Featuring the Saint

1

THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE Patricia Holm raised her fair, pretty head from the Times.

"What," she asked, "is an obiter dictum?"

"A form of foot-and-mouth disease," said the Saint, glibly. "Obiter-one who obits; dictum-a shirt-front. Latin. Very difficult."

"Fool," said his lady.

The Saint grinned, and pushed back his chair. Breakfast was over; a blaze of summer sunshine was pouring through the open windows into the comfortable room; the first and best cigarette of the day was canted up between the Saint's smiling lips; all was right with the world.

"What's the absorbing news, anyway?" he inquired lazily.

She passed him the paper; and, as is the way of these things, the matter which had given rise to her question was of the most ephemeral interest-and yet it interested the Saint. Simon Templar had always been the despair of all those of his friends who expected him to produce intelligent comments upon the affairs of the day; to read a newspaper not only bored him to extinction, but often gave him an actual physical pain. Therefore it followed, quite naturally, that when the mood seized him to glance at a newspaper, he usually managed to extract more meat from that one glance than the earnest regular student of the press extracts from years of daily labour.

It so happened that morning. Coincidence, of course; but how much adventure is free from all taint of coincidence? Coincidences are always coinciding-it is one of their peculiar attributes; but the adventure is born of what the man makes of his coincidences. Most people say: "How odd!"

Simon Templar said: "Well, well, well!"

But the Times really hadn't anything exciting to say that morning; and certainly the column that Patricia had been reading was one of the most sober of all the columns of that very respectable newspaper, for it was one of the columns in which such hardy annuals as Paterfamilias, Lieut-Colonel (retired), Pro Bono Publico, Mother of Ten, unto the third and fourth generation, Abraham and his seed forever, let loose their weary bleats upon the world. The gentleman ("Diehard") who had incorporated an obiter dictum in his effort was giving tongue on the subject of motorists. It was, as has been explained, pure coincidence that he should have written with special reference to a recent prosecution for dangerous driving in which the defendant had been a man in whom the Saint had the dim beginnings of an interest.

"Aha!" said the Saint, thoughtful like.

"Haven't you met that man-Miles Hallin?" Patricia said. "I've heard you mention his name."

"And that's all I've met up to date," answered the Saint. "But I have met a bird who talks about nothing else but Miles. Although I suppose, in the circumstances, that isn't as eccentric as it sounds."

He had, as a matter of fact, met Nigel Perry only a fortnight before, by a slightly roundabout route. Simon Templar, being in a club in Piccadilly which for some unknown reason al lowed him to continue his membership, had discovered that he was without a handkerchief. His need being vital, he had strolled over to a convenient shop-without troubling to put on a hat. The rest of the story, he insisted, was Moyna Stanford's fault. Simon had bought his handkerchief, and the shop assistant had departed towards the cashier with the Saint's simoleons, when Moyna Stanford walked in, walked straight up to the Saint, and asked if he could show her some ties. Now, Moyna Stanford was very good to look upon, and there were quantities of ties prominently displayed about the shop, and the Saint could never resist anything like that. He had shown her several ties. The rightful tie exhibitor had returned. There had been some commotion. Finally, they had lunched together. Not including the tie exhibitor.

The rest of the story, as the Saint retailed it to Patricia Holm, was perfectly true. He had met Nigel Perry, and had liked him immediately-a tall, dark, cheery youngster, with a million-dollar smile and a two-figure bank balance. The second of those last two items Simon had not discovered until later. On the other hand, it was not very much later, for Nigel Perry had nothing approaching an inferiority complex. He talked with an engaging frankness about himself, his job, his prospects, and his idols. The idols were, at that moment, two -Moyna Stanford and Miles Hallin. It is likely that Simon Templar was shortly added to the list; perhaps at the end he headed the list-on the male side. But at the time of meeting, Miles Hallin reigned supreme.

The Saint was familiar with the name of Hallin, and he was interested in the story that Nigel Perry had to tell, for all such stories were interesting to the Saint.

At that breakfast table, under the shadow of an irrelevant obiter dictum, Simon explained.

"Hallin's a much older man, of course. Nigel had a brother who was about Hallin's age. Years ago Hallin and the elder Perry were prospecting some godless bit of desert in Australia. What's more, they found real gold. And at the same time they found that one of their water barrels had sprung a leak, and there was only enough water to get one of them back to civilization. They tossed for it-and for once in his life Hallin lost. They shook hands, and Perry pushed off. After Perry had been gone some time, Hallin decided that if he sat down on the gold mine waiting to die he'd go mad first. So he made up his mind to die on the move. It didn't occur to him to shoot him self-he just wouldn't go put that way. And he upped his pack and shifted along in a different direction from the one that Perry had taken. Of course he found a water hole, and then he found another water hole, and he got out of the desert at last. But Perry never got out. That's just a sample of Hallin's luck."

"And what happened to the gold?"

"Hallin registered the claim. When he got back to England he looked up young Nigel and insisted on giving him a half share. But it never came to much-about a couple of thou sand, I believe. The lode petered out, and the mine closed down. Still, Hallin did the white thing. Taking that along with the rest, you can't blame Nigel for worshipping him."

And yet the Saint frowned as he spoke. He had a professional vanity that was all his own, and something in that vanity reacted unfavourably towards Miles Hallin, whom a sensational journalist had once christened "The Man Who Cannot Die."

"Are you jealous?" teased Patricia; and the Saint scowled.

"I don't know," he said.

But he knew perfectly well. Miles Hallin had cropped up, and Miles Hallin had spoiled a beautiful morning.

"It annoys me," said the Saint, with what Patricia couldn't help thinking was an absurd pettishness. "No man has a right to Hallin's reputation."

"I've heard nothing against him."

"Have you heard anything against me?"

"Lots of things."

Simon grinned abstractedly.

"Yes, I know. But has anyone ever called me 'The Man Who Cannot Die'?"

"Not when I've been listening."

"It's not a matter of listening," said the Saint. "That man Hallin is a sort of public institution. Everyone knows about his luck. Now, I should think I've had as much luck as anyone, and I've always been much bigger news than Hallin will ever be, but nobody's ever made a song and dance about that side of my claim to immortality."

"They've had other things to say about you."

The Saint sighed. He was still frowning.

"I know," he said. "But I have hunches, old darling. Let me say here and now that I have absolutely nothing against Hallin. I've never heard a word against him, I haven't one reasonable suspicion about him, I haven't one single solitary fact on which I could base a suspicion. But I'll give you one very subtle joke to laugh about. Why should a man boast that he can't die?"

"He didn't make the boast."

"Well-I wonder. . . . But he certainly earned the name, and he's never given it a chance to be forgotten. He's capitalized it and played it up for all it's worth. So I can give you an even more subtle joke. It goes like this: 'For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. . . .' "

Patricia looked at him curiously. If she had not known the Saint so well, she would have looked at him impatiently; but she knew him very well.

She said: "Let's hear what you mean, lad. I can't follow all your riddles."

"And I can't always give the answers," said the Saint.

His chair tilted back as he lounged in it. He inhaled intently from his cigarette, and gazed at the ceiling through a cloud of smoke.

"A hunch," said the Saint, "isn't a thing that goes easily to words. Words are so brutally logical, and a hunch is the reverse of logic. And a hunch, in a way, is a riddle; but it has no answer. When you get an answer, it isn't the answer to a riddle, or the answer to a hunch; it's the end of a story. I don't know if that's quite clear."

"It isn't," said Patricia.

The Saint blew three smoke rings as if he had a personal grudge against them.

"My great tragedy, sweetheart," he remarked modestly, "is that I'm completely and devastatmgly sane. And the world we live in is not sane. All the insanities of the world used to worry me crazy, without exception-once upon a time. But now, in my old age, I'm more discriminating. Half the things in that newspaper, which I'm pleased to say I've never read from end to end, are probably offenses against sanity. And if you come to a rag like the Daily Record, about ninety-eight percent of its printed area is devoted to offenses against sanity. And the fact has ceased to bother me. I swear to you, Pat, that I could read a Daily Record right through without groaning aloud more than twice. That's my discrimination. When I read that an obscure biologist in Minneapolis has said that men would easily live to be three hundred if they nourished themselves on an exclusive diet of green bananas and vaseline, I'm merely bored. The thing is a simple offense against sanity. But when I'm always hearing about a Man Who Cannot Die, it annoys me. The thing is more than a simple offense against sanity. It sticks up and makes me stare at it. It's like finding one straight black line in a delirious patchwork of colours. It's more. It's like going to a menagerie and finding a man exhibited in one of the cages. Just because a Man Who Cannot Die isn't a simple insult to insanity. He's an insult to a much bigger thing. He's an insult to humanity."

"And where does this hunch lead to?" asked Patricia, practically.

Simon shrugged.

"I wish I were sure," he said.

Then, suddenly, he sat upright.

"Do you know," he said, in a kind of incomprehensible anger, "I've a damned good mind to see if I can't break that man's record! He infuriates me. And isn't he asking for it? Isn't he just asking someone to take up the challenge and see what can be done about it?"

The girl regarded him in bewilderment.

"Do you mean you want to try to kill him?" she asked blankly.

"I don't," said the Saint. "I mean I want to try to make him live."

For a long tune Patricia gazed at him in silence. And then, with a little shake of her head, half laughing, half perplexed, she stood up.

"You've been reading too much G. K. Chesterton," she said. "And you can't do anything about Hallin to-day, anyway. We're late enough as it is."

The Saint smiled slowly, and rose to his feet.

"You're dead right, as usual, old dear," he murmured amiably. "I'll go and get out the car."

And he went; but he did not forget Miles Hallin. And he never forgot his hunch about the man who could not die. For the Saint's hunches were nearly always unintelligible to any one but himself, and always very real and intelligible to him; and all at once he had realized that in Miles Hallin he was going to find a strange story-he did not then know how strange.

2

Miles Hallin, as the Saint had complained, really was some thing very like a national institution. He was never called wealthy, but he always seemed to be able to indulge his not inexpensive hobbies without stint. It was these hobbies which had confirmed him in the reputation that Simon Templar so much disliked.

Miles Hallin was so well known that the newspapers never even troubled to mention the fact. Lesser lights in the news, Simon had discovered, were invariably accounted for. They were "the famous cricketer" or "the well-known novelist" or perhaps, with a more delicate conceit, "the actor." Simon Templar always had an uneasy feeling that these explanations were put in as a kind of covering each-way bet-in case the person referred to should become well known without anyone knowing why. But Miles Hallin was just-Miles Hallin.

Simon Templar, even in his superlatively casual acquaintance with the newspapers, had had every opportunity to become familiar with the face of Miles Hallin, though he had never seen the man in the flesh. That square-jawed, pugnacious profile, with the white teeth and crinkled eyes and flashing smile, had figured in more photographs than the Saint cared to remember. Mr. Miles Hallin standing beside the wreckage of his Furillac at Le Mans-Mr. Miles Hallin being taken on board a tug after his speedboat Red Lady had cap sized in the Solent-Mr. Miles Hallin after his miraculous escape during the King's Cup Air Race, when his Elton "Dragon" caught fire at five thousand feet-Mr. Miles Hallin filming a charging buffalo in Tanganyika-Simon Templar knew them all. Miles Hallin did everything that a well-to-do sportsman could possibly include in the most versatile repertory, and all his efforts seemed to have the single aim of a spectacular suicide; but always he had escaped death by the essential hair's breadth that had given him his name. No one could say that it was Miles Hallin's fault.

Miles Hallin had survived being mauled by a tiger, and had killed an infuriated gorilla with a sheath knife. Miles Hallin had performed in bull fights before the King of Spain. Miles Hallin had gone into a tank and wrestled with a crocodile to oblige a Hollywood movie director. Miles Hallin had done everything dangerous that the most fertile imagination could conceive-and then some. So far as was known, Miles Hallin couldn't walk a tight rope; but the general impression was that if Miles Hallin could have walked a tight rope he would have walked a tight rope stretched across the crater of Vesuvius as a kind of appetizer before breakfast.

Miles Hallin bothered the Saint through the whole of that week-end.

Simon Templar, as he was always explaining, and usually explaining in such a way that his audience felt very sorry for him, had a sensitivity for anything the least bit out of the ordinary that was as tender as a gouty toe. The lightest touch, a touch that no one else would have felt, made him jump a yard. And when he boasted of his subtle discriminations, though he boasted flippantly, he spoke no less than the truth. That gift and nothing else had led him to fully half his adventures-that uncanny power of drawing a faultless line between the things that were merely eccentric and the things that were definitely wrong. And Miles Hallin struck him, in a way that he could not explain by any ordinary argument, as a thing that was definitely wrong.

Yet it so chanced, this time, that the Saint came to his story by a pure fluke-another and a wilder fluke than the one that had merely introduced him to a man whose brother had been a friend of Hallin's. But for that fluke, the Saint might to this day have been scowling at the name of Miles Hallin in the same hopeless puzzlement. And yet the Saint felt no surprise about the fluke. He had come to accept these accidents as a natural part of his life, in the same way that any other man accepts the accident of finding a newspaper on his breakfast table, with a sense (if he meditated it at all) that he was only seeing the inevitable outcome of a complicated organization of whose workings he knew nothing, but whose naturally continued existence he had never thought to question. These things were ordained.

In fact, there was an unexpected guest at a house party at which the Saint spent his week-end.

Simon Templar had met Teddy Everest in Kuala Lumpur, and again, years later at Corfu. Teddy Everest was the unexpected guest at the house party; but it must be admitted that he was unexpected only by the Saint.

"This is my lucky day," murmured Simon, as he viewed the apparition. "I've been looking for you all over the world. You owe me ten cents. If you remember, when you had to be carried home after that farewell festival in K. L., I was left to pay for your rickshaw. You hadn't a bean. I know that, because I looked in all your pockets. Ten cents plus five percent com pound interest for six years--"

"Comes to a lot less than you borrowed off me in Corfu," said Everest cheerfully. "How the hell are you?"

"My halo," said the Saint, "is clearly visible if you get a strong light behind me. . . . Well, damn your eyes!" The Saint was smiling as he crushed the other's hand in a long grip. "This is a great event, Teddy. Let's get drunk."

The party went with a swing from that moment.

Teddy Everest was a mining engineer, and the Saint could also tell a good story; between them, they kept the ball rolling as they pleased. And on Tuesday, since Everest had to go to London on business, he naturally travelled in the Saint's car.

They lunched at Basingstoke; but it was before lunch that the incident happened which turned Teddy Everest's inexhaustible fund of reminiscence into a channel that was to make all the difference in the world to the Saint-and others.

Patricia and Simon had settled themselves in the lounge of the hotel where they pulled up, and Everest had proceeded alone into the bar to supervise the production of cocktails- Teddy Everest was something of a connoisseur in these matters. And in the bar he met a man.

"It's extraordinary how people crop up," he remarked, when he returned. "I've just seen a bloke who reminded me of a real O. Henry yarn."

And later, over the table, he told the yarn.

"I don't think I bored you with the details of my last job," he said. "As a matter of fact, this is the only interesting thing about it. There's a gold mine somewhere in South Africa that was keeping me pretty busy last year-it was going down steadily, and I was sent out to try and find a spark more life in it. Now, it happened that I'd come across that very mine the year before, and heard all about it, and I was rather bored with the job. Everyone on the spot knew that the mine was a dud, and it seemed to me that I was just going to waste my time. Still, the pay was good, and I couldn't afford to turn my nose up at it. I'd got into jolly low water over my last holiday, to tell you the truth, and I wasn't sorry to have something to do- even if it was boring. It was on the train to Marseilles, where I caught my boat, that I met this guy-he on his way to a luxurious week at Antibes, rot him! We got talking, and it turned out that he knew a bit about the game. I remember telling him about my dud mine, and asking him if he held any shares, because I said a rag-and-bone man might give him a price for them. He hadn't any shares, which rather spoils the story."

"Because the mine wasn't a dud," murmured Simon; and Everest nodded.

"It was anything but. Certainly the old borings were worked out, but I struck a new vein all on my own, and those shares are going up to the sky when my report's been passed. I gave Hallin the tip just now-I felt he deserved it."

The Saint sat still.

It was Patricia Holm who put the question.

"Did you say 'Hallin'?" she asked.

"That's right." Everest was scraping at his pipe with a penknife. "Miles Hallin-the racing chappie."

Patricia looked across at the Saint, but the overflow she was expecting did not take place.

"Dear me!" said the Saint, quite mildly.

They were sitting over coffee in the lounge when Hallin passed through. Simon recognized him at once-before he waved to Everest.

"One of the world's lucky men, I believe," Everest said, as the clamour of Hallin's car died away outside.

"So I hear," said the Saint.

And once again Patricia looked at him, remembering his discourse of a few days before. It was a characteristic of the Saint that no idea ever slipped out of his mind, once it had arrived there: any riddle that occurred to him tormented him until he had solved it. Anything that was as wrong as Miles Hallin, to his peculiar mind, was a perpetual irritation to him, much as a note out of tune on a piano would be a perpetual irritation to a musician: he had to look round it and into it and scratch it and finger it and jigger about with it until he'd got it into line with the rest of the scheme of things, and it gave him no peace until it was settled.

Yet he said nothing more about Miles Hallin that day.

Still he knew nothing. Afterwards . . .

But those are the bare facts of the beginning of the story.

They are told as the Saint himself would tell them, simply put forward for what they are worth. Afterwards, in the light of the knowledge to which he came he could have fitted them together much more coherently, much more comprehensively; but that would not have been his way. He would have told the story as it happened.

"And the longer I live," he would have said, "the more I'm convinced that there's no end to anything in my life. Or in anyone else's, probably. If you trace the most ordinary things back to their source, you find they have the queerest beginnings. It's just one huge fantastic game of consequences. You decide to walk home instead of taking a taxi, one night, and ten years later a man commits suicide. And if you had taken the taxi, perhaps ten years later the same man might have been a millionaire. Your father stayed at one hotel instead of another, in the same town, and at the age of fifty you become Prime Minister. If he had stayed at the other hotel you would probably have ended your life in prison. . . . Take this very story. If we hadn't lunched at Basingstoke that day, or if we'd never gone to that house party, or if I hadn't once gone out without a handkerchief, or even if I'd never gone to Kuala Lampur . . . Leave out the same flukes in the lives of the other people involved. Well, I've given up trying to decide exactly in what year, 'way back in the dim and distant past, it was decided that two men would have to die to make this story."

This is exactly the point at which Simon Templar would have paused to make his philosophical reflection.

And then he would have told how, on the following Saturday evening, the posters of the Daily Record caught his eye, and something made him buy a copy of the paper; and he went home to tell Patricia that Miles Hallin had crashed again at Brooklands, and Miles Hallin had escaped again with hardly a scratch, but his passenger, Teddy Everest, had been burned to death before the whole crowd.

3

"You see," Nigel Perry explained simply, "Moyna's people are frightfully poor."

"Yeah," said the Saint.

"And Miles is such a damned good chap."

"Yeah," said the Saint.

"It makes it awfully difficult."

"Yeah," said the Saint.

They lay stretched out in armchairs, masked by clouds of cigarette smoke, in the bed-sitting-room which was Nigel Perry's only home. And Perry, bronzed and clear-eyed from ten days' tramping in Spain, was unburdening himself of his problem.

"You haven't seen Moyna yet, have you?" said the Saint.

"Well, hang it, I've only been back a few hours! But she'll be in later-she's got to have dinner with an aunt, or some thing, and she'll get away as soon as she can."

"What d'you think of your chances?"

Perry ran brown fingers through his hair.

"I'm blowed if I know, Templar," he said ruefully. "I-I've tried to keep clear of the subject lately. There's such a lot to think about. If only I'd get some real money--"

"D'you think a girl like Moyna cares a hoot about that?"

"Oh, I know! But that's all very fine. Any sensible girl is going to care about money sooner or later. She's got every right to. And if she's nice enough to think money doesn't matter- well, a chap can't take advantage of that. . . . You know, that's where Miles has been so white. That money he paid over to me as my brother's share in the mine-he's really done his best to help me to make it grow. 'If it's a matter of Ł s. d.,' he said, I'd like you to start all square.' "

"Did he?" said the Saint.

Perry nodded.

"I believe he worked like a Trojan. Pestered all his friends to try and find me a cast-iron investment paying about two hundred percent. And he found one, too-at least, we thought so. Funnily enough, it was another gold mine-only this time it was in South Africa--"

"Hell!" said the Saint.

"What d'you mean?"

"Hell," said the Saint. "When was this-last week?"

The youngster looked at him puzzledly.

"Oh, no. That was over a year ago. . . . But the shares didn't jump as they were supposed to. They've just gone slowly down. Not very much, but they've gone down. I held on, though. Miles was absolutely certain his information couldn't be wrong. And now he's just heard that it was wrong -there was a letter waiting for me--"

"He's offered to buy the shares off you, and make up your loss."

Perry stared.

"How did you know?"

"I know everything," said the Saint.

He sprang to his feet suddenly. There was an ecstatic expression on his face that made Perry wonder if perhaps the beer . . .

Perry rose slowly; and the Saint's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Moyna's coming to-night, isn't she?"

"I told you--"

"I'll tell you more. You're going to propose, my lad."

"What?"

"Propose," drawled the Saint. "If you've never done it before, I'll give you a rapid lesson now. You take her little hand in yours, and you say, huskily, you say: 'Moyna, d'you think we could do it?' 'Do what?' she says. 'Get fixed,' says you. 'Fixed?' she says. 'How?' 'Keep the party clean,' says you. 'Moyna,' you say, crrrushing her to your booosom-that's a shade north of your cummerbund-'Moyna, I laaaaaaave you!' . . . That will be two guineas. You can post me a check in the morning-as the actress used to say. She was a perfect lady. . . . So long!"

And the Saint snatched up his hat. He was halfway to the door when Perry caught him.

"What's the idea, Templar?"

Simon turned, smiling.

"Well, you don't want me on the scene while you shoot your speech, do you?"

"You don't have to go yet."

"Oh, yes, I do."

"Where?"

"I'm going to find Miles!"

"But you've never met him."

"I haven't. But I'm going to!"

Perry blocked the doorway.

"Look here, Templar," he said, "you can't get away with this. There's a lot of things I want to know first. Hang it-if I didn't know you pretty well, I'd say you'd gone clean off your rocker."

"Would you?" said the Saint gently.

He had been looking at Perry all the time, and he had been smiling all the time, but all at once the younger man saw something leap into the Saint's gaze that had not been there before-something like a flash of naked steel.

"Then," said the Saint very gently, "what would you say if I told you I was going to kill Miles Hallin?"

Perry fell back a pace.

"You're crazy!" he whispered.

"Sure," said the Saint. "But not so crazy as Miles Hallin must have been when he killed a friend of mine the other day."

"Miles killed a friend of yours? What in God's name d'you mean?"

"Oh, for the love of Pete!"

With a shrug, the Saint turned back into the room. He sat on the edge of a table; but his poise was as restless as his perch. The last thing that anyone could have imagined was that he meant to stay sitting there.

"Listen, and I'll tell you a joke," he said. "I'm full of jokes these days. . . . Once upon a time there was a man who could not die. Joke."

"I wish to heaven you'd say what you mean!"

"If I did, you wouldn't believe me."

"Not if it was about Miles."

"Quite! And it is about Miles. So we'd have a first-class row -and what good would that do? As it is, we're getting damned near it. So why not let it go?"

"You've made suggestions--"

"Of course I have," agreed the Saint wearily. "And now I'm going to make some more. Lose your temper if you must, Nigel, old dear; but promise me two things first: promise you'll hang on to those shares, and propose to Moyna to-night.She'll accept-I guarantee it. With lots of love and kisses, yours faithfully."

The youngster's jaw tightened.

"I think you're raving," he said. "But we're going to have this out. What have you got to say about Miles?"

The Saint's sigh was as full of patience and long-suffering as the Saint could make it. He really was trying to be patient; but he knew that he hadn't a hope of convincing Nigel Perry. And to the Saint it was all so plain. He wasn't a bit surprised at the sudden blossoming of the story: it had happened in the way these things always happened, in the way he subconsciously expected them to happen. He had taken the blossoming in his stride; it was all infinitely past and over to him-so infinitely past and over that he had ceased to think about coincidences. And he sighed.

"I've got nothing to say about Miles."

"You were saying--"

"Forget it, old dear. Now, will you do what I asked you to do about Moyna?"

"That's my business. Why should you want to dictate to me about it?"

"And as for those shares," continued the Saint calmly, "will you--"

"For the last time," said Perry grimly, "will you explain yourself?"

Simon looked at him over a cigarette and a lighted match, and then through a trailing streamer of smoke; and Simon shrugged.

"Right!" he said. "I will. But don't forget that we agreed it was a waste of time. You won't believe me. You're the sort that wouldn't. I respect you for it, but it makes you a damned fool all the same."

"Go ahead."

"Do you remember that fellow who was killed at Brooklands yesterday, driving with Miles Hallin?"

"I've read about it."

"He was a friend of mine. Over a year ago he told Miles Hallin about some dud shares. You bought them. Under a week ago he met Hallin again and told him the shares weren't so dud. Now Hallin's going to take the shares back off you. He killed poor old Teddy because Teddy knew the story-and Teddy was great on telling his stories. If Hallin had known that the man he saw with Teddy knew you, I should probably have had my funeral first. Miles is such a damned good chap. 'If it's a matter of Ł s. d.,' he'd have said, 'I'd like you to start all square.'"

"By God, Templar--"

"Hush! . . . Deducing back from that joke to the joke about another gold mine--"

Perry stepped forward, with a flaming face.

"It's a lie!"

"Sure it is. We agreed about that before I started, if you recall the dialogue. . . . Where was I? Oh, yes. Deducing back from that joke--"

"I'd like Miles to hear some of this," Perry said through his teeth.

"So would I," murmured the Saint. "I told you I wanted to find him. If you see him first, you may tell him all about it. Give him my address." The Saint yawned. "Now may I go, sweetheart?"

He stood up, his cigarette tilted up in the corner of his mouth and his hands in his pockets; and Perry stood aside.

"You're welcome to go," Perry said. "And if you ever try to come back I'll have you thrown out."

Simon nodded.

"I'll remember that when I feel in need of some exercise," he remarked. And then he smiled. For a moment he gripped the boy's arm.

"Don't forget about Moyna," he said.

Then he crossed the landing and went down the stairs; and Nigel Perry, silent in the doorway, watched him go.

The Saint went down slowly. He was really sorry about it all, though he had known it was inevitable. At least, he had made it inevitable. He was aware that he asked for most of the trouble that came to him-in many ways. But that couldn't be helped. In the end . . .

He was on the last flight when a man who was running up from the hall nearly cannoned into him.

"Sorry," said the man.

"Not at all," said the Saint politely.

And then he recognized the man, and stopped him with a hand on his sleeve.

"How's the trade in death?" murmured the Saint.

Miles Hallin turned, staring; and then he suddenly knew where he had seen the Saint before. For an instant the recognition flared in his eyes; then his face became a mask of indignation.

"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.

Simon sighed. He always seemed to have something to sigh about in those days.

"I'm getting so tired of that question," he sighed. "Why don't you try it on Nigel? Perhaps he doesn't have so much of it as I do."

He turned, and continued on his way. As he opened the front door he heard Hallin resuming his ascent at a less boisterous speed, and smiled gently to himself.

It was late, and the street outside was dark and practically deserted. But in front of the house stood an immense shining two-seater that could only have belonged to Miles Hallin.

For a space of seconds the Saint regarded it, fingering his chin, at first thoughtfully, and then with a secret devil of merriment puckering the corners of his eyes.

Then he went down the steps, He found the tool box in a moment. And then, with loving care, he proceeded to remove the nuts that secured the offside front wheel. . . .

Two minutes later, with the wheel-brace stowed away again as he had found it, and the nuts in his pocket, he was sauntering leisurely homewards, humming to the stars.

4

The Saint was in his bath when Inspector Teal arrived in Upper Berkeley Mews the next morning; but he presented himself in a few moments arrayed in a superb pair of crepe-de-Chine pajamas and a dressing gown that would have made the rainbow look like something left over from a sale of second hand mourning.

Mr. Teal eyed him with awe.

"Where did you hire that outfit?" he inquired.

Simon took a cigarette.

"Have you come here to exchange genial backchat," he murmured, "or is it business? I have an awful suspicion that it's business."

"It is business," said Mr. Teal.

"Sorry," said the Saint, "my office hours are twelve noon to midday."

Teal shifted his gum across to the east side of his mouth. "What's your grouse against Hallin?" he asked.

"Hallin? Who's Hallin? Two aitches."

"Miles Hallin's car was wrecked last night," said Teal deliberately.

The Saint raised his eyebrows.

"Really? Was he drunk, or did he lend the divisional surgeon a fiver?"

"The offside front wheel of his car came off when he was driving down Park Lane," said Teal patiently. "He was driving pretty fast, and he swerved into a taxi. He ought to have been killed."

"Wasn't he?" said the Saint.

"He wasn't. What have you got to say about it?"

"Well, I think it's a great pity."

"A great pity he wasn't killed?"

"Yes. Probably he wanted to die. He's been trying to long enough, hasn't he? . . . And yet it mightn't have been his fault. That's the worst of these cheap cars. They fall apart if you sneeze in them. Of course, he might have had a cold. Do you think he had a cold?" asked the Saint earnestly.

The detective closed his eyes.

"When Hallin looked at the car," Teal explained, "he found that someone had removed the nuts that ought to have been keeping the wheel on."

The Saint smoothed his hair.

"Well, really, dear old broccoli," he drawled, with a pained expression, "is that all you've come to see me about? Are you going to make a habit of coming to me to air your woes about everything that happens in London? You know, I'm awfully afraid you're getting into the way of thinking I'm some sort of criminal. Teal, you must not think that of me!"

"I know all about last night," Teal replied, without altering his weary tone. "I've already seen Perry."

"And what did Perry tell you?"

"He told me you said you were going to kill Hallin."

"Beer, beer!-I mean, dear, dear!" said the Saint. "Of course he was a bit squiffy---"

Teal's eyes opened with a suddenness that was almost startling.

"See here, Templar," he said, "it's time you and me had a straight talk."

"I beg your pardon?" said the Saint.

"You and I," said Teal testily. "I know we've had a lot of scraps in the past, and I know a lot of funny things have happened since then. I don't grudge you your success. In your way, you've helped me a lot; but at the same time you've caused disturbances. I know you've had a pardon, and we don't want to bother you if we can help it, but you've got to do your share. That show of yours down at Tenterden, for instance-that wasn't quite fair, was it?"

"It wasn't," said the Saint generously. "But I'm afraid it appealed to my perverted sense of humour."

Mr. Teal rose ponderously.

"Then do I take it you're going on as before?"

"I'm afraid you do," said the Saint. "For the present, any way. You see, I've got rather a down on Miles Hallin. He killed a friend of mine the other day."

"He what?"

"At Brooklands. Since you're making so many inquiries about funny things that happen to cars, why don't you investigate that crash? I don't know if there was enough left of Teddy Everest to make an investigation profitable; but if it could be done, I expect you'd find that he was thoroughly doped when he got into that car. I expect you'd find, if you were a very clever investigator-or a very clever clairvoyant, like I am-that the dope took effect while they were driving. Teddy just went to sleep. Then it would be quite an easy matter for an expert driver like Hallin to crash the car without hurting himself. And, of course, it could always catch fire."

Teal looked at him curiously.

"Is that the truth?" he asked.

"No," said the Saint. "I'm just making it up to amuse you. Good-morning."

He felt annoyed with Chief Inspector Teal that day. He felt annoyed with a lot of things-the story in general, and Miles Hallin in particular. There were many things that were capable of annoying the Saint in just that way; and when Mr. Teal had departed the Saint sat down and smoked three cigarettes with entirely unnecessary violence.

Patricia Holm, coming in just after the third of these cigarettes had been hurled through the open window, read his mood at once.

"What is it this time?" she asked.

Simon broke a match into small pieces as if it had done him a grievous injury.

"Teal, Nigel Perry, Miles Hallin," he answered, comprehensively. "Also, an old joke about death."

It was some time before she secured a coherent explanation. The incidents of the night before she had already heard; but he had stated them without adornment, and his manner had encouraged the postponement of questions. Now he told her, in the same blunt manner, about Teal's visit; but she had to wait until after lunch, when the coffee cups were in front of them and the Saint was gently circulating a minute quantity of Napoleon brandy around the bowl of an enormous glass, before she could get him to expound his grievance.

"When I first spoke about Miles Hallin-you remember?- you thought I was raving. I don't want to lay on any of the 'I told you so' stuff; but now you know what you do know, I want you to try and appreciate my point. I know you'll say what anyone else would say-that the whole thing simply boils down to the most unholy fluke. I'm saying it doesn't. The point is that I'm going back far beyond that share business- even beyond poor old Teddy. I'm going back to Nigel's brother, and that little story of the great open spaces that I've heard so much about. I tell you, this just confirms what I thought about that."

"You didn't say you thought anything about it," Patricia remarked.

"I wasn't asking to be called a fool," said the Saint. "I knew that as things stood I had rather less chance of convincing any sane person than I'd have of climbing the Matterhorn with my hands tied behind me and an elephant in each pocket. But you ought to see the joke now. What would you say was the most eccentric thing about a man who could not die?"

Patricia smiled at him patiently.

"I shouldn't know what to say," she answered truthfully.

"Why," said the Saint, with a kind of vast impatience, "what else should be the most eccentric thing about him but the fact that he can die, and always could? Don't you under stand that whatever jokes people make about death, they never make that kind of joke? There are impossibilities that are freakish and funny, and impossibilities that are freakish and unfunny; pigs with wings belong to the first kind, but men who cannot die belong to the second kind. Now, what could induce a man to pursue that second kind of joke with such a terrible eagerness?"

The girl shrugged.

"It's beyond me, Simon."

"The answer," said the Saint, "is that he knew it wasn't true. Because he'd once looked death in the face-slow and deliberate death, not the kind that comes with a rush. And he found he was afraid of it."

"Then that story about Nigel's brother--"

"Perhaps we shall never know the truth of it. But I'm as certain as I've ever been about anything that the story we're told isn't the truth. I'm certain that that was the time when Miles Hallin discovered, not that he could not die, but that he couldn't bear to die. And he saved his life at the expense of his partner."

"But he's risked his life so often since--"

"I wonder how much of that is the unvarnished truth-how much he engineered, and how much he adorned his stories so as to give the impression he wanted to give? . . . Because I think Miles Hallin is a man in terror. Once, he yielded to his fear; and after that his fear became the keynote of his life, which a fear will become if you yield to it. And he found an other fear-the fear of being found out. He was afraid of his own legend. He had to bolster it up, he had to pile miracle upon miracle-only to make one miracle seem possible. He had to risk losing his life in order to save it."

"But why should he have killed Teddy?"

The Saint took another cigarette. He gazed across the restaurant with eyes that saw other things.

"One fear breeds another," he said. "All things in a man's mind are linked up. If one cog slips, the whole machine is altered. If you will cheat at cards, you will cheat at snakes-and-ladders. Hallin cheated for life; it was quite natural that he should cheat for love. Because Nigel was Moyna's favourite, Hallin had to try and take away the one little thing that gave Nigel a chance. Because Teddy could have discovered the swindle, he killed Teddy. His fear drove him on, as it will keep on driving him on: it's the most ruthless master a man can have. Now, because he saw me with Teddy at Basingstoke, and then saw me last night leaving Nigel's, he will try to kill me. If he thought Nigel believed me, he would try to kill Nigel-that's why I had to tell the story in such a way that I knew Nigel wouldn't believe it. Even now, Hallin is wondering. . . ."

"But if Nigel had given up the shares without suspecting anything, and then they'd soared up as Teddy said they would--"

"What would that have mattered?"

"Nigel would have known."

"Known what? Hallin would have said he sold the shares for the best price he could get, and Nigel would never have thought that it might be a lie. . . . But now-do you remember how I said I wanted to make Hallin live?"

"Yes."

"That was the test-before I knew any of this. I wanted to see what would happen to him if he put aside his joke. I wanted to know what he would be like if he became an ordinary mortal man-a man to whom death might not be a terror, but to whom death was still no joke. And now I know."

With her chin on her hands, Patricia regarded him. Not as she had regarded him when he had spoken of Miles Hallin before; but with a seriousness that wore a smile.

"I shall never get to the end of your mind, lad," she said; and the Saint grinned.

"At the moment," he murmured, "I'm enjoying my brandy."

And he actually did forget Miles Hallin for the rest of that afternoon and evening; for Simon Templar had the gift of taking life as it came-when once he knew from what quartet it might be coming., His impatience disappeared. It seemed as if that talk over the coffee and brandy had cleared the air for him. He knew that trouble was coming; but that was nothing unusual. He could meet all the trouble in the world with a real enjoyment, now that he had purged his mind of the kind of puzzle that for him was gloom and groping and unalloyed Gehenna. Even the reflection that Miles Hallin had still failed to die did not depress him. He had not loosened that wheel in high hopes of a swift and catastrophic denouement, for he had known how slight was the chance that the wheel would elect to part company with the car at the very moment when Hallin was treading the accelerator flat down to the flooring; the thing had been done on the spur of the moment, more in mischief than anything else, just to pep up the party's future. And it would certainly do that.

As for Teal, and Teal's horrific warnings of what would happen if the Saint should again attract the attention of the law-those were the merest details. They simply made the practical problem more amusing. . . .

So the Saint, over his brandy, swung over to a contentment as genuine and as illogical as his earlier impatience had been, and was happy for the rest of that day, and nearly died that night.

He had danced with Patricia at the May Fair, and he had thought that Patricia looked particularly beautiful; and so presently they strolled home arm in arm through the cool lamplit streets, talking intently and abstractedly about certain things that are nobody's business. And the Saint was saying something or other, or it may have been Patricia who was saying something or other, as they crossed Berkeley Square; but whoever it was never finished the speech.

Some instinct made the Saint look round, and he saw the lights of a car just behind them swerve suddenly. An ordinary sight enough, perhaps, on the face of it; but he knew by the same instinct that it was not ordinary. It may have been that he had not forgotten Miles Hallin so completely, after all.

He stopped in his stride, and stooped; and Patricia felt herself swept up in his arms. There was a lamp-post close behind them, and the Saint leaped for it. He heard the screech of brakes and tires before he dared to look round; even then he was in time to see the pillar that sheltered him bend like a reed before the impact of the car; and he moved again, this time to one side, like lightning, as the iron column snapped at the base and came crashing down to the pavement.

Then there was a shout somewhere, and a sound of running feet; and the mutter of the car stopped.

Quietly the Saint set Patricia down again.

"How very unfortunate," he remarked. "Dearie, dearie me! . . . Mr. Miles Hallin, giving evidence, stated that his nerves had been badly shaken by his smash at Brooklands. His license was suspended for six months."

A constable and half a dozen ordinary citizens were rapidly congregating around the wreckage; and an unholy glitter came into the Saint's eyes.

"Pardon me one moment, old darling," he murmured; and Patricia found herself standing alone.

But she reached the crowd in time to hear most of his contribution to the entertainment.

"Scandalous, I call it," the Saint was saying, in a voice that trembled-possibly with righteous indignation. Or possibly not. "I shall write to the Times. A positive outrage. . . . Yes, of course you can have my name and address. I shall be delighted to give evidence. . . . The streets aren't safe . . . murderous fools who ought to be in an asylum . . . Probably only just learned to drive. . . . Disgraceful . . . disgusting . . . ought to be shot . . . mannerless hogs. . . ."

It was some time before the policeman was able to soothe him; and he faded out of the picture still fuming vitriolically, to the accompaniment of a gobble of applause from the assembled populace.

And a few minutes later he was leaning helplessly against the door of his flat, his ribs aching and the tears streaming down his cheeks, while Patricia implored him wildly to open the door and take his hilarity into decent seclusion.

"Oh, but it was too beautiful, sweetheart!" he sobbed weakly, as at last he staggered into the sitting room. "If I'd missed that chance I could never have looked myself in the face again. Did you see Miles?"

"I did."

"He couldn't say a word. He didn't dare let on that he knew me. He just had to take it all. Pat, I ask you, can life hold any more?"

Half an hour later, when he was sprawled elegantly over an armchair, with a tankard of beer in one hand and the last cigarette of the evening in the other, she ventured to ask the obvious question.

"He was waiting for us, of course?" she asked; and the Saint nodded.

"My prophetic report of the police-court proceedings would still have been correct," he drawled. "Miles Hallin has come to life."

He did not add that he could have prophesied with equal assurance that Chief Inspector Teal would not again be invited to participate in the argument-not by Miles Hallin, anyway. But he knew quite well that either Miles Hallin or Simon Templar would have to die before the argument was settled; and it would have to be settled soon.

5

Nevertheless, Teal did participate again; and it may be said that his next intrusion was entirely his own idea.

He arrived in Upper Berkeley Mews the very next evening; and the Saint, who had seen him pass the window, opened the door before Teal's finger had reached the bell.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," Simon murmured cordially, as he propelled the detective into the sitting room. "Still, you needn't bother to tell me why you've come. A tram was stolen from Tooting last night, and you want to know if I did it. Six piebald therms are missing from the Gaslight & Coke Company's stable, and you want to know if I've got them. A seventeen-horse-power saveloy entered for the St. Leger has been stricken with glanders, and you want to know--"

"I didn't say so," observed Mr. Teal-heatedly, for him.

"Never mind," said the Saint peaceably. "We won't press the point. But you must admit that we're seeing a lot of you these days." He inspected the detective's water-line with a reflective eye. "I believe you've become a secret Glaxo drinker," he said reproachfully.

Teal gravitated towards a chair.

"I heard about your show last night," he said.

Simon smiled vaguely.

"You hear of everything, old dear," he remarked; and Teal nodded seriously.

"It's my business," he said.

He put a finger in his mouth and hitched his chewing gum into a quiet backwater; and then he leaned forward, his pudgy hands resting on his knees, and his baby blue eyes unusually wide awake.

"Will you try not to stall, Templar-just for a few minutes?"

The Saint looked at him thoughtfully. Then took a cigarette and sat down in the chair opposite.

"Sure," he said.

"I wonder if you'd even do something more than that?"

"Namely?"

"I wonder if you'd give me a straight line about Miles Hallin-and no fooling."

"I offered you one yesterday," said the Saint, "and you wouldn't listen."

Teal nodded, shifting his feet.

"I know. But the situation wasn't quite the same. Since then I've heard about that accident last night. And that mayn't mean anything to anyone but you and me-but you've got to include me."

"Have I?"

"I'm remembering things," said the detective. "You may be a respectable member of society now, but you haven't always been one. I can remember the time when I'd have given ten years' salary for the pleasure of putting you away. Sometimes I get relapses of that feeling even now."

"So you do," murmured the Saint.

"But this isn't one of those tunes," said Teal. "Just now I only want to remember another part of your record. And I know as well as anyone else that you never go after a man just because he's got a wart on his nose. Usually, your reason's fairly plain. This time it isn't. And I'm curious."

"Naturally."

"Hallin's right off your usual mark. He doesn't belong to any shady bunch. If he did, I'd know it. He isn't even a border-line case, like I knew Lemuel was."

"He isn't."

"And yet he tried to bump you off last night."

The Saint inhaled deeply, and exhaled again through a Saintly smile.

"If you want to know why he did that," he said, 'I'll tell you. It was because he's always been terribly afraid of death."

"Do you mean he thought you were going to kill him?"

"That's not what I said. I certainly did say I was going to kill him; but whether he believed me or not is more than I can tell you at present."

"Then what do you mean?"

Simon raised his eyebrows mournfully, but he checked the protest that was almost becoming a habit. After all, Teal was only a detective. One had to make allowances.

"Miles Hallin thought no one in the world knew the truth about him," said the Saint. "And then he found that I knew. So he wanted me to die."

Teal compressed his lips.

Then he said: "And what was this truth?"

"Simply that Miles Hallin is a coward."

"Would he try to kill you for that?"

The Saint gazed at the ceiling.

"Did you take my tip about that Brooklands affair?" he asked.

"I made some inquiries," Teal shrugged. "I'm afraid it wasn't much use. I'm told no one could prove anything."

"And yet you've come back to see me."

"After that business last night. On the level, Templar, I'd be glad of a tip. You know something that I don't know, and just this once I want you to help me. If it had looked like one of your ordinary shows, I wouldn't have done it."

"Where is the peculiar difference between this show and what you call my 'ordinary shows'?"

"You know as well as I do--"

"I don't!"

The Saint uncurled from his chair like a steel spring re leased, and his eyes were of the same steel. The detective realized that those eyes had been levelled unwinkingly at him for a long while; but he had not realized it before. Now he saw his mistake.

"I don't know anything of the kind," snapped the Saint, with those eyes of chilled steel; and the laziness had vanished altogether from his voice. "But I do know that I can't swallow the joke of your coming to see me just because you want to take one of my feathers and put it in your own cap. I've got a darned good swallowing apparatus, Teal, I promise you, but it simply won't sink that one!"

Teal blinked.

"I only wanted to ask you--"

"Shucks!" said the Saint tersely. "You've told me what you wanted to ask me. My yell is that you haven't told me the real reason. And that's what I'm going to know before we take the palaver any further. You asked me not to stall: now I'm telling you not to stall. Shoot!"

For a space of seconds they eyed one another in silence; and then the detective nodded fractionally, though his round, red face had not changed its expression.

"All right," he said slowly. "I'll come clean-if you'll do the same."

The Saint stood tensely. But he hesitated only for a moment. He thought: "Something's happened. Teal knows what it is. I've got to find out. It may or may not be important, but--"

The Saint said curtly: "That's O. K. by me."

"Then you start," answered Teal.

Simon drew breath.

"Mine's easy. I suspect that the story of Hallin's luck in Australia is a lie. I know that Hallin's crazy about the same girl that Nigel Perry's in love with. I know that Hallin tried to push Perry out of the running by persuading him to put the little money he'd got into a mine that Hallin thought was a dud. I know that Teddy Everest told Hallin the mine was a dud, and later told him it wasn't a dud after all. I know Hallin faked that crash because Teddy might be dangerous. I know Hallin had planned some story to get those shares back from Perry; and I know Hallin tried to kill me because I told Perry the truth-even if Perry didn't believe me. That's all there is to it. Your turn."

Teal's chair creaked as we moved; but his eyes were closed. He appeared to have fallen asleep. And then he spoke with a voice that was not at all sleepy.

"Moyna Stanford was kidnapped this afternoon," he said; and the Saint swore softly.

"The hell! . . ."

"That's all I know."

"Tell me about it."

"There's very little to tell. She'd been down to lunch with some friends at Windsor-she walked alone to the station- and she hasn't been seen since."

"But, burn it!-a grown girl can disappear for two or three hours without being kidnapped, can't she?"

"Ordinarily, she can," said Teal. "I'm just telling you what's happened. She was due to have tea with some friends of her mother's. They rang up her mother to ask why she hadn't come. Her mother rang up Windsor to ask the same question. And as soon as her mother grasped the facts she went flying to the police. Of course, Mrs. Stanford didn't get much satisfaction-we haven't got time to attend to hysterical parents who get the wind up as quickly as that-but I heard about it, and it seemed to link up. Anyway--"

"She might have run away with Perry," said the Saint, with a kind of frantic hope that he knew instinctively to be the hope of a fool.

And the detective's reply came so pat that even Simon Templar was startled.

"She might have," said Teal grimly, "because Perry's also disappeared."

The Saint stood like a statue.

Then when he spoke again his voice was strangely quiet.

"Tell me about Perry," he said.

"Perry just went out to lunch in the ordinary way, but he never went back to the office."

The Saint removed his cigarette from his mouth. It had gone out. He gazed at it as if its extinction was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Then he said: "At the police court this morning, Hallin was remanded for a medical examination. Was that the beak's idea -or yours?"

"Largely mine," said Teal.

"Would Hallin know?"

"He might have guessed."

"And what happened after that?"

"Probably, he lunched with Perry. The identification isn't certain, but--"

"Has Hallin been seen anywhere since?"

"I've had men making inquiries. If you'll let me use your telephone--"

"Carry on."

The detective moved ponderously over to the instrument; and Simon, lighting another cigarette, began to stride up and down the room.

He was still pacing the carpet when Teal hung up the receiver and turned to him again.

"Hallin hasn't been seen since lunch."

The Saint nodded without speaking, and set off on a fresh route, his hands deep in his pockets. Teal watched him with exasperation.

"Haven't you got anything to say?" he demanded.

Simon raised his eyes from the floor.

"I've made a big mistake," he said, as though nothing else concerned him; and Teal seethed audibly.

"For heaven's sake!"

"Er-not exactly."

The Saint stopped abruptly on those words, and faced about; and Teal was suddenly amazed that he could ever have associated that dark, rakish profile with trivialities.

"My mistake," said the Saint, "was in underrating Hallin's intelligence. I don't know why I did it. He'd naturally be quick on the uptake. And he'd realize that when those shares went up he'd be damned. Perry would have to believe me. And the rest follows."

"What follows?"

"He got Perry away with some yarn-probably about Moyna. Then he rushed down to Windsor, caught Moyna at the station, and offered to drive her to London. But I know where they went-Perry may be there too."

"Where?"

"Wales."

"How d'you know that?"

"Hallin's got a place there. Damn it, Teal, d'you think you're the only durned General Information Bureau in this gosh-blinded burg?"

Teal brushed his hat on his sleeve.

"I can get a police car round here in five minutes," he stated.

"Do it," said the Saint; and Teal went again to the telephone-very quickly.

When he had given his instructions, he put his hat down on the table, and came and stood in front of the Saint. And suddenly his hands shot out, and moved swiftly and firmly over the Saint's pockets. And the Saint smiled.

"Did you think I was carrying the missing couple around with me?" he murmured, in the mildest of expostulation; but Teal was not amused.

"I'm remembering Lemuel," he said briefly. "You may be coming with me, but you're not carrying a gun."

The Saint smiled even more gently.

"Miles Hallin is terribly afraid," he said, addressing the ceiling. "Once upon a time, he was just afraid of dying; but now he has an even bigger fear. He's afraid of dying before he's finished with life. ... I think someone had better carry a gun."

Teal understood perfectly.

6

"So there you are!" Nigel Perry flung open the door of the cottage as Hallin's car pulled up outside. "I was wondering what on earth to do. Moyna isn't here--"

"She isn't far away," Hallin said.

He climbed stiffly out of his seat. Perry could not see his face clearly in the gloom, but something in Hallin's tone puzzled him. And then Hallin took him by the arm with a laugh.

"Come inside," he said, "and I'll tell you all about it."

Inside, in the lighted room, Hallin's heavy features seemed drawn and strained; but of course he had just driven nearly a hundred and sixty miles at his usual breakneck pace.

"Heavens, I'm tired!"

He sat down and passed a hand across his forehead. His eyes strayed towards the decanter on a side table, and the younger man hurried towards it.

"Thanks," Hallin said.

"I've been bothered to death, Miles!" said Perry, boyishly, splashing soda water into the glass. "I didn't dare leave the place, in case Moyna arrived and found nobody here, and I didn't know how to get in touch with you."

"And now I expect you're wondering why I'm here at all."

"I am."

Hallin took the tumbler and half emptied it at a gulp.

"That's better! . . . Well, everything's gone wrong that could go wrong."

"Don't you know any more than you knew at lunchtime?"

"I don't know any more, but-well, I've told you it all. Moyna rang me up-she said she was in frightful trouble- your office number was engaged, and she couldn't wait. She'd got to get out of London at once. I asked her where she was going, and she didn't seem to have any idea. I said I'd leave the key of my place in Wales with my valet--"

"But you gave it to me!"

"I've got more than one key, you idiot! Anyway, she jumped at the chance; and I promised to send you on by the first train. It was much later when I started to think that I might be able to help you, whatever your trouble was-and I got out the car and came straight down."

"But I can't understand it!" Perry couldn't sit down; his nerves were jangled to bits with worry. "Why should Moyna have to run away out of London? She couldn't be mixed up with any crime--"

Hallin took another pull at his drink.

"I wish I could be as sure of that as you are."

"Miles!"

"Oh, don't be silly, Nigel. D'you think I'd believe she was in on the wrong side? There are other ways of being mixed up in crime."

"What did you mean when you said everything had gone wrong?"

Hallin lighted a cigarette.

"I discovered something else on my way here," he said.

"You said Moyna wasn't far away--"

"I don't think she is. I'll tell you why. As I came up the hill, I had to stop for a moment to switch over to the reserve petrol tank. While I was out of the car I heard someone speaking over an improvised telephone beside the road. He said: 'Hallin's just come by.' Then he said: 'I'll leave him to you. I'll be waiting for Templar--"

"Templar?"

"That's what he said."

"But he must have known you were there."

"He must have thought I couldn't hear. It was a pure fluke that I could. I moved a couple of steps, and I couldn't hear a sound. Some trick of echoes, I expect. However, I followed the sound, keeping in the line it seemed to move in, and I almost fell over the man. He fired at me once, and missed; and then I got hold of him. He-went over the cliff. You remember-it's very steep there."

"You killed him?"

"Of course I did," said Hallin shortly, "unless he can fall two hundred feet without hurting himself. It was him or me- and he was armed. I got back into the car and drove on. Farther up the road a man stepped out and tried to stop me, but I drove right at him. He fired after me twice, but he didn't do any damage. And that's all."

Perry's fists clenched.

"By heaven, if that man really was waiting for Templar--"

"Why shouldn't he have been? Remember all that's happened. We don't know what Templar's game is, but we know his record."

"But he was pardoned a long time ago."

"That doesn't make him straight. A man like that--"

Perry swung round. He caught at Hallin's arm.

"For God's sake, Miles-we've got to do something."

Hallin stood up.

"That's why I came to fetch you," he said.

"But what can we do?"

"Get back to that telephone-find where the line leads "Could you find the place again?"

"I marked it down."

"But those men who fired at you----"

"We can go another way. I know all the roads around here backwards. Are you game?"

Perry set his teeth.

"You bet I am. But-if you'd got a gun or something--"

Hallin looked at him for a moment. Then he went to the desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out two automatics. One he gave to Perry, the other he slipped into his own pocket.

"That's a good idea," he said. "Now are you ready?"

"Yes-come on!"

It was Perry who led the way out of the cottage, and he had already started the car when Hallin climbed in behind the wheel.

They moved off with a roar, and Perry leaned over and yelled in Hallin's ear.

"They'll hear us coming!"

Hallin nodded, and kicked the cut-out over. The roar was silenced.

"You're right," he said.

They tore down the hill for a quarter of a mile, and skidded deliriously round a right-angle turn; then they went bucketing down a steep and narrow lane, with the big car brushing the hedge on either side.

"This is the only way to get round them," Hallin said.

The huge headlights made the lane as light as it would have been at noon; even so, it was a nightmare path to follow at that pace. But Hallin was a perfect driver. Presently the lane seemed to come to a dead end; Hallin braked, and put the wheel over; and they broadsided into a clear road.

"It's close here," Hallin said.

The car slackened speed; after a few moments they almost crawled, while Hallin searched the side of the road. And then he jammed on the brakes, switching off the engine and the lights as he did so.

"This is the place."

He met Perry in the road and led off at once. For a few yards they went over grass; then they threaded a way between rocks and low stunted bushes. On his right, Perry heard a distant murmur of water. Then Hallin stopped him.

"It was just here."

Perry heard the scrape of a match; and then he saw.

They stood beside a slight bump of ground; and there was a shallow cavity in the side of it, which seemed to have been worn away under a flat ledge of stone. And in the cavity was a telephone.

The light went out.

"I've got an idea," Hallin said.

"What is it?"

"Suppose you took the place of the man I heard at the telephone-spoke to the men at the other end-told them some story? I'll follow the wire. I don't think the other end is far away. Give me ten minutes, and then start. You could distract their attention-it'd give me a chance to take them by surprise."

"But I want to get near the swine myself!"

"You shall. But to start with-- Look here, you know you aren't used to stalking. I could get up to them twice as quietly as you could."

Perry hesitated; and then Hallin heard him groping down into the hollow.

"All right." The youngster's voice came up from the dark ness. "Hurry along, Miles, and shout as soon as you can."

"I will. Just ten minutes, Nigel."

"Right-ho!"

Hallin moved away.

He did not follow any wire. He knew just where he was going.

In ten minutes he was squatting beside a heavily insulated switch. Beside him a trellised metal tower reached up towards the stairs. It was one of many that had not long since sprung up all over England, carrying long electric cables across the country and bringing light and power to every comer of the land.

That Miles Hallin had left London late was only one of his inventions. He had, as a matter of fact, been in that spot for several hours. He was an expert electrician- though the job he had had to do was fairly simple. It had been the digging that had taken the time. . . .

He had an ingenious mind. The Saint would have been sheerly delighted to hear the story that Nigel Perry had heard. "If you must have melodrama, lay it on with a spade," was one of the Saint's own maxims; and certainly Miles Hallin had not tyrannized his imagination.

There was also a thoroughness about Hallin which it gave the Saint great pleasure to recall in after years. Even in murder he was as thorough as he had been in fostering the legend of his charmed life. A lesser man would simply have pushed Perry over the very convenient precipice.

"But even at that time," the Saint would say, "Hallin clung to the idea that after all he might get away with something. If he'd simply shoved Nigel off the cliff he'd have had trouble with the body. So he dug a neat grave, and put Nigel in it to die; so all our sweet Miles had to do afterwards was to come back and remove the telephone and fill up the hole. You can't say that wasn't thorough."

Hallin pulled on a thick rubber glove; and then he struck a match and cupped it in his other hand. He looked once at his watch. And his face was perfectly composed as he jerked over the lever of his switch.

7

"We'd better walk from here," said the Saint.

Teal nodded.

He leaned forward and spoke a word to the driver, and the police car pulled into the side of the road, and stopped there.

The detective levered himself out with a grunt, and inspected the track in front of them with a jaundiced eye.

"We might have gone on to the top of the hill," he said; and the Saint laughed without mirth.

"We might not," said the Saint. "Hallin's place is right by the top of the hill, and we aren't here to advertise ourselves."

"I suppose not," said Teal wistfully.

The driver came round the car and joined them, bringing the electric flashlights that were part of their outfit, and Teal took one and tested it. The Saint did the same. They looked at each other in the light.

"You seem to know a lot about this place," Teal said.

The Saint smiled.

"I came down from London last week especially to have a look at it," he answered, and Teal's eyes narrowed.

"Did you bring any bombs with you?" he asked.

Simon turned his flashlight up the road.

"I'm afraid I forgot to," he murmured. "And now, shall we proceed with the weight-reducing, Fatty?"

They set off in a simmering silence, Teal and the Saint walking side by side, and the chauffeur bringing up the rear. As they went, the Saint began to sing, under his breath, some ancient ballad about "Oh, How a Fat Girl Can Love"; and Teal's breathing seemed to become even more laboured than was warranted by the steepness of the hill. The driver, astern, also sounded as if he were having difficulty with his respiratory effects.

They plodded upwards without speaking for some time, preoccupied with their respective interests; and at last it was Teal who stopped and broke the silence.

"Isn't that a car up there?" he said.

He pointed along the beam of his torch, and the Saint looked.

"It surely is something like a car," admitted the Saint thoughtfully. "That's queer!"

He quickened his pace and went into the lead. Then the other two caught him up again; he was standing still, a few yards from the car, with his flashlight focused on the number plate.

"One of Hallin's cars," said the Saint.

He moved quickly round it, turning his light on the tires: they were all perfectly sound. The petrol gauge showed plenty of fuel. He put his hand on the radiator: it was hot.

"Well, well, well!" said the Saint.

Teal, standing beside him, began to flash his torch around the side of the road.

"What's that tin doing there?" he said.

"I do not know, my chubby cherub," said the Saint.

But he reached the tin first and lifted it up. It was an empty petrol can. He turned it upside down over his palm, and shook it.

"Did he fill up here?" said Teal, and the Saint shook his head.

"The can's as dry as a successful bootlegger's politics. It's an old one. And I should say-Teal, I should say it was put here to make a place. Look at the mark in the grass!"

He left Teal to it, and moved along the road, searching the turf at the side. Then he came back on the other side. His low exclamation brought Teal trotting.

"Someone's doing a midnight cross-country," said the Saint.

He pointed.

"I can't see anything," said Teal.

"You wouldn't," said the Saint disparagingly. "Now, if they'd only thought to leave some cigarette ash about for you to put under a microscope, or a few exciting bloodstains--"

Teal choked.

"Look here, Templar--"

"Teal," said the Saint, elegantly, "you drip."

He sprang lightly over the ditch and headed into the darkness, ignoring the other two; and, after a moment's hesitation, they followed.

The assurance with which the Saint moved over his trail was uncanny. Neither of the others could see the signs which he was able to pick up as rapidly as he could have picked up a plain path; but they were townsmen both, trained for a different kind of tracking.

Perhaps they travelled for fifty yards. And then the Saint stopped dead, and the other two came up on either side of him. His lighted torch aimed downwards, and they followed it with their own; but again neither of them could see anything remarkable.

"What is it this time?" asked Teal.

"I saw an arm," said the Saint. "An arm and a gun. And it went into the ground. Put your lights out!"

Without understanding, they obeyed.

And, in the darkness, the Saint leaped.

His foot turned on a loose stone, throwing him to his knees; and at the same time he heard a metallic click that meant only one thing to him: an automatic had been fired-and had failed to fire.

He spun round. Holding his torch at arm's length away from him. he switched it on again. And he gasped.

"Nigel!"

The boy was wrestling with the sliding jacket of the gun. It seemed to have jammed. And he bared his teeth into the light.

"You swine!" he said.

The Saint stared.

"Nigel! It's me-Simon Templar--"

"I know."

The automatic reloaded with a snap, and Perry aimed it deliberately. And then Teal's hand and arm flashed into the beam of light, caught Perry's wrist, and twisted sharply up wards. Another hand snatched the gun away.

"You devils!"

Perry got his wrist free with a savage wrench, and rolled out of the hole where he had been lying. He gathered himself, crouched, and leaped at the light. Simon put out one foot, and brought him down adroitly.

"Nigel, don't be a big boob!"

For answer the youngster squirmed to his feet again, with something like a sob, and made a second reckless rush.

The Saint began to feel bored.

He switched out his torch and ducked. His arms fastened about Perry's waist, his shoulder nestled into Perry's chest; he tightened his grip decisively.

"If you don't stop it, Nigel," he said, "I'll break your back."

Perry went limp suddenly. Perhaps he had never dreamed of being held with such a strength. The Saint's arms locked about him like steel bands.

"What's the matter with him?" inquired Teal lethargically, and Simon grunted.

"Seems to have gone loco," he murmured.

Perry's ribs creaked as he tried to breathe.

"It's all right," he said. "I know all about you. You--"

"I've got him," said Teal unemotionally; and the Saint loosened his hold and straightened up.

He had dropped his torch in the scuffle. Now he stooped to grope around for it; and it was while he was stooping that another light came. It came with a sort of hissing crackle- something like blue lightning.

"What the kippered herring was that?" ejaculated Teal.

The Saint found his torch and turned its rays into the hollow where Perry had been lying. And the blue lightning came again. They all saw it.

And then the Saint laughed softly.

"Good old Miles," he drawled.

"Electric," Teal said dazedly.

"Electrocution," said the Saint, mildly.

There was a long silence. Then: "Electrocution?"

Perry spoke huskily, staring at the hole in the ground, where the beams of three flashlights concentrated brilliantly.

"Good old Miles," said the Saint again.

He pointed to the blackened and twisted telephone, and a dark scar on the rock. And there was another silence.

Teal broke it, sleepily.

"Some fools are born lucky," he said. "Perry, what yarn did Hallin tell you to get you there?"

"Miles didn't do that--"

"I suppose I did." Teal tilted his torch over so that it illumined his own face. "You know me, Perry-you met me yesterday. I'm a police officer. Don't talk nonsense."

It was an incisive speech for Teal.

Perry said, in his throat: "Then-where's Moyna?"

"That's what I want to know," remarked the Saint. "We'll ask Miles. He'll be coming back to inspect the body. Shut your faces, and douse those glimpse!"

The lights went out one by one, and darkness and silence settled upon the group. Without a sound the Saint stepped to one side. He rested his torch on a high boulder and kept his finger on the switch.

Then he heard Hallin.

At least, he heard the faint soft crunch of stones, a tiny rustle of leaves. ... He could see nothing. It was an eerie business, listening to that stealthy approach. But the Saint's nerves were like ice.

A match flared suddenly, only a few yards away. Hallin was searching the ground.

Then the Saint switched on his light. He caught Hallin in the beam, and left the light lying on the rock. The Saint him self stepped carefully away from it.

"Hullo," said the Saint unctuously.

Hallin stood rooted to the ground. The match burned down to his fingers and he dropped it.

Then his hand jerked round to his pocket. . . .

"Rotten," said the Saint calmly; and his voice merged in the rattle of another shot.

From a little distance away two more lights sprang up from the darkness and centred upon Hallin. The man twisted round in the blaze, and fired again-three times. One of the lights went out. The other fell, and went out on the ground as the bulb broke. Hallin whipped round again. He sighted rapidly, and his bullet smashed the Saint's torch where it lay.

"Teal, did he get you?"

The Saint stepped swiftly across the blackness; and Teal's voice answered at his shoulder.

"No, but he got Mason."

The Saint's fingers touched Teal's coat, so lightly that the detective could have felt nothing. They crept down Teal's . sleeve, jumped the hand, and closed upon the torch. . . .

"Thanks," said the Saint. "See you later."

He jerked at the torch as he spoke, and got it away. The detective made a grab at him; but Simon slipped away with a laugh. He could hear Hallin blundering through the darkness, and he followed the noise as best he could. Behind him was another blundering noise, and a shout from Teal; but the Saint was not waiting.

Simon went on in the dark. He had eyes like a cat, anyway; and, in the circumstances, there might be peculiar dangers about a light. . . . Then it occurred to him that there might be other live wires about, and he had no urge to die that way. He stopped abruptly.

At the same time he found that he could no longer hear Hallin. On his right he heard a muffled purling of water; behind him Teal was still stumbling sulphurously through the gloom, hopelessly lost. The detective must have been striking matches, but Simon could not see them. A rise of ground must have cut them off.

Warily the Saint felt around for another boulder, and switched on his torch as he had done before. The result startled him. Hallin's face showed up instantly in the glare, pale and twisted, scarcely a yard away; then Hallin's hand with the gun; beyond Hallin, the ground simply ceased. . . .

"Precious," said the Saint, "I have been looking forward to this."

He hurled himself full length, in a magnificent standing tackle; his arms twined around Hallin's knees. Over his head, the automatic banged once, but the light did not go out. Then they crashed down together.

The Saint let go, and writhed up like an eel. He caught Hallin's right wrist, and smashed the hand against a stone. The gun dropped.

Simon snatched it up, scrambling to his feet as he did so; and one sweep of his arm sent the weapon spinning far out into the gulf.

The Saint laughed, standing up in the light.

"In the name of Teddy Everest," he said, "this is our party. Get up, Miles Hallin, you dog!"

8

Hallin got up. He was shorter than the Saint by three or four inches, but twice as heavy in the bone, with tremendous arms and shoulders. And he came in like a charging buffalo.

Simon sidestepped the first rush with cool precision, and shot in a crisp left that caught Hallin between the eyes with a smack like a snapped stick; but Hallin simply turned, blinking, and came again.

The Saint whistled softly through his teeth.

He really wasn't used to people taking those punches quite so stoically. When he hit a man like that, it was usually the beginning of the end of the fight; but Hallin was pushing up his plate for a second helping as if he liked the diet. Well, maybe the light was bad, thought the Saint; and accurate timing made a lot of difference. . . . And again he side stepped, exactly as before, and felt the blow which he landed jolt right up his arm; but this time he collected a smashing drive to the ribs in return. It hurt him; but Hallin didn't seem to be hurt. . . .

The Saint whistled even more softly.

So there was something in Hallin, after all. The man fought in a crouch that made scoring difficult. His arms covered his body, and he kept his chin well down in his chest; he wasn't easy. . . .

The Saint circled round to get his back to the light, and for the third time Hallin rushed at him. Simon went in to meet him. His left swung over in a kind of vertical hook that stroked down Hallin's nose, and Hallin raised his arms involuntarily.

Lashing into the opening, the Saint went for the body-right, left, right. He heard Hallin grunt to the thud of each blow, and he smiled.

They closed.

Simon knew what would come next. He was old in the game. He wrenched his body round, and took the upward kick of Hallin's knee on the muscles under his thigh. At the same moment he jerked Hallin's other leg from under him, and they went down together.

Hallin fought like a fiend. His strength was terrific. They rolled over and over, away out of the light of the torch, into the darkness, with Hallin's hands fumbling for the Saint's eyes. . . . The Saint knew that one also. He grabbed one of Hallin's fingers, and twisted; it broke with a sharp crack, and Hallin screamed. . . .

The Saint tore himself away. He was rising to one knee when his other foot seemed to slip into space. He clutched wildly, and found a hold on the roots of a bush; then Hallin caught him again. With a superhuman heave the Saint dragged himself another foot from the edge of the precipice; and then his handhold came clean out of the ground, bringing a lump of turf with it. He dashed it into Hallin's face.

They fought on the very brink of the precipice. Simon lost count of the number of blows he took, and the number he gave. In the darkness it was impossible to aim, and just as impossible to guard. One of them would get a hand free, and hit out savagely at the dark; then the other would do the same; sometimes they scored, sometimes they missed. The rocks bruised them at every movement; once they crashed through a bush, and the twigs tore the Saint's face.

Then he landed again, a pile-driving half-arm jolt that went home, and Hallin lay still.

Gasping, the Saint relaxed. . . .

And at once Hallin heaved up titanically under him, and something more than a fist struck the side of the Saint's head.

If it had struck a direct blow Simon's skull would have been cracked like an eggshell; but Hallin had misjudged his mark by a fraction. The stone glanced from the Saint's temple; even so, it was like being kicked by a mule. It shook the Saint more than anything else in the whole of that mad struggle, and sent him toppling sideways with a welter of tangled lights zipping before his eyes. He felt Hallin slip from his grasp, and slithered desperately away to his left. Something went past his cheek, so close that he felt it pass, and hit the ground beyond him with a crunching thud. . . .

He touched another bush, and crawled dizzily round it. On the other side he dragged himself up-first to his knees, then, shakily, to his feet. He could hear Hallin stumbling about in the blackness, searching for him; but he had to rest. Every muscle of his body ached; his head was playing a complete symphony. . . .

Then he heard the bush rustle; and he had not moved.

He strained his eyes into the obscurity. The steady beam of the torch was a dozen yards away; suddenly he saw Hallin silhouetted against it. Hallin must have seen him at the same moment. The Saint ducked instantaneously, and the rock that Hallin hurled at him went over his head. Simon saw that rock also, for the fraction of a second, in the same silhouette: it was the size of a football.

Hallin came after it without a pause. Simon could see him clearly. With a gigantic effort the Saint gathered his strength and met the rush with a long straight left that packed every ounce of power he could muster. Hallin was coming in carelessly now: the blow took him squarely on the mouth and sent him flying.

The Saint stood still. As long as he could keep his position he had a precarious advantage. He saw Hallin's silhouette again, for a moment-but only for a moment. Then nothing. He realized that Hallin had also seen the point. . . .

He began to edge away, with his ears alert for the slightest warning sound. And then he saw another light-the light of a match, moving through the darkness a few points from his torch. At the same time Teal's shout reached him faintly.

Without hesitation Simon plunged towards the electric torch.

Again he guessed exactly what Hallin would do-and he was right. The man had already crept round behind him- that gave the Saint a lead-but, as he ran, Simon heard the other coming up behind. A hand touched his arm; then Hallin cursed, and the Saint heard him fall.

Simon reached the light, switched it out, and swerved away. He heard Hallin running again, but the man went right past him and did not turn back.

"Where are you, Templar?"

He heard Teal's voice, closer at hand; as the Saint blundered after Hallin, his path took him towards the voice; presently he switched on his light again, and Teal himself showed up, red-faced and perspiring.

"Have you seen him?" rapped the Saint.

"No," said the detective shortly. "Didn't you kill him?"

Simon answered with the ghost of a laugh.

"Unfortunately I failed. But there's still time. He must have gone between us. Come on!"

He started off again, and Teal had to follow.

As they ran the Saint said: "This'll take us towards the road, anyway. He's sure to make for that. Where's Perry?"

"I sent him back to the car," said Teal shortwindedly. "With Mason."

"Which car?"

"Hallin's."

"You sap! That's where Hallin'll be making for."

"Perry's got his gun back."

"Oh! . . . How's Mason?"

"Shot through the lungs. Perry carried him."

"Learn anything from Perry?"

"Not much. I didn't wait."

They went on quickly. Hallin could no longer be heard, but the Saint was certain about the road. And the road would take Hallin to something else. . . .

They came out of the scrub onto level turf, where the going was easier. Down to his left the Saint saw a pair of headlights. He turned, hurrying on.

"Mind the ditch."

He lighted the detective over, and followed with a leap. As his feet touched the road he heard Perry's challenge.

"Stop where you are!"

"But this is us," said the Saint.

The car turned a little, and the headlights picked him up. In a moment the car itself swept up beside them.

"You haven't seen Miles?" demanded Simon, with one foot on the step.

"Not a sign."

"And you haven't heard anything?"

"Only you. I thought--"

"Damnation!" said the Saint, in his gentle way.

He looked up and down the road, listening intently, but he could hear nothing. Then he swung onto the running board.

"He's sure to have struck the road somewhere," he said crisply. "Teal, hustle yourself round the other side. . . . Can you put this thing along, Nigel?"

"I'll do my best."

"Off you go, then."

Teal climbed onto the step at the other side, and the car started again with a jerk, and gathered speed. Teal leaned over to be pessimistic.

"He'll see us coming a mile away if he is on the road," he said.

"I know," said the Saint savagely. "Perhaps you'd rather run."

He did not care to admit how pessimistic he himself felt. He was certain that Hallin must make for the road sooner or later; but he also knew that Teal's remark was perfectly justified. In fact, if it had been merely a question of capturing a fugitive, the Saint would have given it up forthwith. But there was another reason for the chase, and this very reason also gave it a faint chance of success. It was Perry who made the Saint speak of it.

"He told me Moyna wasn't far away," Perry said. "Have you any idea what he meant?"

"What he said," answered the Saint grimly. "He brought Moyna with him, but he didn't take her to the cottage. I don't know where he took her; but I'll bet he told you the truth. She won't be far away."

Perry said, in a strained voice: "Oughtn't we to be looking for her, instead of chasing him?"

"We're doing both at the same time," said the Saint quietly. "Wherever she is, that's where he's gone. Miles Hallin is going to have his life."

"I-I can hardly believe it, even now," said the youngster huskily.

Simon's hand rested on his shoulder.

"I hope you won't see it proved," he said. "But I know that Hallin has gone to find Moyna."

Teal cleared his throat.

"He can't have got as far as this, anyway," he remarked.

"Right as usual, Claud Eustace." The Saint's voice was preternaturally calm. "He must have gone down the hill. Turn the car round, Nigel, and we'll try the other line."

Teal understood, and held his peace. Of course Hallin might easily have gone up the hill. He would have stepped off the road, and they might have passed him. . . . But Perry could be spared the argument. . . . And yet Teal did not know how sincerely the Saint was clinging to his hope. Simon himself did not know why he should have clung to the hope as he did, against all reason; but the faith that spurred him on was above reason. The Saint simply could not believe that the story would end-the way Teal thought it must end. . . .

"This is where we started from." The Saint spoke to the lad at the wheel in tones of easy confidence. "We could stop the engine and coast down, couldn't we? Then we'd hardly make any noise. . . ."

They went on with no sound but the soft rustle of the tires. Simon did not have to mention the headlights. Those would give their approach away even more surely than the drone of the engine; but Simon would have invented any fatuous re mark to save Perry's nerves.

They reached the bottom of the hill, and Teal was the first to see the police car standing by the road where they had left it. He pointed it out as Perry applied the brakes.

"He can't have come this way, either," Teal said. "If he had, he'd have taken that car."

"I wonder if he saw it," said the Saint.

He dropped off into the road, and his flashlight spilled a circle of luminance over the macadam. The circle moved about restlessly, and Teal stepped from the car and followed it.

"Looking for footprints?" inquired the detective sardonically, as he came up behind the Saint; and at that moment the light in the Saint's hand went out.

"Blood," said the Saint, very quietly.

"That's a nasty word," murmured Teal.

"You everlasting mutt!" Simon gripped his arm fiercely. "I wasn't swearing. I was telling you something!" He turned. "Nigel, turn those headlights out!"

The detective was fumbling with a matchbox; but the Saint stopped him.

"It's all right, old dear," he drawled. "This gadget of yours is still working. I just thought we'd better go carefully. Hallin's been past here. He didn't take the car, so he can't have had much farther to go."

"But what's this about blood? Did you use a knife?"

"No," said the Saint, smiling in the darkness. "I hit him on the nose."

9

Moyna Stanford had been awake for a long time.

She had roused sickly from a deeper sleep than any she had ever known; and it had been more than half an hour before she could recall anything coherently, or even find the strength to move.

And when her memory returned-or, rather, when she had forced it to return-she was not much wiser. She remembered meeting Miles Hallin at Windsor station. He had insisted on driving her back to London, and she had been glad to accept the invitation. In Slough he had complained of an intolerable thirst; they had stopped at a hotel, and she had been persuaded to join him in an early cup of tea. Then they had returned to the car. . . .

She did not know how long she had slept.

When she awoke, she was in darkness. She lay on something soft, and, when she could move, she gathered that it was a bed. She had already discovered that her wrists and ankles were securely bound. . . .

Presently she had learned one or two other things. That it was night, for instance, she learned when she rolled over and saw a square of starlight in one wall; but her hands were tied behind her back, and she could not see her wrist watch to find out what hour of the night it might be. Then she lay still, listening, but not the faintest sound broke the silence. The house was like a tomb.

She had no idea how long she lay there. She did not cry out -there would be no one to hear. And she could see no help in screaming. Later, the sound of a car passing close by told her that she was not far from a road-a country road, or there would have been more cars. There was never such a silence in London. Later still-it was impossible to keep track of time- she scrambled off the bed and hobbled slowly and laboriously to the window. It was very dark outside; she could see nothing but a black expanse of country, in which no particular features were distinguishable, except that the horizon was ragged against the dimness of the sky, as if it were formed by a line of hills. She might have been anywhere in England. The window was open, and she stood beside it for a long while, wondering if another car would pass, and if the road would be near enough for anyone in the car to hear her if she called; but no other car came. After a time she struggled back to the bed and lay down again; it was difficult and wearying for her to stand with her feet tightly lashed together, and her head was swimming all the while.

Then the drug she had been given must have put forth one final kick before it was finished with her; for she awoke again with a start, though she had no recollection of falling asleep. The sky through the window looked exactly the same: she was sure that she had only dozed.

She was shivering-she did not know why. Strangely enough, when she had first awoken she had been aware of no fear; that part of her brain seemed to have stayed sunken in sleep. But now she found herself trembling. There was a tight ness about her chest; and she waited, tense with a nameless terror, hardly breathing, certain that some distinct sound had roused her.

Then the sound was repeated; and she would have cried out then, but her throat seemed paralyzed.

Someone was coming up the stairs.

A faint light entered the room. It came from under the door and traced a slow arc around half the floor. The creak of an other board outside sent an icy qualm prickling up her spine; her mouth was dry, and her heart pounded thunderously. . . . The next thing would be the opening of the door. She waited for that, too, in the same awful tenseness: it was like watching a card castle after a sudden draught has caught it; she knew what must come, it was inevitable, but the suspense was more hideous than the active peril. . . . The rattle of a key in the lock made her jump, as if she had been held motionless by a slender thread and the thread had been snapped by the sound. . . .

Involuntarily she closed her eyes. When she opened them again Miles Hallin was relocking the door on the inside, and the bare room was bright with the lamp that he carried.

Then he turned, putting the lamp down on a rough wooden chair, and she saw him properly. She was amazed and aghast at his appearance. His clothes were torn and shapeless and filthy; his collar had burst open, and his tie was halfway down his chest; his hair was dishevelled; his face was smeared and stained with blood.

"Are you awake?" he said.

She could not answer. He advanced slowly to the bed, peering at her.

"You are awake. I've come back. You ought to be glad to see me. I've nearly been killed."

He sat down and put his head in his hands for a moment. Then he looked at her again.

"Killed!" His voice was rough and shaky. "One of your friends tried to kill me. That man Templar. I nearly killed him, though. I'd have done it if I'd been alone. We were on the precipice. There's a two-hundred-foot drop. Can you imagine it? You'd go down-and down-and down-down to the bottom-and break like a rotten apple-- Ugh!" He shuddered uncontrollably. "It was terrible. Have you ever thought about death, Moyna? I think it must be dreadful to die. I don't want to die!"

His hand plucked at her sleeve, and she stared at him, fascinated. His quivering terror was more horrible than anything she had ever imagined.

"I can't die!" he babbled. "Don't you know that? It's in all the newspapers. Miles Hallin- The Man Who Cannot Die! I'm big, strong-Templar couldn't kill me, and he's strong-I can't-go down-and lie still and-and get cold-and never move any more. And you rot. All your flesh-rots. ... In the desert, I thought about it. D'you hear about Nigel's brother? We tossed for who was to die, and he won. And he didn't seem to mind dying. I pretended I didn't mind, either. And I walked with him a long way. And then-I hit him when he wasn't looking. I took the water-and left him. He-he died, Moyna. In the sun. And-shrivelled up. He's been dead -years. Sometimes I can see him. . . ."

The girl moistened her lips. She could not move.

"Ever since then I've been dead, too. I've never been alive. You see, I couldn't tell anyone. Acting-all the time. So-I've always been alone. Never been able to tell anyone-never been with anyone who knew all about it-who-who was frightened, like I was. Until I met you. I knew you'd understand. You could share the secret. I was going-to tell you. And then Templar found out. I don't know how. Or he guessed. He sees everything-his eyes-- I knew he'd try to take you away from me. So I brought you here. I'm going to- live. With you. He won't find us here. I bought this place for you-long ago. It's beautiful. I don't think anyone's ever died here. Moyna! Moyna! Moyna!"

"Yes?" Her voice was faint.

"I wish you'd speak. I was-afraid-you might be going to die. I had to drug you. You know I drugged you? I couldn't explain then-I had to bring you here, where we could be alone. Now I'll untie you."

His fingers tugged at the ropes he had put on her. Presently her hands were free, and he was fumbling with her feet, crooning like a child. She tried to master her trembling.

"Miles, you must let me go!"

"I'm letting you go." He held up the cords for her to see. "And now-we're all right. Just you and me. You'll be-nice to me-won't you, Moyna?" His arms went round her, dragging her towards him.

"Miles." She strove to speak calmly, though she was weak with fear. "You must be sensible! You've got to get me back to London. Mother will be wondering what's happened to me--"

"London?" He seemed to grasp the word dully. "Why?"

"You know I can't stay here. But you can come and see me tomorrow morning--"

His blank eyes gazed at her.

"London? To-morrow? I don't understand." Suddenly he seized her again. "Moyna, you wouldn't run away! You're not going to-to leave me. I can't go to London. You know I can't. I shall be killed. We've got to stay here."

She was as helpless as a babe in his hands. He heard nothing more that she said.

"Moyna, I love you. I'm going to be good to you. I'm going to look after you-tell you-everything--"

"Miles," she sobbed, "oh, let me go--"

"Just-you and me. And we'll stay here. And we-won't die-ever. We won't-die--"

"Oh, don't--"

"You mustn't be afraid. Not of me. We won't be afraid of anything. We're going to stay here-years-hundreds of years -thousands of years. Moyna, you mustn't be frightened. It'll be quite all right--"

"Take your hands off me--"

"But you do love me, don't you? And you're not going to leave me alone. I shan't be frightened of anything if you're here. In the dark, I can see Perry-sometimes. But I shan't mind--"

She fought back at him desperately, but against his tremendous strength she felt as weak as a kitten.

She screamed aloud.

Somewhere a shout answered her. She heard a splintering crash, then someone leaping up the stairs.

Another shout: "Moyna, where are you?"

She cried out again. Hallin let her go. She fell off the bed and flung herself at the door. He caught her again there.

"They're coming," he said stupidly.

Then his eyes blazed. He dragged her away with a force that sent her flying across the room. In an instant he had reached her. She stared in horror at his face, pale and twisted under the smears of blood, only a few inches from her own.

"They're going to kill me," he gasped. "I'm going to die! Moyna, I'm going to die-die! . . . And I haven't lived yet. Love you--"

She half rose, but he threw her down again. The strength that she had found went from her. She felt that she would faint at any moment. Her dress tore in his hands, but the sound seemed to come from an infinite distance.

There was a mighty pounding on the door.

"Open it, Hallin!" someone was shouting. "You can't get away!"

Hallin's whole body was shaking.

"They can't kill me!" he croaked. "Moyna, you know that, don't you? I can't be killed. No one can ever kill me."

"You fool!" came a voice outside. "You won't break the door down that way. Why don't you shoot the lock out?"

Hallin raised himself slowly from the bed. His eyes were like a babe's.

"Shoot out the lock," he said dreamily. "Yes-shoot out the lock--"

With her hand to her mouth Moyna Stanford watched him reel across the room.

He spoke again.

"It's dreadful to die," he said.

On the landing outside, the Saint was focusing his flashlight on the door, and Teal's automatic was crowded against the keyhole.

The lock shattered inwards with a splintering crash, and Simon hurled himself forward.

Inside the room he heard a heavy fall, and the door jammed half open. Then Teal and Nigel Perry added their weight to the attack, and they went in.

"Nigel!"

The girl struggled up and stumbled, and Perry caught her in his arms.

But Teal and the Saint were looking at the man who lay on the floor, very still, with a strange serenity on his upturned face.

"He wasn't so lucky after all," said the detective stolidly.

Simon shook his head.

"We never killed him," he said.

He fell on his knees beside the body; and when he stood up again his right hand was red and wet, and something lay in his palm. Teal blinked at it. It was a key.

"How did that get there?" he demanded.

"It was in the lock," said the Saint.

10

In the full panoply of silk hat, stock, black coat, flowered waist-coat, gold-mounted umbrella, white gloves, striped cashmere trousers with a razor-edged crease, white spats, and patent-leather shoes (reading from north to south), Simon Templar was a vision to dazzle the eyes; and Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, meeting the Saint in Piccadilly in this array, was visibly startled.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I have already been," said the Saint. "They do these things at the most ungodly hours. If you want to know, an infant has this day been received into the Holy Catholic Church. I personally sponsored the reception."

The detective was suitably impressed.

"Moreover," said the Saint, "it was christened Simon. Now I call that real handsome."

"What does Perry call it?" inquired Teal; and the Saint was shocked.

They walked a little way together in silence, and then Teal said: "The Commissioner's been waiting for an answer to his letter."

"I have meditated the idea," said the Saint. "As a matter of fact, I thought of beetling down to see him this afternoon."

"What were you going to say?"

Simon's umbrella swung elegantly in his hand.

He sighed.

"The idea is amusing," he murmured. "And yet I can't quite see myself running on the side of Law and Order. As you've so kindly pointed out on several occasions, dear old horseradish, my free-lance style is rather cramped now that you all know so much about me; but I'm afraid-oh, Teal, my bonny, I'm terribly afraid that yours is not the only way. I should become so hideously respectable before you finished with me. And there is another objection."

"What's that?"

The Saint removed his shining headpiece and dusted it lovingly with a large silk handkerchief.

"I could not wear a bowler hat," he said.

Teal stopped, and turned.

"Are you really going to refuse?" he asked; and Simon nodded.

"I am," he said sadly. "It would have been a hopeless failure. I should have been fired in a week anyway. Scotland House would become a bear garden. The most weird and wonderful stories would be told in the Old Bailey. Gentlemen would write to the Times-- Teal, I don't want to be a wet blanket, but I might want that arm again--"

"Templar," said the detective glumly, "that's the worst news I've heard for a long time!"

"Is it?" drawled, the Saint, appearing slightly puzzled. "I thought everyone knew. It's the arm I drink with."

"I mean, if you really are going on in the same old way--"

"Oh, that!"

The Saint smiled beatifically. He glanced at his watch.

"Let us go and have lunch," he said, "and weep over my wickedness. I'm such a picturesque villain, too." He sighed again. "Tell me, Teal, where can a policeman and a pirate lunch together in safety?"

"Anywhere you like," said Teal unhappily.

Simon Templar gazed across Piccadilly Circus.

"I seem to remember a very good restaurant in the Law Courts themselves," he remarked. "I lunched there one day just after I'd murdered someone or other. It gave me a great sensation. And this, I think, is my cue to repeat the performance. Come, Algibald, and I will tell you the true story about the Bishop and the Actress."

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