The shifty-eyed youth was a bad actor. His face had gone white, then red, and finally compromised by remaining blotchy. He gaped at the packet as if he was really starting to believe that there were miracles in Miracle Tea.
"We—we should be glad to change it for you, sir," he gibbered.
"Fine!" chortled the Saint. "That's just what I told jolly old Teal. You take the tea, and give me a nice box of soap. I expect Teal can use that, but I'm dashed if I know what he could do with tea——"
He was talking to a vanishing audience. The youth, with a spluttered "Excuse me, sir," had grabbed the package off the counter and was already making a dive for the doorway at the far end; and the imbecile grin melted out of the Saint's face like a wax mould from a casting of hot bronze.
One skeleton instant after the assistant had disappeared, he was over the counter with the swift silence of a cat.
But even if he had made any noise, it is doubtful whether the other would have noticed it. The shifty-eyed youth was so drunk with excitement that his brain had for the time being practically ceased to function. If it hadn't he might have stopped to wonder why Mr Teal should have handed the tea to a third party; or why the third party, being so obviously a member of the idle rich, should have even bothered about exchanging it for a box of soap. He might have asked himself a great many inconvenient questions; but he didn't. Perhaps the peculiarly fatuous and guileless character which the Saint had adopted for the interview had something to do with that egregious oversight—at least, that was what Simon Templar had hoped for. . . . And it is at least certain that the young man went blundering up the stairs without a backward glance, while the Saint glided like a ghost into the gloomy passage-way at the foot of the stairs. , . .
In the dingy upper room which was the young man's destination, Mr Osbett was entertaining the stout and agitated man. That is to say, he was talking to him. The agitated man did not look very entertained.
"It's no good cursing me, Nancock," Osbett was saying, in his flustered old-maidish way. "If you'd been on time last night——"
"I was on time!" yelped the perspiring Mr Nancock. "It was that young idiot's fault for handing the package over without the password-—and to Teal, of all people. I tell you, I've been through hell! Waiting for something to happen every minute—waiting, waiting.... It isn't even safe for me to be here now——"
"That's true," said Osbett, with one of his curiously abrupt transformations to deadly coldness. "Who told you to come here ?"
"I came here because I want my money!" bawled the other hysterically. "What do you think I've done your dirty work for ? Do you think I'd have taken a risk like this if I didn't need the money ? Is it my fault if your fool of an assistant gives the money to the wrong man? I don't care a damn for your pennydreadful precautions, and all this nonsense about signs and countersigns and keeping out of sight. What good has that done this time ? I tell you, if I think you're trying to cheat me——"
"Cheat you ?" repeated the chemist softly. The idea seemed to interest him. "Now, I wonder why you should be the first to think of that ?"
There was a quality of menace in his voice which the stout man did not seem to hear. His mouth opened for a fresh outburst; but the outburst never came. The first word was on his lips when the door opened and the shifty-eyed youth burst in without the formality of a knock.
"It's Teal's—packet!" he panted out. "A man just came in and said he wanted to change it! He said—Teal gave it to him. It hasn't been opened!"
Nancock jumped up like a startled pig, with his mouth still open where the interruption had caught it. An inarticulate yelp was the only sound that came out of it.
Osbett got up more slowly.
"What sort of man ?" he snapped, and his voice was hard and suspicious.
The youth wagged his hands vaguely.
"A silly-ass sort of fellow—Burlington Bertie kind of chap—I didn't notice him particularly—"
"Well, go back and notice him now!" Mr Osbett was flapping ditherily again. "Keep him talking. Make some excuse, but keep him there till I can have a look at him."
The assistant darted out again and went pelting down the stairs—so precipitately that he never noticed the shadow that faded beyond the doorway of the stockroom on the opposite side of the landing.
Osbett had seized the packet of tea and was feeling it eagerly. The suspicious look was still in his eyes, but bis hands were shaking with excitement.
"It feels like it!" he muttered. "There's something funny about this——"
"Funny!" squeaked Nancock shrilly. "It's my money, isn't it ? Give it to me and let me get out of here!"
"It will be lucky for you if it is your money," Osbett said thinly. "Better let me make sure." He ripped open the package. There was no tea in it—only crumpled pieces of thin white paper. "Yes, this is it. But why ... My God!"
The oath crawled through his lips in a tremulous whisper. He looked as if he had opened the package and found a snake in his hands. Nancock, staring at him, saw that his face had turned into a blank grey mask in which the eyes bulged like marbles.
Osbett spread out the piece of paper which he had opened. It was not a banknote. It was simply a piece of perforated tissue on which had been stamped in red the drawing of a quaint little figure with straight lines for body and legs and arms and an elliptical halo slanted over his round featureless head. . . . Osbett tore open the other papers with suddenly savage hands. Every one of them was the same, stamped with the same symbolic figure....
"The Saint!" he whispered.
Nancock goggled stupidly at the scattered drawings.
"I—I don't understand," he faltered, and he was white at the lips.
Osbett looked up at him.
"Then you'd better start thinking!" he rasped, and his eyes had gone flat and emotionless again. "The Saint sent this, and if he knows about the money——"
"Not 'sent', dear old Whiskers, not 'sent'," a coolly mocking voice corrected him from the doorway. "I brought it along myself, just for the pleasure of seeing your happy faces."
The Saint stood leaning against the jamb of the door smiling and debonair.
VIII
THE TWO men stood and gawped at him as if he had been a visitor from Mars. A gamut of emotions that must have strained their endocrine glands to bursting point skittered over their faces like foam over a waterfall. They looked as if they had been simultaneously goosed with high-voltage wires and slugged in the solar plexus with invisible sledgehammers. Simon had to admit that there was some excuse for them. In fact, he had himself intentionally provided the excuse. There were certain reactions which only the ungodly could perform in their full richness that never failed to give him the same exquisite and fundamental joy that the flight and impact of a well-aimed custard pie gives to a movie audience; and for some seconds he was regaled with as ripe and rounded an exhibition of its kind as the hungriest heart could desire.
The Saint propped himself a little more comfortably against his backrest, and flicked a tiny bombshell of ash from his cigarette.
"I hope you don't mind my asking myself in like this," he remarked engagingly. "But I thought we ought to get together on this tea business. Maybe I could give you some new ideas. I was mixing a few odds and ends together myself yesterday——"
Credit must be given to Mr Osbett for making the first recovery. He was light-years ahead of Nancock, who stood as if his feet had sunk into the floor above the ankles, looking as though his lower jaw had dislocated itself at its fullest stretch. In one sheeting flash of dazzling clarity it dawned upon him that the man who stood there was unarmed—that the Saint's hands were empty except for a cigarette. His mouth shut tight under the spreading plumes of his moustache as he made a lightning grab towards the inside of his coat.
"Really!" protested the Saint. "Weren't you ever taught not to scratch yourself in public ?"
Osbett had just time to blink—once. And then he felt as if a cyclone had hit him. H
is fingers had not even closed on the butt of the automatic in his shoulder holster when he found himself full in the path of what seemed like a ton of incarnate dynamite moving with the speed of an express train. Something like a chunk of teak zoomed out of the cyclone and collided with his jaw: as if from a great distance, he heard it make a noise like a plank snapping in half. Then his head seemed to split open and let in a gash of light through which his brain sank down into cottony darkness.
The rest of him cannoned soggily into Nancock, bounded sideways, and cascaded over a chair. Osbett and the chair crashed to the floor together; and the stout man reeled drunkenly.
"Here," he began.
Perhaps he did not mean the word as an invitation, but it appeared to have that effect. Something possessed of staggering velocity and hardness accepted the suggestion and moved into his stomach. The stout man said "Oof!" and folded over like a jack-knife. This put his chin in line with another projectile that seemed to be travelling up from the floor. His teeth clicked together and he lay down quite slowly, like a collapsing concertina.
Simon Templar straightened his tie and picked up the cigarette which he had dropped when the fun started. It had not even had time to scorch the carpet.
He surveyed the scene with a certain shadow of regret. That was the worst of having to work quickly—it merely whetted the appetite for exercise, and then left nothing for it to expend itself on. However, it was doubtful whether Osbett and Nancock could ever have provided a satisfactory workout, even with plenty of time to develop it. . . . The Saint relieved Osbett of his gun, felt Nancock's pockets for a weapon and found nothing, and then rose quickly as a scutter of footsteps on the stairs reminded him that he still had one more chance to practise his favourite uppercut. He leaped behind the door as the shifty-eyed assistant tumbled in.
The assistant was blurting out his news as he came.
"Hey, the fellow's disappeared——"
Simon toed the door away from between them and grinned at him.
"Where do you think he went to ?" he inquired interestedly.
His fist jolted up under the youth's jaw, and the assistant sat down and unrolled himself backwards and lay still.
The Saint massaged his knuckles contentedly, and pulled a large roll of adhesive tape from his pocket. He used it to fasten the three sleeping beauties' hands and feet together, and had enough left to fasten over their mouths in a way that would gravely handicap any loquacity to which they might be moved when they woke up.
Not that they were showing any signs of waking up for some time to come, which was another disadvantage attached to the effectiveness of that sizzling uppercut. By all the symptoms, it would be quite a while before they were in any condition to start a conversation. It was an obstacle to further developments which Simon had not previously considered, and he scratched his head over it in a moment of indecision. As a matter of fact, he had not given much previous consideration to anything beyond that brief and temporarily conclusive scuffle—he never made any definite plans on such occasions, but he had an infinite faith in impromptu action and the bountiful inspirations of Providence. Meanwhile, no harm would probably be done by making a quick and comprehensive search of the premises, or—
In the stillness of his meditation and the surrounding atmosphere of sleep, an assortment of sounds penetrated to his ears from the regions downstairs. There was some forced and pointed coughing, an impatient shuffling of feet, and the tapping of a coin on plate glass. More business had apparently arrived, and was getting restive.
A faintly thoughtful tilt edged itself into his eyebrows. He glanced round the room, and saw a slightly grubby white coat hanging behind the door. In a moment he had slipped into it and was buttoning it as he skated down the stairs.
The customer was a fat and frowsy woman in a bad temper.
"Tike yer time, dontcher?" she said scathingly. "Think I've got all die ter wiste, young man? You're new here, aintcher ? Where's Mr Osbett ?"
"Some people, madam, prefer to call me fresh," replied the Saint courteously. "Mr Osbett is asleep at the moment, but you may confide in me with perfect confidence."
"Confide in yer ?" retorted the lady indignantly. "None o' your sauce, young feller! I want three pennyworth of lickerish an' chlorodeen lozenges, an' that's all. Young Alf's corf is awful bad agin this morning."
"That's too bad," said the Saint, giving the shelves a quick once-over, and feeling somewhat helpless. "Just a minute, auntie—I'm still finding my way around."
"Fresh," said the lady tartly, "is right."
Liquorice and chlorodyne lozenges were fairly easy. The Saint found a large bottle of them after a short search, and proceeded to tip half of it into a paper bag.
" 'Ere, I don't want all that," yelped the woman. "Three pennyworth, I said!"
Simon pushed the bag over the counter.
"As an old and valued customer, please accept the extra quantity with Mr Osbett's compliments," he said generously. "Threepence is the price to you, madam, and a bottle of cough mixture thrown in. Oh, yes, and you'd better give young Alf some cod-liver oil ——"
He piled merchandise towards her until she grabbed up as much as she could carry and palpitated nervously out into the street. Simon grinned to himself and hoped he had not overdone it. If the news of his sensational bargain sale spread around the district, he would have his hands full.
During the lull that followed he tried to take a survey of the stock. He would be safe enough with proprietary goods, but if anyone asked for some more complicated medicine he would have to be careful. He had no grudge to work off against the neighbourhood at large; which was almost a pity.
The next customer required nothing more difficult than aspirin, and left the shop in a kind of daze when the Saint insisted on supplying a bottle of a hundred tablets for the modest price of twopence.
Simon took a trip upstairs and found that his three prizes had still failed to progress beyond the stage of half conscious meanings and a spasmodic twitching of the lower limbs. He returned downstairs to attend to a small snotty-nosed urchin who was asking for a shilling tin of baby food. Simon blandly handed her the largest size he could see, and told her that Mr Osbett was making special reductions that morning.
"Coo!" said the small child, and added a bag of peardrops to the order.
Simon poured out a pound of them—"No charge for that, Delilah—Mr Osbett is giving peardrops away for an advertisement"—and the small child sprinted out as if it was afraid of waking up before it got home.
The Saint lighted another cigarette and waited thoughtfully. Supplying everybody who came in with astounding quantities of Mr Osbett's goods at cut-throat prices was amusing enough, admittedly, but it was not getting him anywhere. And yet a hunch that was growing larger every minute kept him standing behind the counter.
Maybe it wasn't such a waste of time. . . . The package of Miracle Tea in which he had found fifteen hundred testimonials to the lavish beneficence of his guardian angel had come from that shop; presumably it had been intended for some special customer; presumably also it was not the only eccentric transaction that had taken place there, and there was no reason why it should be the last. Maybe no other miracles of the same kind were timed to take place that day; and yet...
Mr Osbett's boxes of extra special toilet soap, usually priced at seven and sixpence, were reduced for the benefit of a charming young damsel to a shilling each. The charming damsel was so impressed that she tentatively inquired the price of a handsome bottle of bath salts.
"What, this ?" said the Saint, taking the flagon down and wrapping it up. "As a special bargain this morning, sweetheart, we're letting it go for sixpence."
It went for sixpence, quickly. The Saint handed over her change without encouraging further orders—as a matter of fact, he was rather anxious to get rid of the damsel, in spite of her charm and obvious inclination to be friendly, for a man with a thin weasel face under a dirty tweed cap already overdue f
or the dustbin had come in, and was earnestly inspecting a showcase full of safety razors and other articles which are less widely advertised. Quite obviously the man was not anxious to draw attention to himself while there was another customer in the shop; and while there was at least one perfectly commonplace explanation for that kind of bashful-ness the Saint felt a spectral tingle of expectation slide over his scalp as the girl went out and Weasel Face angled over to the counter.
"I haven't seen you before," he stated.
His manner was flatly casual, but his small beady eyes flitted over Simon's face like flies hovering.
"Then you should be enjoying the view," said the Saint affably. "What can I sell you today, comrade? Hot water bottles? Shaving cream? Toothpaste? We have a special bargain line of castor oil——"
"Where's Ossy?"
"Dear old Ossy is lying down for a while—I think he's got a headache, or something. But don't let that stop you. Have you tried some of our Passion Flower lipstick, guaranteed to seduce at the first application ?"
The man's eyes circled around again. He pushed out a crumpled envelope.
"Give Ossy my prescription, and don't talk so much."
"Just a minute," said the Saint.
He took the envelope back towards the staircase and slit it open. One glance even in the dim light that penetrated there was enough to show him that whatever else the thin sheet of paper it contained might mean, it was not a prescription that any ordinary pharmacist could have filled.
He stuffed the sheet into his pocket and came back.
"Will you call again at six o'clock ?" he said, and his flippancy was no longer obtrusive. "I'll have it ready for you than."
"Awright."
The beady eyes sidled over him once more, a trifle puzzedly, and the man went out.
Simon took the paper back into the dispensing room and spread it out under a good light. It was a scale plan of a building, with every detail plainly marked even to the positions of the larger pieces of furniture, and provided in addition with a closely-written fringe of marginal notes which to the Saint's professional scrutiny provided every item of information that a careful burglar could have asked for; and the first fascinating but still incomplete comprehension of Mr Osbett's extraordinary business began to reveal itself to him as he studied it.
Follow the Saint s-20 Page 5
