The Saint and the People Importers

1

The Saint placed a five-pound note — one pound for each word of the pencil-scribbled warning — on the small tray with his dinner bill, and Abdul Haroon immediately scooted over from the centre of the room and confiscated it.

“Thank you, sir! Thank you very much! One moment for the change...”

“Give it to Mahmud,” Simon said, getting to his feet. “He won’t be picking up many tips for a few weeks.”

He searched the restaurant-owner’s round perspiring face for some trace of admission that it was Abdul himself who had written the note, but he met only an impenetrable determinedly smiling mask.

“You are most kind,” Abdul said.

He was bowing the Saint to the door. The bill and the five-pound note had already disappeared into his pocket.

“And you are very good about looking after your customers,” Simon rejoined.

“I must try to look after them well,” Abdul said gloomily. “They are few enough!”

Even as the Saint nodded goodnight just before stepping into the street Abdul’s expression betrayed nothing. He bowed again with elaborate politeness and held the door open. Simon left without another word, deciding to accept the remembered message for what it was worth and not press matters any further at the Golden Crescent.

But just what was the warning worth? When he was alone on the sidewalk outside the restaurant he thought it over briefly. There had been no information in it, nothing he could draw any help from. He was still just where he had been after Mahmud’s implausible accident. He had a newspaper story bylined by a man who claimed to know more about the illegal immigration racket than he apparently dared to reveal, and he had in his head the name of a wholesale food-distribution company whose employees had shown conspicuous alacrity in getting on to their next job after doing whatever they had done at the Golden Crescent that evening.

Simon stood on the street corner and watched the cars and taxis and evening crowds hurrying by, regretting that he had not memorized the delivery van’s licence. But at the time he had noticed the truck there had been no reason to believe he would ever need to know its number.

There was a telephone outside a pub not far down the street. The Saint walked down to it, stepped into the tobacco-acrid atmosphere of the red kiosk, and swivelled the “S” volume of the directory up so he could have a look at it. He soon satisfied himself, without any great astonishment, that there was no Supreme Imports Ltd. in the London area — or at least that Supreme Imports (whatever it might be they imported) did not feel the need of a listed telephone in the transaction of their business. To make sure, he dialled directory inquiries, asked if Supreme Imports had a number, and received the expected negative answer.

Without leaving the telephone booth the Saint glanced at his wristwatch. It was still early in the evening, but any respectable importing company would have closed its doors by now anyway — and those which specialized in not quite so respectable imports were not likely to make wassail for the stranger at their gates at any hour. Simon put the “S” volume of the directory back to bed and opened the one that contained “R.”

There were half a column of “Rowans” inhabiting London, but of that illustrious clan only one, fortunately, possessed the first name of “Tam.” He also, fortunately, maintained a telephone, and he dwelt at Belsize Square.

The existence of Mr. Rowan’s telephone was of use to Simon mainly as a guide to the address. He had had enough of the silent treatment at the Golden Crescent. He was not going to risk giving Rowan the same easy way out by making his approach over the phone. He would beard the star reporter in his own lair.

The theatre crowds were in their playhouses by now, and the restaurant rush had not yet begun, so the streets in Simon’s vicinity were swarming with whole schools of unoccupied taxis. He commandeered one and was soon carried out of the whirlpool of the Piccadilly Circus-Leicester Square area into the more smoothly flowing streams farther north.

The street where he eventually stopped might have been two hundred miles in space or fifty years back in time from the thronged centre of London he had left behind just a few minutes before. Around Belsize Square Simon’s departing taxi was the only moving vehicle. Not even one solitary human being strolled the lamplit sidewalks. The trees were big, and so were the quiet houses — three and four-storey buildings shoulder to shoulder, with hedged gardens in front. Each garden, it seemed, was the property of a cat, and each cat Simon passed (he had gotten out of the taxi some distance from his destination so as not to advertise his arrival) was constructed on the same ample scale as the trees and the houses. They were great fat lazy trusting beasts ready to roll over on the sidewalk for a stomach rub by any human who happened to wander past their respective territories.

Simon obliged several friendly felines with a scratch and a pat, and thought that he rather admired Tam Rowan for choosing a neighbourhood so rich in animals, old trees, and nostalgia. It was not exactly the sort of section he would have expected an ambitious journalist to roost in — especially a journalist who got his name printed above lavish articles which were mentioned on the front page of his newspaper.

Rowan’s address led the Saint up a short walk presided over by a ginger cat too sluggish even to watch him go by. Simon mounted the cement stairs at the end of the walk, which brought him to a heavy oak door, the only part of the three-storey house which was not painted white. To the right of the door was a battery of six bell-buttons variously stained with use according to the popularity of their owners. Identifying cards, ranging from the finest engraved script to ballpoint longhand on a piece of wrapping-paper, were inserted in the slots next to the push-buttons.

The Saint passed over Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, grimaced at Laverne Larousse, Private Tutor, and was gratified to learn that his own Tarn Rowan lived in flat number 4.

The oak door of the house was not locked, so Simon opened it and walked into the dark hall. There was a pleasant smell of chocolate cake baking, and the muted sound of a television set or radio. The only light in the entrance hall came from under the door of one of the flats. Simon found the electric switch just inside the main entrance, wondering if perhaps the landlord had removed the bulbs from the public corridors for reasons of economy. But an overhead light came on at a flick of his finger and he could see his way up the broad heavily bannistered stairway to the next floor.

The sound of the loudspeaker which he had heard on the ground floor became louder as he climbed the neatly carpeted, slightly creaking stairs. Some species of chaos comparable to a Roman combat between Nubian dwarves and crazed baboons seemed — judging from the auditory indications — to be taking place before a screaming audience of thousands. Simon hoped fervently that the cacophony was not issuing from apartment number 4, but it was.

The varnished door with its brass numeral was closed firmly, but the sounds of slaughter came clearly from within by way of a crevice next to the floor. Simon listened for a few seconds and then knocked. There was no response. During a lull in the roaring he knocked again, this time more firmly, and a few seconds later he heard a woman’s voice from just inside, as if she had her mouth pressed almost directly against the door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“I’d like to see Mr. Tam Rowan,” Simon said.

“Who are you?” the female voice enquired with something close to outright hostility.

“Not the big bad wolf,” Simon told her. “If you’ll open the door you’ll be reassured by my cleancut and well-groomed appearance.”

There was a pause, and then a key turned in the lock on the other side of the door. The Saint felt that the wariness of the key-turner was completely understandable, considering that Reporter Rowan had been threatened with death by people who had already shown themselves quite capable of carrying out such threats. He was a little surprised, in fact, that he was being let in after such a short period of persuasion. And then, as the door opened three inches, he realised that he had another barrier to get past: there was a chain-lock preventing the door from being pushed any farther.

A pair of bright turquoise eyes appeared cautiously above the chain, and as little else of a lightly freckled face as the girl could show.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I’ve told you. I want to see the journalist of the house.”

“What for?” she asked unblinkingly.

“I sell submarines,” said Simon.

“Very funny.”

“Not very,” the Saint said. “I also bargain for information, and I enjoy meeting people who share my interests — in things like smuggled immigrants. Why don’t you let me in so we can swap stories without all the neighbours getting an earful.”

“Because I don’t know who you are and I don’t trust you,” she said bluntly.

“My name is Simon Templar, and those who tread the paths of righteousness can trust me from here to the moon. Does that answer your questions?”

Her cold blue-green eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down and scrutinized his face.

“You say you’re Simon Templar... the Saint?” she asked.

“Bingo,” he said. “The very man.”

She squinted at his face again.

“I really think you are.”

“I’d be awfully disappointed to find out I wasn’t,” he replied. “Think of it: getting somebody else’s laundry all these years. And who are you — a Rowan or something else?”

“I am the Rowan,” she said.

“Tam Rowan of crime-busting fame?” he asked with a lift of his brows.

“Right.”

“Shades of Amos Klein,” said the Saint.

2

“What?” she said blankly.

“She was another lad who turned out not to be a lad,” Simon explained. “I wish you emancipated females would retain some identifying characteristics in your names.”

“It’s too dangerous,” she said. If there was any relaxation in her tone it was the relaxation of a lion trainer between acts. “Strange men find out a woman is living alone and knock on her door at night.”

“Well, now that it’s happened what are you going to do about it?” he asked her.

“I’m going to let you in because I know you are the Saint because now I remember I’ve seen your picture — but if you try to get close to me I’ll yell so loud they’ll have to replace every crystal chandelier in this woodworm palace.”

“I’ll try to control any romantic impulses and keep my distance,” Simon said with exaggerated regret.

She slipped the chain free and opened the door, standing well back as he stepped into the room. Her bearing, if not her shape, reminded him of a drill sergeant looking over new recruits.

“Now you go to the middle of the room while I close the door,” she instructed him in a voice whose toughness matched her wary stance.

Simon strolled to the centre of the flat. The sitting room was simply but well furnished, mostly in gold and green, with a well-stocked bookshelf and a Breughel winter landscape above the fireplace. He decided he liked the person who lived there. There was a lack of show or of self-conscious nonchalance, and a feeling of honest use.

“Is this all right?” he asked, indicating the portion of carpet he was occupying.

She nodded as she closed the door. One of her hands remained, as if by a series of casual accidents in her movements, behind her.

“I don’t know if it’s more dangerous to lock myself in here with you or to leave it open and take a chance on somebody else barging in,” she said without a smile.

She was reasonably pretty, but not beautiful. Her healthy broad-cheeked face had too much of a Nordic peasant quality for the latter adjective. Her nose was pertly small, and combined with the crescent lilt of her mouth it gave her a built-in saucy look. Her light hair was cut short and fell with a defiant jaggedness around her ears and forehead. She wore a plain blouse that she filled rather nicely, blue jeans, and no shoes.

Simon faced her easily, lean and dark, sizing her up with the disconcerting directness of his gaze.

“Who else are we expecting?” he asked.

She had locked the door and come a short distance towards him.

“Some chums who’ve promised to slice me up in little pieces if I don’t stop immortalising them in print,” she said.

“Then that wasn’t just artistic licence for spicing-up your story.”

“Of course not,” she said curtly. “You read the story, in the paper tonight? Is that why you’re here?”

“Mainly. I could discuss the whole thing more comfortably if you’d take that butcher’s knife out from behind your back, though.”

She flushed slightly, a reaction he was sure she detested, signalling that he had hit the mark.

“What knife?” she countered uselessly.

“Girls who turn red when rattled should never try to keep secrets,” said Simon. “It’s really rather foolish of you to think you’re hiding anything.”

She showed her concealed hand, and it did indeed contain a large kitchen knife.

“It may seem kinky to you,” she said, “but at least I’m safe.”

He smiled a little sadly.

“You really think so?”

Her eyes flashed and she stepped towards him, trying to give him a scare by poking the point of the knife to within a foot or so of his chest.

“Yes!” she said.

She never did know exactly what had happened just after her “yes.” Instead of flinching away from the knife as she had expected, the Saint stepped aside and towards her with the fluid grace of a matador. She was not aware of what his hands were doing, but suddenly she was standing open-mouthed without her knife and he was holding it and regarding it as if it had been an interesting shell he had picked up on a beach.

“You really shouldn’t play with things like this,” he said gently. “It belongs in the kitchen, after all, along with grapefruit and women.”

Her teeth were set with fury, and suddenly without a sound she exploded and grabbed for his knife hand. He effortlessly evaded the lunge and caught her hard up against him, pinning her strong upper arms against her ribs.

“You are a vicious bird, aren’t you?” he chided.

“You’re a pig!” she spat.

Wishing to get free, she managed to raise her left hand almost to the level of his face. Just in time he realised that she was consciously doing something with her thumb to the inner part of a massive golden ring on her fourth finger. As her hand flexed he tilted his head aside and pushed her wrist away from him with his free hand.

In that instant there was a barely audible fizzle, and an almost microscopic quantity of some gaseous vapour puffed feebly from the centre of the heavily wrought metal of the ring, most of it into the girl’s own eyes.

“Curse!” she exploded.

Then she was coughing and squeezing her eyelids tightly shut, and tears were streaming down the freckled, milk-smooth skin of her cheeks.

Simon was supporting her rather than holding her against her will, and she was making no more effort to get away.

“What was that supposed to be?” he enquired kindly.

“Go ahead,” she growled. “Kill me. Get it over with.”

“That’s a very tempting suggestion, but I need you too much — for the moment.” He tossed the kitchen knife on to a sofa and lifted her left hand so that he could inspect the golden ring. “Is that Renaissance poison-squirter — something you got out of a breakfast-food box?”

She rubbed her eyes with her free hand.

“It’s a tear-gas ring,” she answered sullenly. “Or at least it’s supposed to be. It always worked when I was testing it.”

“It seems like a terribly inefficient form of suicide,” he said. “Something like trying to fold yourself to death in an ironing board. Most people find that shooting themselves with guns works pretty well.”

One corner of her mouth switched in what suspiciously resembled the germination of a smile.

“I don’t have a gun!” she snapped, killing the smile. “And if the damn thing had worked you’d have got the tear gas right in your face.”

“And afterwards you’d have cracked me over the head with a table lamp?” he suggested.

“Preferably with a poker,” she replied.

He let her go, and she stepped back rubbing her shoulder to convey the false impression that he had hurt it. In spite of the fiercely belligerent expression on her face he deduced that the war was over and that the next step was to define the conditions of peace.

“Well, love at first sight is dandy,” he said, “but isn’t it time we got on with more serious things? May I sit down?”

“Apparently I can’t stop you.”

He settled on to the sofa, flipped the long kitchen knife up into the air by its point and caught it by its handle, all the while smiling at her in the most dazzlingly benign way imaginable.

“Well?” she asked, unimpressed.

“It’s very nice to be here,” he said. “It isn’t every day I meet a fearless girl reporter. They should print your picture along with your articles.”

“Why?”

“It would boost circulation, for one thing.”

Once more a bit of sun threatened to break through her cloudy expression, but she fought it back and with mock symptoms of muscular anguish perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair opposite him. The pretence of pain struck him as a fascinating plea for sympathy beneath her granite outer layers.

“You may be the Saint,” she said, “but I’ll bet you’re here spying for another newspaper, trying to nose in on all my research.”

“Even you don’t believe that,” Simon responded casually. “Or else you’re the wildest romantic since Richard Strauss. I’ll tell you why I’m here: you’re an expert on the immigrant-blackmail racket...” He stopped and nodded towards the television set, which had been on the periphery of his mind for some time. “And speaking of racket, couldn’t we cut down the volume of that mayhem?”

“It’s my telly and I’ll play it as flaming loud as I please!” she retorted defiantly.

Simon sighed.

“I’m sure you will. I assume that an obnoxious pugnaciousness is a permanent part of your character?”

She got up and turned the volume of the television down and — even more unexpectedly — actually smiled.

“Impertinence is the word,” she said. “I’m impertinent, because my face is impertinent. It’s my nose and mouth.” She prodded those features with her fingertips as if they were made of soft clay. “My nose is too small and my mouth is too big. They make me look impertinent even when I’m not, so I always used to get the blame for everything no matter what I did, so I reckoned if I were going to be accused of being impertinent anyway I might as well be impertinent.”

“And pugnacious,” the Saint insisted.

“Right.” She gave him a silent tigerish snarl. “Now tell me what you’re doing here before I gobble you up.”

“Fine,” said Simon. “Much to my subsequent regret I got interested in this immigration mess, read your article, and got involved. I came over here to see if you could help me. That’s it.”

“Just like that?” she asked sceptically. “Why are you interested? What got you involved? I thought you never got yourself into messes unless you were sure you could come out with a profit.”

“The rewards of virtue have a way of not guaranteeing themselves until after you’ve committed yourself. I’m a speculator, you see, as well as a friend of the downtrodden. Now let’s make this a two-way interview: since you obviously couldn’t have known I was coming for a little tete-a-tete, how come you were hiding behind the door with the welcome mat ready to toss over my head?”

The girl glanced at the blessedly silent television screen, where an almost perfectly cubical blackbearded man was bouncing a rubber boned African to and fro across the ring. Then she sat down.

“If you did read my article today you know the gang that killed that Pakistani last night threatened to cut me up if I said too much.” She shrugged. “I thought you might be one of them.”

“Now that you know different, how about telling me all about the rest of your singlehanded campaign against these thugs? I assume it’s singlehanded.”

“It is,” she replied, “but I don’t see why I should tell you anything. This is my living, friend, and even if you are the Saint how do I know you’re not working for somebody who’s not on my side?”

“As you grow to know and love me I’m sure you’ll realise just how ludicrous that suggestion is. For one thing, why should anybody with my ill-gotten riches want to become an undercover agent for anybody — especially some tight-fisted scandal sheet?”

She shrugged uneasily.

“Why should anybody with the loot you’re supposed to have stashed away want to do anything — except spend it?”

“Because life is action,” Simon said. “Is that good enough for you?”

“No.”

“You’re hard to please.”

“You’re right. If I wasn’t I’d still be juggling paper clips in some back office — and I wouldn’t be single at the ripe old age of twenty-six.”

“Getting worried about that?” Simon asked with a grin.

“No,” she said with determined carelessness. “I didn’t say I couldn’t please, I said I was hard to please.”

“Granted. Now, how about some kind of a deal between the two of us? You tell me what you know, I give you exclusive publishing rights to anything we find out, and I’ll even undertake to keep you alive until the story’s finished.”

She was seriously considering his words now.

“It sounds like you get most of the benefits,” she said after a few seconds. “I can keep myself alive and I’ve already got exclusive publishing rights on anything I find out.”

“That’s rather debatable,” the Saint opined. “I wouldn’t bet one moulting Bombay duck on your chances of being alive this time next week if you keep on the way you’re going — and if I have to go into this thing without you I might have to ally myself with some rival of yours who’s just as interested in a hot scoop as you are.”

She sat up stiffly and stared at him in appalled outrage.

“Why, you... you...”

“Cad?” suggested Simon.

“Crook!” said the girl.

“Businessman,” Simon amended. “Why fight it? We both stand to benefit.”

She decided not to blast off, and settled into her chair cushions again.

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “With one more condition: if we’re going into this together we’re really going into it together. You have to promise me you’ll take me with you wherever you go and always tell me what’s happening... especially that you’ll take me everywhere you go and don’t do anything without me.”

“Sounds like an intriguing proposal,” the Saint said.

His hostess flushed slightly, opened her mouth and closed it again before she finally spoke.

“When there’s a line to draw, I’ll draw it,” she said. “Do you agree?”

He hesitated just a few seconds before answering, then he raised his hands briefly in a gesture of acquiescence.

“Whither I go thou shalt go,” he said. “It’s a deal. And now, since we’re going to become inseparable, may I ask what your intimates call you? ‘Slugger?’ ‘Killer?’”

“Tammy,” she said. “Any objections?”

“Not if I’m admitted to the club. So now let’s get down to facts. Just how much do you really know about this immigration gang?”

“More than I had the nerve to print,” she stated.

“I noticed you didn’t name names. Do you know any?”

“Names?” she asked. “Yes, a couple. I don’t know who’s at the top of the whole thing, but I know who does the dirty work and I’ve got a pretty complete picture of the way the extortion side of the business operates.”

“As part of our bargain, how about giving me the names of the thugs you do know?”

Tammy Rowan looked at him with a peculiar mysteriousness and then said something that rang an alarm through every fibre in his body.

“I’ll do better than that: in just about ten seconds you can see one of them.”

3

Tammy saw the Saint tense, and her turquoise eyes glinted with amusement. She pointed at the television screen.

“On there,” she said. “Believe me, I haven’t invited him up for supper.”

She got out of her chair and turned up the volume of the television. One of the. wrestling matches had ended and another was about to begin. The ring was empty except for the announcer, who was stepping into the centre with his microphone in hand. Tammy spoke before he did.

“The charming character you’re about to see is the highest man on the totem pole that I know about,” she said. “He’s made himself a pile of money off the racket and you almost never see him wrestle any more.”

The crowd was cheering happily as a muscular sandy-haired young man with a face out of a toothpaste advertisement bounded into the wrestling ring.

“Cleancut rat,” Simon commented.

“That’s not him,” said the girl. “Here he comes.”

The new arrival was accompanied down the aisle by a wave of jeers and boos which swelled to a crest as he climbed stolidly up on to the canvas in his corner. Even before he came from the aisle into the lights and turned so that the TV camera could catch his face Simon more than suspected who he was. Suddenly in close-up on the screen flashed the muttonchop-whiskered beady-eyed countenance of the huge man Simon had seen outside the Golden Crescent.

“We have a mutual acquaintance,” he murmured with a quiet satisfaction.

She looked at him sharply. The announcer was introducing the sandy-haired wrestler, who drew cheers.

“You know him already?” she asked.

“The one with the weedy jowls? Yes. I haven’t had the pleasure of a chat with him, but I saw him this evening for the first time.”

The Saint and Tammy both paused and looked at the screen as the announcer pointed to the giant, silk-robed Pakistani.

“And in this corner, from London, weighing seventeen stone five, Kalki the Conqueror.”

To coincide with his formal presentation to the unadoring public, Kalki the Conqueror stripped off his robe and raised both massive arms and flexed his muscles. The bombardment of the arena with eight tons of excruciatingly aromatic decayed eggs would have produced a more gleeful response in the crowd than did the unveiling of Kalki the Conqueror. Their collective howl rattled the loudspeaker, and several of their number ventured to stand up and shriek insults from the safety of the fourth, seventh, and tenth rows.

Kalki, in what was apparently a trademark combination of gestures, faced the crowd, and rubbed the bald top of his head vigorously with his left hand while he grimaced and roared at the mob.

“Popular chap,” the Saint remarked.

“He might be funny if I didn’t know what he did in his spare time,” Tammy said. She forced her eyes from the spectacle on the television screen. “You saw him?” she asked. “When? Where?”

Simon told her about his arrival at the Golden Crescent — the van and the two men in the alley.

“Yes!” she interrupted eagerly. “That’s him. And the little one with him, that was Shortwave!”

“Shortwave?” asked Simon.

“Yes. He’s the other one whose name I know.”

The wrestling match began with conventional circling and chary grappling, but Simon was more interested in his conversation with Tammy.

“What’s the little one’s real name?” he asked.

“How would I know his real name?” she asked impatiently. “My sources know people by what they’re called, not by their birth certificates.”

“So Kalki is just plain Kalki?”

“Right. That’s his stage name, or whatever you call it, and that’s how he’s known.”

“If he wrestles on TV he must have had to sign his real name on quite a few papers.”

“Of course,” she said with self-defensive impatience. “I could have found out his name. Anybody could have, and it would be just one more Pakistani-Moslem name. I’m interested in what he does, not in what his middle initial is.” She leaned suddenly towards a side table and snatched a pack of cigarettes. She never did anything slowly. “Smoke?” she asked.

Simon shook his head and she lit one and left it between her lips as she talked.

“Of course I was going to find out his name,” she said. “And Shortwave’s, too, but I haven’t been on this story as long as that article of mine today might imply. I haven’t had time yet to go combing through other people’s files, and I don’t think I’ll find out anything very useful when I do.”

The Saint was watching the wrestling match as he listened to Tammy. Like other such displays it showed every symptom of being a preplanned ham performance which would be seen by the relatively sophisticated as a sadistically spiced athletic exhibition and by the dull-witted as an horrific battle between pure good and pure evil.

Kalki the Conqueror was, of course, pure evil. While his wholesome opponent remained calm in adversity, patient with every provocation, and obedient to the referee’s commands, Kalki brutally raked his foe’s neck over the ropes, twisted his ears, hit him in the lumbar region with his fist, tried to smother him by lying on his face and indulged in a multitude of other illegal atrocities. But even the most minute successful use of force on Cleancut’s part was enough to throw Kalki into titanic tantrums of lunatic rage.

The crowd adored hating him, and when suddenly Robin Goodfellow appeared to lose his temper and grabbed Kalki by his grandiose side-whiskers and hurled him over the ropes and out of the ring, the plebs went wild with delight. One righteous but emotional lady leapt from her seat and indignantly smote Kalki about the back and shoulders with her handbag as he crawled back onto the platform.

“You were going to tackle that with your 007 gas ring?” Simon asked, as the giant roared and shook his mighty fists at the audience.

“He’s all hot air,” Tammy said contemptuously. “Anyway, I knew he was on television tonight.”

“Three hundred pounds of hot air is a lot of hot air,” the Saint said. “A couple of hours ago I saw what it could do to a man’s right arm.”

She turned her head to look at him.

“How? What do you mean?”

“I didn’t finish telling you what happened after I saw Kalki and his pal outside the restaurant this evening. Do you know anything about a waiter at the Golden Crescent named Mahmud?”

“No,” said Tammy.

She got out of her chair and turned off the TV set, at the same time keeping her eyes intently on Simon as he went on with his story.

“Apparently he incurred the displeasure of the gang because one minute he was serving me a Peter Dawson and the next minute he was lying in the back room of the restaurant with a broken arm.”

“Good grief!” Tammy exclaimed, and grabbed for the telephone at the end of the sofa.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling my paper, of course. You haven’t told anybody else, have you?”

Simon jumped up and clamped his hand over the telephone dial before she could spin it more than once.

“No, I haven’t,” he said, “and you’re not telling anybody, either.”

She was aghast.

“Why not? They killed one man last night and broke another one’s arm this evening. That’s news, boyo!”

“I’m sure that with big enough headlines it could be made to look like news, but if you implied that Mahmud had run into anything more malignant than an unbalanced crate of beans you’d be letting yourself in for a lawsuit.”

Tammy gave up her efforts to pry the phone from the Saint’s immovable grasp.

“Who’d sue me?” she asked. “I’d only be reporting what happened.”

Simon lifted his hand from the telephone.

“If you think that a waiter getting his arm fractured by a crate of beans falling off a shelf is news, go right ahead and call it in.”

“You’re kidding me. What really happened?”

“What really happened, I’m sure, is just what you think happened. But the waiter and the other lads from the scullery ain’t seen nothing. They’re as chatty as mourners at a Mafia funeral. And Kalki the Purveyor had scooted out the back of the storeroom and was well on his way to metamorphosing into Kalki the Conqueror by the time I got on to the scene.”

The girl flopped back into her chair.

“Curse!” she said. “That’s just what I’ve run into every time I think I’m getting somewhere on this thing. I wish...”

Whether in express-delivery answer to her wish or not, there were three cautious knocks at her door.

“Gad,” she whispered. “Who could that be? You didn’t bring any friends, did you?”

Simon shook his head. Both he and Tammy were on their feet.

“Maybe it’s the little delegation you were expecting when I walked in,” he suggested. “Ask who it is.”

He stood aside while she leaned close to the door.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“A friend,” came frightened, foreign-accented words from the other side, “please, let me in quickly!”

Simon recognized the voice.

“Let him in,” he murmured. “Keep well back, and I’ll be right here to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

Tammy looked at him searchingly, bit her lower lip, and turned the handle of the door.

There, pressed against the door frame like a sheep huddling for shelter against a blizzard, was Mahmud with his arm in a sling. He slipped inside with an anxious glance over his shoulder. Then he saw Simon and reacted first with sharp surprise and then with relief.

“Mr. Templar!” was all he seemed able to gasp for the moment.

Tammy locked the door and stood away.

“I thought you two hadn’t met,” Simon said.

“We haven’t,” she answered. “Is this...”

“Mahmud,” Simon confirmed. “I’m afraid I don’t know the last name.”

“Dehlavi,” the Pakistani said. “Mahmud Dehlavi.” His forehead was glistening with sweat and he was hugging his wounded arm close against him. “I came to see madame to tell... to tell things I know, because she writes in the paper.”

“Sit down here,” Tammy said, pushing a chair towards him. “You shouldn’t be running around like that.”

Mahmud Dehlavi lowered himself gingerly into the chair, clutching Simon’s arm with his left hand for support.

“Did the doctor fix you up all right?” Simon asked. “Is it badly broken?”

Mahmud looked grimly at his white-swathed right arm, which was now in splints.

“It is fractured,” he said, “but the bone was not separated.”

“Still, that’s a pretty fair job for a wooden crate to do,” the Saint said without a trace of levity.

The slender Pakistani’s dark eyes glowed like coals under a sudden blast of air.

“Mr. Templar, Miss Rowan, can I trust you?” he asked.

“Of course,” Tammy said.

She had settled on a chair facing her new guest. Simon still stood, looking down on both of them.

“You can trust us to do what’s right, if that’s what you mean,” he stipulated.

“I must trust you,” the waiter said. “I would not go to the police for... for various reasons, but everyone knows that the lady — Miss Rowan — has been asking many questions and writing in the papers. It is known you protect the names of those who speak to you, miss, so that is why — tonight — I decided to come and see you.” He looked up at Simon. “Of course I did not know you would be here.”

The Saint acknowledged the statement with a noncommittal nod.

“I’m very grateful that you’ve come,” Tammy said. “Go ahead.”

Mahmud’s youthful face reflected all the impotent shame and rage of a man crushed by arrogant forces hopelessly stronger than himself.

“It was not an accident that broke my arm,” he said in a voice that shook with emotion. “They broke it. They broke it on purpose. They threw me on the floor, and with his foot...” Mahmud stopped, his head hanging, and took new control of himself. When he started talking again it was directly to Tammy. “I know people have spoken to you about the man that calls himself Kalki, the big one that wrestles. He did this to me.”

Simon and Tammy exchanged glances of controlled triumph.

“Why did they pick on you this time?” the Saint asked quietly.

“I was a friend of Ali’s. Not a close friend. He had no close friends. But they did not know how close we might be. They killed Ali because he was going to tell all about them to the police. They... did this to me as a warning, and because I had argued when they last wanted me to pay them.”

“Pay them for what?” Tammy asked.

Mahmud adjusted his position and for a moment his face twisted with pain.

“Many people pay them,” he said. “For nothing.” He directed his next few words to Tammy again. “You have written about this. You know. They bring Pakistani people into England and promise them good papers and jobs, and then when such people are here they are told they will be reported to the police and sent to jail if they do not pay.”

“That’s not a very accurate interpretation of the illegal entry laws,” Simon said.

“Many people do not know the law. They do not know English. They do not care about what the law says — they are just frightened. Very scared.” He shook his head. “And it does not matter about the law anyway. The ones who want the money will take it no matter what you know about the law. I was not afraid of the immigration authorities, but these men took a part of my money each week. After what had happened to Ali — and me — nobody will have courage not to pay them.”

“Besides the two characters from that delivery van, who else is in on the collecting side of this operation?” the Saint asked.

Mahmud’s English, or his nerve, failed him briefly at that point

“I am not sure what you mean,” he said with a puzzled expression.

“Who runs the gang?” Simon said. “Who’s the boss?”

The Pakistani’s mouth twitched with spasmic tension before he finally answered.

“I do not know for sure who is the highest man,” he said hesitantly. “But I know one higher than Kalki.”

Mahmud bogged down again, so Simon urged him on.

“And who is that?”

“Someone you know: Abdul Haroon, the man who owns the Golden Crescent.”

4

The Saint had known enough evildoers of improbable shapes, sizes, temperaments, and professions to be surprised at almost nothing, but Tam Rowan’s journalistic endeavours had apparently not given her quite as much sophistication.

“You mean that nervous little fat man?” she gasped.

“Yes, miss,” replied Mahmud.

Having revealed Abdul Haroon’s darker nature, the slim waiter now looked like a man who had uttered some unforgivable blasphemy and was expecting violent and noisy electrical disturbances of the atmosphere directly above his head.

“He’s the one who gives the orders to the people who collect the money?” Tammy asked.

“Yes. Higher than him is an Englishman, I think, but I do not know his name or anything about him.”

Simon was completely intrigued by the whole situation now, and began to think better of the whim that had led him to become involved. He folded his arms and faced the Pakistani.

“Tell us everything else you know about the way they work,” he told Mahmud. “How do you know Mr. Haroon is one of the gang leaders? Is there any kind of concrete evidence?”

Mahmud’s eyes flashed again, and his voice was shrill with emotion.

“They have broken my arm!” he said. “They have killed Ali. Do you need more evidence than that?”

“I think Mr. Templar means the kind of evidence we could show to the police or use in court,” Tammy intervened soothingly.

Mahmud began struggling with his unbroken arm to heave himself to his feet.

“I should not have come here,” he winced. “I do not want to see police and go in courts! I...”

Simon stepped forward and placed a strong hand on the waiter’s shoulder, easing him back in the chair.

“You don’t have to see the police,” he said. “We could all be fossils before Scotland Yard and the lawyers and the judges and unrestricted-immigration left wing and every bovine bureaucrat in the country got through gnawing on a case like this. Miss Rowan and I are great believers in independent action. Tell us everything you know and we’ll do the rest.”

“I have told you almost everything,” Mahmud responded. “Mr. Haroon and Kalki and the others, they scare Pakistani people to make them pay money, and if they do not pay they are beaten. Kalki and the little American called Shortwave collect the money.”

Simon was looking at him intently.

“Do you know anybody else who could give us information?” he asked.

Mahmud shook his head despondently.

“Nobody will tell anything.” He paused, then looked up. “I have one more information. It might be very important. Just before you came into the restaurant this evening, Mr. Templar, I heard something that Kalki and Mr. Haroon said. Mr. Haroon is going — tonight — to meet with the Englishman who is also high in the gang.”

Tammy leaned forward, brushing her blonde hair away from her face.

“Where?”

“At the Grey Goose — a pub near Datchet.” Mahmud tapped his forehead. “I made certain that I remembered it.”

He began to give directions for driving to the pub which he had heard Kalki relay to Abdul Haroon, but the Saint cut him short.

“It just happens that I know it. I collect pubs for a hobby, and I probably know every one in the Thames Valley. The Grey Goose is a real old-fashioned country ‘local,’ right off the beaten track — I don’t suppose they sell two pints a week to anyone from beyond walking distance. If they were looking for a place where they wouldn’t stand one chance in a million of being seen by anyone who knew them, they couldn’t have picked a better one.”

“If Haroon needs directions it obviously isn’t a regular meeting place,” Tammy objected.

“Maybe they never meet in the same place twice.”

“I think that they do not often meet,” Mahmud put in. “Two — maybe three times I have heard Mr. Haroon speak on the telephone to a man who must be the Englishman... but I do not know any more.”

“What did they talk about?” Simon asked.

The waiter made a vague gesture.

“When will people be coming in on the boat... how much money Haroon is to get... such things as that.”

“This is the boat that smuggles the immigrants into England?” Tammy asked.

Mahmud was showing signs of almost painful weariness in addition to his nervous fear.

“I do not know,” he sighed. “I do not know more. I have told everything — and now they will kill me.”

He began to make feeble efforts to get up again, and Simon thought it best to let him leave if he wanted to. He gave the Pakistani a helping hand and steadied him when he was standing.

“They won’t kill you because of anything we let them know,” Simon assured him. “I suppose you made sure nobody followed you.”

“Yes. I was very sure.”

“Where can we take you?” Tammy asked. She glanced at the Saint. “My car just has room for two.”

“And I came by taxi,” Simon said.

Mahmud interrupted.

“I would not want to have the danger that somebody would see me with you,” he insisted. “It is better that I go in a taxi. If you would please ring for one...”

“Of course,” Tammy said, and picked up the phone.

“I do not think I can walk until I come to a busy road where I could find one,” the waiter said apologetically as she dialled.

“Don’t worry about it,” the Saint told him. “You were a brave man to come here, especially after what happened to you tonight.”

“I was angry,” Mahmud said. “I thought I would rather be dead than lie still while they walked on me and broke my bones.” He leaned tiredly against the wall next to the door. “And what will you do?” he asked. “You will help?”

Simon nodded.

“I think I’ll do a little country pub-crawling.”

“We, not I,” Tammy put in. She looked sympathetically at Mahmud. “The taxi’s on its way. Would you like a drink or something?”

“No, thank you. I will go down and wait. Please do not come with me.”

Tammy opened the door.

“How can we get in touch with you?”

“I have no telephone,” the Pakistani said. “It is best if you do not try to see me at all. I have come here and told you all I know, but I do not want more trouble.”

Tammy asked him to telephone her if he found out anything new.

“I will,” he promised, “but for some weeks I will be not working. A waiter who cannot write orders or carry trays is no good waiter.”

He managed a faint smile and then said goodnight and walked very slowly away towards the stairs.

“Should we just let him go like that?” Tammy said sotto voce when she had closed the door again. “I mean, he’s so weak.”

“He’s right about not wanting to risk being seen with us,” Simon said. “Your room is on the front. Turn out the light and we can watch from the window and at least be sure he gets into his taxi with no trouble. I assume he won’t have much walking to do when it drops him wherever his room is.”

“Oh, Lord, I should have asked him where he lives,” Tammy said.

“I don’t think he’d have told us,” the Saint replied matter-of-factly. “Now let’s get that light out and have a look.”

Tammy flicked off the living-room lights leaving the flat in darkness. The only illumination now came from the street lamps outside. Simon went to the window and partially drew aside the curtain.

“Is he down there yet?” Tammy asked.

“He’s just coming out,” the Saint reported.

The girl came and stood beside him so that she could share his view of the sidewalk. When she realised that her shoulder was pressing against his she edged quickly away.

“He’s pretty brave to do this, you know,” she commented a little nervously.

“Yes. Almost too brave.”

Tammy nodded in agreement. Mahmud was a somehow pathetically small shadow among other shadows at the edge of the garden that bordered the street. The lights and then the black gleaming shape of a taxi came into sight and slowed in front of the house.

“Lord,” Tammy said tensely, as if she half expected the quietness of her neighbourhood to erupt into an ear-shattering exhibition of submachine-gun fire in the grandest Chicago tradition.

But Mahmud only climbed with painful slowness into the taxi and then was driven unspectacularly away. Tammy breathed again and Simon spoke.

“I’ll be going, then. Thanks very much for the talk — and the exercise.”

“We’ll be going, and that’s the last time I intend to correct you,” Tammy said. “Let me change into a skirt and grab my purse. Have you got any money? I never do. You didn’t bring your car?”

“Yes, I do have some money, and no, I didn’t bring my car. Do you have one?”

“Yes. That’s one reason why I don’t have any money. With my wheels and your cash we should go a long way, though. Ready?”

“Eminently.”

“Onward, the Light Brigade,” Tammy said. “Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, or whatever the poet said.”

“Don’t forget, he was also a prophet,” Simon remarked.

They had just stepped into the hall, and Tammy locked the door behind her.

“What is that ominous statement supposed to mean?” she asked.

“I know we made a deal,” Simon answered, “but as the older and possibly more clearheaded member of this partnership I think I ought to remind, you that instead of being the toast of Fleet Street when this expedition is over, you may end up as dead as Ali, and just as uncomfortably.”

“Rot!” Tammy said defiantly. “We’ll see who’s the most clearheaded. Come on.”

“I think I’d better remind you of something else,” Simon told her as she started off down the hall.

“What?”

“You forgot to put on your shoes.”