The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

At two o'clock he excused himself with a muttered hint of official business, and Simon accompanied him to the door. Teal twiddled his bowler hat and stared at him somnolently.

"You're keeping something back," he said bluntly. "I can't make you tell me if you don't want to, but I suppose you realize that these shootings will go on until we get the man who's at the back of it."

"That reminds me," said the Saint. "Can you give me the names of all the. people who've been shot up since the fashion started-including the policeman ?"

He wrote down the names Teal gave him on the back of an envelope, and waved the detective a cheery fare­well without saying anything in answer to his implied question-a fact which did not dawn clearly upon Mr. Teal until he was halfway down Berkeley Street.

Simon went back to Patricia, and his eyes were gay and dangerous.

"This is where we work very fast," he said. "London stinks in my throat, and we need a holiday. Wouldn't you like to get hold of a ship and sail out into the great open seas?"

"But what do we do now?" she asked; and the Saint tilted his eyebrows in teasing mysteriousness.

"One of the agenda is to have words with Clem Enright. Thank God, Corrigan told me where he hangs around when he's not doing anything-otherwise it might have been difficult."

He was lucky enough to find Clem Enright at his third attempt, in a public house near Charing Cross station; but he made no fuss about his discovery. Clem Enright, in fact, did not know that it had been made.

Clem in his earlier days had haunted the public bars of the taverns where he drank; but recently, under the patronizing tuition of Ted Orping, he had learned to walk quite unselfconsciously through the saloon en­trance. Clem was handling more money than he had ever had in his life before, and in the daze of his new­found affluence he was an apt pupil.

He sat behind a whisky and soda-"Only bums drink beer," insisted Ted-with his derby hat tipped cockily over one ear in what was meant to be an imitation of Ted Orping's swagger, listening to a lecture from his hero.

"Protection," said Ted Orping impressively. "That's what we're goin' for. Protection."

"I thought that was somethink to do wiv politics," said Clem hazily.

"Not that sort of protection, you chump," snarled the scornful Ted. "Who cares about that? I mean protection-like they do it in America. Ain't you never heard of it? What I mean is, you say to a guy: 'Here you are with a big business, an' you never know when some gang may hold you up or chuck a bomb at you. You pay us for protection, an' we'll see nothing hap­pens to you."

"But I thought we was doing the 'old-ups," said Clem.

Ted Orping sighed and spat a loose strand of tobacco through his teeth.

"Course we are, fathead. That's just to show 'em what may happen if they don't pay. Then when they're all frightened, we come an' talk about protection. We get just as much money, an' we don't have to work so hard."

"Sounds all right," said Clem.

He took a drink from his glass and tried to conceal his grimace. He'd never cared for whisky and never would, but it cost twice as much as beer, and a toff always had the best. They were toffs now-Ted Orping said so. They owned cigarette cases, had their nails manicured, and changed their shirts twice a week.

"This is a big thing," said Ted, leaning sideways confidentially. "It's goin' to grow an' grow-there ain't no limits to it. An' we're in at the beginnin', like the guys who started motorcars an' wireless. An' what are they now? Look at 'em!"

"Marconi," hazarded Clem helpfully, "Austin,Morris, 'Enry Ford --"

"Millionaires," said Ted. "That's what. And why? Because they were in first. Just like we are. An' we can be millionaires too. Ain't Tex told you what them guys in Chicago live like? Sleepin' in silk sheets, tickin' off judges, an' havin' the mayor to dinner off gold plates. That's what we'll be like one day. Have another drink."

He went to the bar to have the glasses replenished and came back to the corner where they were sitting. A barmaid began to cry "Time, please!" and Ted put his tongue out at her impudently.

"We won't have none of this, either," he said. "We'll have it in our own homes, an' nobody can say 'Time' there. Why, we're better off in England, because there ain't no third degree here."

"Wot's that mean?" asked Clem.

"Well, when you get pinched they don't treat you friendly like they do here. They don't just ask you a few questions which you needn't answer, an' then lock you up till you see the beak in the mornin'. What they do is, they take you into a room, about half a dozen bloody great coppers, an' they make you talk-whether you know anything or not."

Enright regarded him owlishly.

" 'Ow do they do that?"