloke, he'd prob­ably turn out to be so unknown that all the evidence you could get against him wouldn't hang a mosquito."

"That's often the trouble," said Teal gloomily. "But we can't work any other way."

"Let's have some lunch," said the Saint brightly.

Throughout the meal he played the perfect host with a stern devotion to the book of etiquette that Patricia could not understand. He talked about racing, beer, aeroplanes, theatres, politics, sparking plugs, dress reform, and cancer-everything that could not be steered to any subject that the detective might find tender. Most particularly he avoided saying anything more about the Green Cross boys or their unknown leader; and more than once Teal looked sideways at him with a kind of irritated puzzlement. It was not like the Saint to show such an elaborate desire to keep possibly painful matters out of discussion, and the symptom made Mr. Teal feel a dim uneasiness.