He jabbed the muzzle of his gun very hard into the place where his guest's ribs forked, and heard a satisfactory gasp of pain in response. His left hand caught the other's wrist as it descended, twisted with all the skill of a manipulative surgeon, and let go again to grab the life-preserver as it dropped out of the man's numbed fingers.
"You mustn't hit people with things like this," he said reprovingly. "It hurts. ... Doesn't it ?"
The intruder, with jagged stars shooting through his head, did not offer an opinion; but his squirming lost nearly all of its early vigour. The Saint sat on him easily, and made sure that there were no other weapons on his person before he stood up again.
The main lights clicked on with a sudden dazzling brightness. Patricia Holm stood in the doorway, the lines of her figure draping exquisite contours into the folds of a filmy neglige, her fair hair tousled with sleep and hazy startlement in her blue eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know you had company."
"That's all right," said the Saint. "We're keeping open house."
He lounged back to rest the base of his spine against the edge of the table and inspected the caller in more detail. He saw a short-legged barrel-chested individual with a thatch of carroty hair, a wide coarse-lipped mouth, and a livid scar running from one side of a flattened nose to near the lobe of a misshapen ear; and recognition dawned in his gaze.
He waved his gun in a genial gesture.
"You remember our old pal and playmate, Red McGuire ?" he murmured. "Just back from a holiday at Parkhurst after his last job of robbery with violence. Somebody told him about all those jewels we keep around, and he couldn't wait to drop in and see them. Why didn't you ring the bell, Red, and save yourself the trouble of carving up our door?"
McGuire sat on the floor and tenderly rubbed his head.
"Okay," he growled. "I can do without the funny stuff. Go on an' call the cops."
Simon considered the suggestion. It seemed a very logical procedure. But it left an unfinished edge of puzzlement still in his mind.
There was something about finding himself the victim of an ordinary burglary that didn't quite ring bells. He knew well enough that his reputation was enough to make any ordinary burglar steer as far away from him as the landscape would allow. And serious burglars didn't break into any dwelling chosen at random and hope for the best, without even knowing the identity of the occupant—certainly not burglars with the professional status of Red McGuire. Therefore . . .
His eyes drained detail from the scene with fine drawn intentness. Nothing seemed to have been touched. Perhaps he had arrived too quickly for that. Everything was as he had left it when he went to bed. Except—
The emptied packet of Miracle Tea which Patricia had bought for him that evening was still in his coat pocket. The packet which he had refilled for Teal's personal consumption was still on the table. ... Or was it ?
For on the floor, a yard from where Red McGuire had fallen, lay another identical packet of Miracle Tea.
Simon absorbed the jar of realization without batting an eyelid. But a slowly increasing joy crept into the casual radiance of his smile.
"Why ask me to be so unfriendly, Red?" he drawled. "After all, what's a packet of tea between friends ?"
If he needed any confirmation of his surmise, he had it in the way Red McGuire's small green eyes circled the room and froze on the yellow carton beside him before they switched furtively back to the Saint's face.
"Wot tea ?" McGuire mumbled sullenly.
"Miracle Tea," said the Saint gently. "The juice that pours balm into the twinging tripes. That's what you came here for tonight, Red. You came here to swipe my beautiful packet of gut-grease and leave some phony imitation behind instead!"
McGuire glowered at him stubbornly.
"I dunno wot yer talkin' abaht."
"Don't you?" said the Saint, and his smile had become almost affectionate. "Then you're going to find the next half hour tremendously instructive."
He straightened up and reached over for a steel chair that stood close to him, and slid it across in the direction of his guest.
"Don't you find the floor rather hard?" he said. "Take a pew and make yourself happy, because it looks as if we may be in for a longish talk."
A wave of his gun added a certain amount of emphasis to the invitation, and there was a crispness in his eyes that carried even more emphasis than the gun.
McGuire hauled himself up hesitantly and perched on the edge of the chair, And the Saint beamed at him.
"Now if you'll look in the top drawer of the desk, Pat—I think there's quite a collection of handcuffs there. About three pairs ought to be enough. One for each of his ankles, and one to fasten his hands behind him."
McGuire shifted where he sat.
"Wot's the idea?" he demanded uneasily.
"Just doing everything we can to make you feel at home," answered the Saint breezily. "Would you mind putting your hands behind you so that the lady can fix you up ? ... Thanks ever so much.. .. Now if you'll just move your feet back up against the legs of the chair——"
Rebellious rage boiled behind the other's sulky scowl, a rage that had its roots in a formless but intensifying fear. But the Saint's steady hand held the conclusive argument, and he kept that argument accurately aligned on McGuire's wishbone until the last cuff had been locked in place and the strong-arm expert was shackled to the steel chair-frame as solidly as if he had been riveted on to it.
Then Simon put down his automatic and languidly flipped open the cigarette box.
"I hate to do this to you," he said conversationally, "but we've really got to do something about that memory of yours. Or have you changed your mind about answering a few questions ?"
McGuire glared at him without replying.
Simon touched a match to his cigarette and glanced at Patricia through a placid trail of smoke.
"Can I trouble you some more, darling? If you wouldn't mind plugging in that old electric curling-iron of yours——"
McGuire's eyes jerked and the handcuffs clinked as he strained against them.
"Go on, why don't yer call the cops ?" he blurted hoarsely. "You can't do anything to me!"
The Saint strolled over to him.
"Just who do you think is going to stop me?" he asked kindly.
He slipped his hands down inside McGuire's collar, one on each side of the neck, and ripped his shirt open clear to the waist with one swift wrench that sprung the buttons pinging across the room like bullets.
"Get it good and hot, darling," he said over his shoulder, "and we'll see how dear old Red likes the hair on his chest waved."
VI
RED MCGUIRE stared up at the Saint's gentle smile and ice-cold eyes, and the breath stopped in his throat. He was by no means a timorous man, but he knew when to be afraid—or thought he did.
"You ain't given me a charnce, guv'nor," he whined. "Why don't yer arsk me somethink I can answer ? I don't want to give no trouble."
Simon turned away from him to flash a grin at Patricia— a grin that McGuire was never meant to see.
"Go ahead and get the iron, sweetheart," he said, with bloodcurdling distinctness, and winked at her. "Just in case old dear Red changes his mind."
Then the wink and the grin vanished together as he whipped round on his prisoner.
"All right," he snapped. "Tell me all you know about Miracle Tea!"
"I dunno anythink about it, so help me, guv'nor. I never heard of it before tonight. All I know is I was told to come here wiv a packet, an' if I found another packet here I was to swop them over an' bring your packet back. That's all I know about it, strike me dead if it ain't."
"I shall probably strike you dead if it is," said the Saint coldly. "D'you mean to tell me that Comrade Osbett didn't say any more than that ?"
"Who's that?"
"I said Osbett. You know who I'm talking about."
"I never heard of 'im."
Simon moved towards hi
m with one fist drawn back.
"That's Gawd's own truth!" shouted McGuire desperately. "I said I'd tell yer anythink I could, didn't I? It ain't my fault if I don't know everythink——"
"Then who was it told you to come here and play tea-parties ?"
"I dunno.... Listen!" begged McGuire frantically. "This is a squeal, ain't it ? Well, why won't yer believe me ? I tell yer, I don't know. It was someone who met me when I come out of stir. I dunno wot is name is, an' in this business yer don't arsk questions. He ses to me, would I like fifty quid a week to do any dirty work there is going, more er less. I ses, for fifty quid a week I'll do anythink he can think of. So he gives me twenty quid on account, an' tells me to go anywhere where there's a telephone an' just sit there beside it until he calls me. So tonight he rings up——"
"And you never knew who he was ?"
"Never in me life, strike me dead——"
"How do you get the rest of your money ?"
"He just makes a date to meet me somewhere an' hands it over."
"And you don't even know where he lives ?"
"So help me, I don't. All I got is a phone number where I can ring him."
"What is this number?"
"Berkeley 3100."
Simon studied him calculatingly. The story had at least a possibility of truth, and the way McGuire told it it sounded convincing. But the Saint didn't let any premature cameraderie soften his implacably dissecting gaze.
He said: "What sort of a guy is he?"
"A tall thin foreign-looking bloke wiv a black beard."
It still sounded possible. Whatever Mr Osbett's normal appearance might be, and whatever kind of racket he might be in, he might easily be anxious not to have his identity known by such dubiously efficient subordinates as Red McGuire.
"And exactly how," said the Saint, "did your foreign-looking bloke know that I had any miracles in the house ?"
"I dunno——"
Patricia Holm came back into the room with a curling-iron that glowed dull red.
Simon turned and reached for it.
"You're just in time, darling," he murmured. "Comrade McGuire's memory is going back on him again."
Comrade McGuire gaped at the hot iron, and licked his lips.
"I found that out meself, guv'nor," he said hurriedly. "I was goin' to tell yer ——"
"How did you find out?"
"I heard somethink on the telephone." The Saint's eyes narrowed.
"Where?"
"In the fust house I went to—somewhere near Victoria Station. That was where I was told to go fust an' swop over the tea. I got in all right, but the bloke was there in the bedroom. I could hear 'im tossing about in bed. I was standin' outside the door, wondering if I should jump in an' cosh him, when the telephone rang. I listened to wot he said, an' all of a sudding I guessed it was about some tea, an' then once he called you 'Saint', an' I knew who he must be talkin' to. So I got out again an' phoned the guvnor an' told him about it; an' he ses, go ahead an' do the same thing here."
Simon thought back over his conversation with Mr Teal; and belief grew upon him. No liar could have invented that story, for it hung on the fact of a telephone call which nobody else besides Teal and Patricia and himself could have known about.
He could see how the mind of Mr Osbett would have worked on it. Mr Osbett would already know that someone had interrupted the attempt to recover the package of tea from Chief Inspector Teal on his way home, that that someone had arrived in a car, and that he had presumably driven Teal the rest of the way after the rescue. If someone was phoning Teal later about a packet of tea, the remainder of the sequence of accidents would only have taken a moment to reconstruct. . . . And when the Saint thought about it, he. would have given a fair percentage of his fifteen hundred pounds for a glimpse of Mr Osbett's face when he learned into what new hands the packet of tea had fallen.
He still looked at Red McGuire.
"How would you like to split this packet of tea with me?" he asked casually.
McGuire blinked at him.
"Blimey, guv'nor, wot would I do wiv arf a packet of tea?"
Simon did not try to enlighten him. The answer was enough to consolidate the conclusion he had already reached. Red McGuire really didn't know what it was all about—that was also becoming credible. After all, any intelligent employer would know that Red McGuire was not a man who could be safely led into temptation.
The Saint had something else to think about. His own brief introductory anonymity was over, and henceforward all the attentions of the ungodly would be lavished on himself—while he was still without one single solid target to shoot back at.
He sank into a chair and blew the rest of his cigarette into a meditative chain of smoke rings; and then he crushed the butt into an ashtray and looked at McGuire again.
"What happens to your fifty-quid-a-week job if you go back to stir, Red?" he inquired deliberately.
The thug chewed his teeth.
"I s'pose it's all over with, guv'nor."
"How would you like to phone your boss now—for me?"
Fear swelled in McGuire's eyes again as the Saint's meaning wore its way relentlessly into his understanding. His mouth opened once or twice without producing any sound.
"Yer carn't arsk me to do that!" he got out at last. "If he knew I'd double-crorst 'im—he said——"
Simon rose with a shrug.
"Just as you like," he said carelessly. "But one of us is going to use the telephone, and I don't care which it is. If I ring up Vine Street and tell 'em to come over and fetch you away, I should think you'd get about ten years, with a record like yours. Still, they say it's a healthy life, with no worries
"Wait a minute," McGuire said chokily. "What do you do if I make this call?"
"I'll give you a hundred quid in cash; and I'll guarantee that when I'm through with your boss he won't be able to do any of those things he promised."
McGuire was no mathematician, but he could do simple arithmetic. He gulped something out of his throat.
"Okay," he grunted. "It's a bet."
Simon summed him up for a moment longer, and then hauled his chair over to within reach of the table where the telephone stood. He picked up the microphone and prodded his forefinger into the first perforation of the dial.
"All you're going to do," he said, as he went on spelling out BER 3100, "is tell the big bearded chief that you've been through this place with a fine comb, and the only tea-leaf in it is yourself. Do you get it ? No Saint, no tea—no soap.. .. And I don't want to frighten you or anything like that, Red, but I just want you to remember that if you try to say any more than that, I've still got you here, and we can easily warm up the curling-tongs again."
"Don't yer think I know wot's good for me?" retorted the other sourly.
The Saint nodded warily, and heard the ring of the call in the receiver. It was answered almost at once, in a sharp cultured voice with a slight foreign intonation.
"Yes? Who is that?"
Simon put the mouthpiece to McGuire's lips.
"McGuire calling," said the burglar thickly.
"Well?"
"No luck, guv'nor. It ain't here. The Saint's out, so I had plenty of time. I couldn't 've helped findin' it if it'd been here."
There was a long pause.
"All right," said the voice curtly. "Go home and wait for further orders. I'll call you tomorrow."
The line went down with a click.
"And I wouldn't mind betting," said the Saint, as he put the telephone back, "that that's the easiest hundred quid you ever earned."
"Well, yer got wot yer wanted, didn't yer?" he snarled. "Come on an' take orf these ruddy bracelets an' let me go."
The Saint shook his head.
"Not quite so fast, brother," he said. "You might think of calling up your boss again and having another chat with him before you went to bed, and I'd hate him to get worried at this hour of the night. You stay right where you are and get some
of that beauty sleep which you need so badly, because after what I'm going to do tomorrow your boss may be looking for you with a gun!"
VII
EARLY RISING had never been one of the Saint's favourite virtues, but there were times when business looked more important than leisure. It was eleven o'clock the next morning—an hour at which he was usually beginning to think drowsily about breakfast—when he sauntered into the apothecarium of Mr Henry Osbett.
In honour of the occasion, he had put on his newest and most beautiful suit, a creation in pearl-grey fresco over which his tailor had shed tears of ecstasy in the fitting room; his piratically tilted hat was unbelievably spotless; his tie would have humbled the gaudiest hues of dawn. He had also put on, at less expense, a vacuous expression and an inanely chirpy grin that completed the job of typing him to the point where his uncle, the gouty duke, loomed almost visible in his background.
The shifty-eyed young assistant who came to the counter might have been pardoned for keeling over backwards at the spectacle; but he only recoiled half a step and uttered a perfunctory "Yes, sir?"
He looked nervous and preoccupied. Simon wondered whether this nervousness and preoccupation might have had some connection with a stout and agitated-looking man who had entered the shop a few yards ahead of the Saint himself. Simon's brightly vacant eyes took in the essential items of the topography without appearing to notice anything—the counter with its showcases and displays of patent pills and liver salts, the glazed compartment at one end where presumably prescriptions were dispensed, the dark doorway at the other end which must have led to the intimate fastnesses of the establishment. Nowhere was the stout man visible; therefore, unless he had dissolved into thin air, or disguised himself as a bottle of bunion cure, he must have passed through that one doorway.. . . The prospects began to look even more promising than the Saint had expected. . . .
"This jolly old tea, old boy," bleated the Saint, producing a package from his pocket. "A friend of mine—chappie named Teal, y'know, great detective and all that sort of thing—bought it off you last night and then he wouldn't risk taking it. He was goin' to throw it down the drain; but I said to him 'Why waste a perfectly good half-dollar, what?' I said. 'I'll bet they'll change it for a cake of soap, or something,' I said. I'll take it in and change it myself,' I told him. That's right, isn't it? You will change it, won't you?"
Follow the Saint s-20 Page 4
