The Saint Steps In

1

It was half-past eight when Simon Templar woke up. He lay in bed for a few minutes, watching fleecy white clouds drift across the blue sky outside the windows, and reviving the thoughts on which he had fallen asleep. They didn't look any different now.

He got up and put on a robe and went out into the corridor. It was nothing but a kind of last-ditch wishfulness that made him go quietly into Calvin Gray's bedroom. But the bed hadn't been slept in, and the room was exactly as he had last seen it. He knew all the time that it would be like that, of course. If Calvin Gray had come home with the milkman, the Saint was sure that he would have heard him — he. had been alert all night, even in his sleep, for much stealthier sounds than that would have been. But at least, he reflected wryly, he had forestalled a self-made charge of jumping to conclusions.

He went back to his own room, shaved, showered, and dressed, and went downstairs.

The table was laid with one place for breakfast in the dining room, and there were sounds of movement in the kitchen.

Simon pushed through the swing door, and stopped. A rosy-cheeked young woman with dark curly hair and an apron looked up at him with slightly startled eyes as he came in. She was small and nicely plump, in a way that would obviously become stout and matronly exactly when you would expect.

"Hullo," he said pleasantly. "Don't be scared. My name's Templar, and I came up from Washington with Miss Gray last night."

"Oh," she said. "I'm Mrs. Cook. I just work here. You did scare me for a minute, though."

He realised that since they had failed to talk to Calvin Gray there was no reason for anyone to expect them there. In fact, no one knew of their movement except Hamilton and the taxi driver who had brought them in from the airport. The driver might or might not talk or think anything of it. But at least it would take the Ungodly a little while to pick up the scent, which would be no disadvantage.

"I'm sorry," he said. "What are the chances for breakfast?"

"I'll set some more places."

"Miss Gray was pretty tired out last night. I'm hoping she'll sleep late."

"The Professor's usually up before this," she said. "He must have been working late."

The Saint had a friendly and engaging ease, whenever he wanted to use it, which made it seem the most natural thing in the world for anyone to keep on talking to him. He used that effortless receptiveness now, as a happy substitute for more tiresome and elaborate methods.

He said quite conversationally: "The Professor wasn't in last night."

"Wasn't he? He's nearly always in."

"We tried to phone him from Washington to say we were on our way, but the number didn't answer."

"Was that very late? I was here until about nine o'clock."

"It was later than that."

"I gave him his dinner at seven-thirty, and then I had to wash up. He was in the living-room, reading, when I went home."

"He didn't say anything about going out?"

"No. But I didn't ask him."

"He didn't have any visitors?"

"Not while I was here."

"Maybe he's been going out a bit while Miss Gray's been away."

"Oh, no, sir. The Professor's never been one for going out—"

It was only then that she began to be dimly aware of what his innocent questions were leading to. A trace of puzzlement crept into her eyes.

"Anyway," she said, almost defiantly, "he's sure to be down soon."

The Saint shook his head.

"I'm afraid he isn't, Mrs. Cook," he said quietly. "He didn't come in at all last night. His bed hasn't been slept in. And he's not in the house now."

She stopped on her way into the dining room with a handful of knives and forks and spoon, and stared at him blankly.

"You mean he isn't here at all?"

"That's right."

"Wasn't he expecting you?"

"No. I told you, we tried to phone, but we couldn't get him."

"Didn't he leave a note or anything?"

"No."

Her eyes began to get very wide.

"You don't think anything's happened to him, do you?"

"I don't know," said the Saint frankly. "It does look a little peculiar, doesn't it? The man just walks out of the house without a word or a message to anyone, and doesn't come back. Some people do things like that all the time, but you say he wasn't that type."

"Is Miss Gray worried about him? — I expect she is."

"Wouldn't you be?"

She began mechanically setting other places at the table, more as if she was going through a routine of habitual movements than as if she was thinking about what she was doing. "I expect somebody called him and had him go into New York on business after I'd left, and he was kept late and had to stay over," she said, seeming to reassure herself as much as her audience. "He'll probably be home before lunch-time, and if he isn't he'll phone. He wouldn't stay away without letting me know he wouldn't be back for dinner."

"Do you know where he usually stayed in New York?"

"He always stopped at the Algonquin. But he might have stayed with whoever he was with."

In a little while this mythical character would be as satisfactory as a real person.

"Maybe," said the Saint adaptively. "I'll have some eggs and bacon as soon as they're ready.'

He went out and found the telephone in the living room, and called New York. The Algonquin Hotel informed him that nobody of the name of Calvin Gray had registered there the night before.

He lighted a cigarette and strolled out of the house. Sunlight made crazy fretwork patterns through the leaves of the surrounding trees, and flowers in well-kept beds splashed daubs of gay color against the white of the house and the green of square-trimmed hedges. The landscape fulfilled all the promise of the flashlight glimpses he had had the night before. The air was still cool, and there were clean and slightly damp sweet smells in it. It was a very pleasant place — a place that had been created for and that still nursed its memories of a gracious way of living that the paranoia of an unsuccessful house-painter was trying to destroy.

It seemed a long way from there to the thunder and flame of slaughter and destruction that ringed the world. And yet while that war went on Simon Templar could only acknowledge the peace and beauty around him with his mind. He had no ease in his heart to give to the enjoyment of the things he loved like that. No man had, or could have, until the guns were silent and the droning wings soared on the errands of life instead of death…

And perhaps even the tranquil scene in which he stood was part of a battlefield that the history books would never mention, but where uncountable decisions in Europe and the Orient might be lost or won.

He walked slowly around the house, his hands in his pockets and his eyes ranging over the ground. He would have missed nothing that could have told him a story, but it was a fruitless trip. The gravel drive registered no tire prints; there were no footprints in flower beds, no conveniently dropped handkerchiefs or hats or wallets. Not even a button. The only consolation was that he wasn't disappointed. He hadn't hopefully expected anything. It would have been dangerously like a trite detective story if he had found anything. But he had made the effort.

And it left him with nothing but the comfortless certainty that he had no material clues of any kind at all.

He went back into the house, and entered the dining room just as Mrs. Cook was putting a plate of sturdy eggs and crisp aromatic bacon on the table.

"That looks wonderful," he said. "It might even put a spark of life into my dilapidated brain."

It was typical of him that he started on the meal with as much zest as if he had nothing more important than a day's golf on his mind. He knew that he would solve no problems by starving himself; but unlike most men, he found that elementary argument quite sufficient to let him eat with unalloyed enjoyment.

He was halfway through when Madeline Gray came in.

She wore a simple cotton dress that made her look very young and tempting, but her face was pale and her eyes were bright with strain.

"Hullo," he said, so naturally that there might have been nothing else to say. "How did you sleep?"

"Like a log." She stood looking at him awkwardly. "Did you put something in that nightcap?"

"Yes," he said directly. "You'd never have gone to sleep without it."

"I know. It certainly worked. But it's left me an awful head."

"Take an aspirin."

"I have."

"Then you'll feel fine in a few minutes. You should have turned over and gone to sleep again."

"I couldn't."

Mrs. Cook came in from the kitchen and said with excessive cheeriness: "Good morning, Miss Gray. And what would you like for breakfast?"

"I don't feel like anything, thanks."

"You eat something," said the Saint firmly. "There are going to be things to do, and even you can't keep going on air and good intentions. Bring her a nice light omelette, Mrs. Cook. Then I'll hold her mouth open and you can slide it in."

Madeline Gray sat down at the table, and her eyes clung to the Saint with a kind of hopeless tenacity, as if he were the only thing that could hold her mind up to the verge of normality.

"My father didn't come home," she said flatly.

"No." The Saint was deliberately as quiet and impersonal as a doctor reporting on a case. "And you might as well have the rest of it now and get it over with. I called the Algonquin, which is where Mrs. Cook said he always stayed, and he wasn't there last night either."

"He must have stayed with his friend," Mrs. Cook said. "Whoever he went to see. Any minute now he'll be calling up—"

The telephone rang while she was saying it.

Madeline ran.

And in a few moments she was back again, with the light out of her eyes.

"It's for you," she said tonelessly. "From Washington."

Simon went into the living-room.

"Hamilton," said the phone. "I wondered if I'd find you there. About those dossiers you asked for. I happen to have a man flying to New York this afternoon. If you're in a hurry for them, you can meet him there and get them this evening."

"When will he be there?"

"He should get in before five."

"I'll meet him at five o'clock in the men's bar of the Roosevelt."

"All right. He'll find you."

"There are a couple of other things, while you're talking," said the Saint. "You can add a little bit to his luggage. I want one more dossier. On Frank Imberline."

"That's easy. I'm a magician. All I have to do is wave a wand."

"Imberline left for New York and points west this morning — or so he told me. You can check on that. And if he's stopping over in New York, find out where he can be located."

"There aren't any other little jobs you want done, by any chance?"

"Yes. Get me okayed right away with the nearest FBI office to Stamford. I'll find out where it is. I think I'm going to have to talk to them."

"You aren't telling me you've got more on your hands than you can hold?"

"I'm having so much fun being almost legal," said the Saint. "It's a new experience. You'll be hearing from me."

He hung up, and went back to face Madeline Gray's unspoken questions.

He shook his head.

"Just one of those things," he said.

He sat down again; and Mrs. Cook retired reluctantly into the kitchen.

Simon faced the girl across the table. He picked up his knife and fork and made a fresh start on his meal before he said any more.

"Let's get our chins up and take it," he said. "You have got something to worry about. But we're going to try and do things about it. So far, the Ungodly have had practically all the initiative. Now we've got to have some of our own."

"But who are the — the Ungodly? If we only knew—"

That was as much as he needed. He talked, ramblingly and glibly, while he finished his plate, and then through coffee and cigarettes while the girl picked at the omelette that Mrs. Cook brought in to her. He discussed all the dramatis personae again, and an assortment of speculations about them. He said absolutely nothing that was new or worth recording here; but it sounded good at the time. And gradually he saw a trace of color creep into her face, and a shade of expression stir in her occasional replies, as he forced her mind to move and coaxed her with infinite subtlety out of the supine listlessness that had threatened to lock her in a stupor of inert despair. She even ate most of the omelette.

So that an hour later she was smoking a cigarette and listening to him quite actively, while he was saying: "There's one thing you'll notice about this. Every single person we've mentioned has been a good solid citizen with lots of background — except perhaps the quaint little Angert body. There hasn't been one grunt of a gutteral accent, or one hint of the good old Gestapo clumping around in its great big boots. And yet if all these things have been going on, that'd be the first automatic thing to look for. Now if the Awful Aryans have got any—"

He stopped talking at the change in her face. But she was not looking at him. Her eyes were directed past his shoulder, towards the window behind him.

"Simon," she said, "I saw somebody moving out there among the trees, towards the laboratory. And it looked like someone I know."

2

The Saint turned and looked, but he could see nothing now — only a fragment of a roof and a glimpse of white walls between layers of leafy branches.

"A friend of yours?" he said sharply.

"No. It looked like — Karl."

"And who's Karl?"

"He was Daddy's assistant for a while, until we let him go."

"Where did he come from?"

"He was a refugee from somewhere — Czechoslovakia, I think. But he speaks perfect English. He was raised here, and then he went home after he was grown up, but he didn't like it so much so he came back."

"How long ago was this?"

"Oh, about a month ago. I mean when he left… But it's funny, I was thinking about him last night."

The Saint was still watching through the window, but he had seen no movement.

"Why?" he asked.

"Well, it seems silly, but… One of those men who tried to kidnap me last night — the tall one — there was something about his eyes, and the way he carried himself. It reminded me of someone. I couldn't think who it was, and it was bothering me. When I woke up this morning it came to me in a flash. He reminded me of Karl."

"That," said the Saint, "is really interesting."

He turned and glanced at her again. She was still looking past him, half frowning, perplexed and uncertain of herself.

"What was the rest of his name?" he asked.

"Morgen."

Simon put out his cigarette.

"I think," he said, "it might be fun to talk to Comrade Morgen."

She stood up when he did and started to go with him, but he checked her with a hand on her arm.

"No, darling," he said. "For one thing, I'd rather surprise him. For another thing, if it really is Karl, and not just Karl on your mind, there may be a little horseplay when we meet. And lastly, I'd rather keep you out of sight as much as possible — for all purposes. In fact, I don't even want you to answer the telephone again. And if anyone does call except your father, tell Mrs. Cook to say you're still in Washington." He smiled at her confusion. "You forget that at this moment the Ungodly don't know where you are. And the longer that lasts, the longer it'll be before I have to worry about your health again."

He went out of the house, crossed the driveway, and moved off among the trees.

The laboratory was on the other side of the house and in the opposite direction from the way he set off; and he made a wide circle to approach it from the far side — the side from which no intruder would be expecting an interruption.

His feet made no sound on the grass, and he slipped through shrubbery and woodland with the phantom stealth of an Indian scout. He had an instinct for cover and terrain that was faultless and effortless: not once after he merged into the landscape was he exposed from any angle from which he could anticipate being watched for.

And under the cool efficiency of his movements he could feel a faint tingle along his veins that was his prescience of the disintegration of inaction and the promise of pursuit and fight. If Madeline Gray hadn't imagined what she saw, and there actually was an uninvited visitor out there, he would certainly be an interesting character to hold converse with — wherever he came from. And if the visitor really was a man with the dubious name and history of Karl Morgen, he might be the one missing quantity that Simon had just been idly complaining about. If, wildly and gorgeously beyond that, he crowned everything by proving to be one of the frustrated kidnapers of the night before — then indeed there would be moments of great joy in store. Anything so perfect as that seemed almost too much to expect; and yet, if even a fraction of those exquisite possibilities came true, it would still be more than enough to justify the tentative rapture that was stealing along the Saint's relaxed and tranquil nerves. He had always hated fighting in the dark, waiting to be shot at, the whole negative and passive rigamarole of puzzling and guessing and weighing of abstractions: if there was an end of that now, even for a little while, it would be a beautiful interlude…

Towards the end of his excursion, a tall cypress hedge offered perfect invisibility. He went along the edge, of a field of oat hay for a hundred yards, and squeezed through another gap in the hedge into the concealment of a clump of rhododendron bushes. The laboratory building was so close then that he could see the roof over the top of his shelter.

Working around to the limit of his cover, he was finally able to sight one of the windows through the thinning fringe of leaves.

He saw more than the window. He saw through it. And all the inside of him became blissfully quiet as he saw that at least a part of his prayers had been granted.

There was a man in the laboratory.

And more than that, it wasn't just any man.

Simon couldn't see any details clearly in the darker interior, but he was able to distinguish a rough triangle of solid color where the lower part of the man's face should have been. Perhaps that crude disguise even helped the identification, by repeating a remembered pattern. The man's silhouette was clear enough. He looked tall, and the outlines and carriage of his broad square shoulders were freshly etched on the Saint's memory.

It was one of the ambitious abductors of Washington.

"So after all," said the Saint reverently, to his immortal soul, "sanctity does have its rewards."

The man seemed to be searching, methodically and without haste, as if he felt reasonably confident that he was not likely to be disturbed.

Simon drew back, and circled the other way around the rhododendrons, towards the corner of the building. The cover grew very low towards the corner, but by going flat on his stomach he was able to come up against the next wall, which had no windows in it. A few strides took him to a second corner; then he had to travel on his toes and fingertips again, stretched low like a lizard, to pass well below the front windows. Then he was at the door.

As he was rising, he paused when his eye reached the level of the keyhole. He could see through the tiny hall, and framed directly beyond it the man stood at one of the work-benches, facing towards him and studying something in a test tube.

Simon waited.

Presently the man put down the test tube and moved away, passing out of sight into another part of the laboratory.

The Saint straightened up.

He took the gun out of his shoulder holster and thumbed off the safety catch with his right hand while his left turned the door handle and eased the door open. The hinges revolved without a creak. He crossed the hallway in three soundless steps, and stood just inside the laboratory.

"Hullo, Karl," he said softly.

3

The man whirled at his voice, and then stood rigidly as the Saint moved his automatic very slightly to draw attention to its place in the conference.

"Looking for something?" Simon inquired politely.

The man didn't answer. Above the fold of the handkerchief that crossed his nose, his eyes were cold and ugly. The Saint had no more doubt whatever about one part of his identification. He wouldn't forget those eyes. They were the kind that didn't like anybody, and wanted to show it. They were the kind of eyes that the Saint loved to be disliked by.

"Suppose you take the awning off your kisser," Simon suggested, "and let's really get acquainted.

The man finally spoke.

"Suppose I don't."

If there had been any doubt left, it would have ended then. That hoarse cavernous voice was recorded in the Saint's memory as accurately as the eyes.

"If you don't," Simon said definitely, "I'll just have to shoot it off. Like this."

The gun in his hand coughed once, a crisp bark of power that slammed the eardrums, and the bullet ruffled the cloth over one of the man's ears before it spanged into the wall behind him. The man ducked after the bullet had gone by, and felt the side of his head with an incredulous hand. His forehead was three shades paler.

"Please," said the Saint.

He was not particularly concerned about noise any more. The windows were closed, and they were far enough from the house to be alone even for shooting purposes.

The man put his hands up slowly and untied the handkerchief behind the back of his head, revealing the rest of his face. He had a short beak of a nose and a square bony chin, and the mouth between them was thin and bracketed with deep vertical wrinkles. And the Saint knew him that way, too.

He had been a silent member of Frank Imberline's entourage at the Shoreham the night before.

He certainly got around.

One of his hands was moving self-consciously towards his pocket with the crumpled handkerchief, and the Saint said gently: "No, brother. Just hold it. Because if you tried a fast draw I might have to kill you, and then we wouldn't be able to talk without a medium, and I'm fresh out of mediums."

The movement stopped; and Simon smiled again.

"That's better. Now will you turn around?" The man obeyed. "Now walk backwards towards me."

The man shuffled back, dragging his feet reluctantly. When he was still six feet away, the Saint took two noiseless strides to meet him. Without changing his grip on his gun, he brought up his right hand and smashed the butt down on the back of the man's head. The man's knees buckled, and he feel forward on to his hands. Simon trod hard on the small of his back and flattened him. Then he came down on him with his knees.

He dropped his gun into a side pocket, grasped the lapels of the man's coat, and hauled it back over the man's shoulders to the level of his elbows. In a few lightning movements he emptied the man's pockets. He got a short-barreled revolver from one hip, and a blackjack from the other. The other pockets yielded very little — a ten-dollar bill, some small change, a car key, one of those pocket-knives that open up into the equivalent of a small chest of tools, and a thin wallet.

Simon gathered up the revolver, the blackjack, the knife, and the wallet, and retreated with them to the nearest workbench. He put the revolver and the knife in another of his pockets. Then he took out his own automatic again and kept it in his hand. He sat side-saddle on the bench while he emptied the wallet. It contained three new twenty-dollar bills, a couple of stamps, the stub of a Pullman ticket, a draft card with a 4-F classification, and a New York driving license.

Both the draft card and the driving license bore the name of Karl Morgen.

"Karl," said the Saint softly, "it was certainly nice of you to drop in."

The man on the floor groaned and struggled to get his head off the ground.

Simon Templar fished out a cigarette and then a book of matches. He thumbed one of the matches over until he could rub the head on the striking pad one-handed. His eyes and his gun stayed watchfully on his prisoner. And all of him was awake with a great and splendiferous serenity.

If there could have been anything better than a hundred per cent fulfillment of the wildest possibilities he had dreamed of, he had been modest enough not to ask for it.

He could get along very beautifully with this much.

Karl Morgen. A man who had something to do with Imberline. A man who could be used for kidnaping. A man who had once worked for Calvin Gray. A man of very questionable antecedents. A man who might tie many curious things together. All combined in one blessed bountiful bonanza.

The Saint exhaled smoke and regarded him almost affectionately.

He said: "Get up."

Morgen had his head off the ground. He got his elbows under him and hunched his back. Then he gathered in his long legs. Somehow he got himself together and crawled up off the floor. He stood unsteadily, clutching the end of the workbench for support.

"Karl," said the Saint, "you used to work here."

"So what?"

"Why did you come back?"

The man's eyes were unflinchingly malevolent.

"That's none of your business, bud."

"Oh, but it is. Where were you last night?"

Morgen took his time.

Then he said: "In Washington."

"So you were. You were in the dining room of the Shoreham with Frank Imberline."

"That's no crime."

"We got a bit crowded, and you slipped a note in my pocket."

"I did not."

"The note said 'Mind your own business.' "

"Why don't you do that, bud?"

The Saint was still patient.

"Where were you after that?"

Again that deliberate pause. This wasn't a man who panicked. He thought all around what he was going to say before he said it.

"I was with a friend. Playin' cards."

"You were with a friend. But you weren't playing cards. You were trying to kidnap Miss Gray. That was when we met again."

"You'll have to prove that, bud."

"Both Miss Gray and I are ready to identify you."

"And my friend will say we were playin' cards."

"Quite a while after that," Simon continued unperturbed, "did you by any chance take a long shot at me through my window at the Shoreham?"

"No."

Simon inhaled throughtfully.

"No, maybe that wasn't you. That was probably your chunky friend." He glanced down at the Pullman stub for a moment. "You came up on the sleeper last night, so you'd have been headed for the station by that time."

"It's a free country."

"I didn't think you'd be a guy who appreciated free countries."

The other went on looking at him with his mouth clamped shut and his eyes hard with hate.

"I hope you know just what sort of a spot you're in," said the Saint carefully. "Kidnaping has been a federal rap for quite a while now, and I don't imagine you'd be very happy about having a lot of G-men move in on your life. On top of that, I catch you breaking in here—"

"I didn't break anything. The door was unlocked."

"That doesn't make any difference. And you know it. You were carrying concealed weapons—"

"Only because you say so."

"And just how do you explain being here?"

"I left a coupla books," Morgen said slowly. "I forgot them when I was packin'. I came back to get them."

"Why didn't you go to the house and ask for them?"

"I didn't want to make any trouble. I just thought I could find them and take them away."

Simon shook his head judicially.

"It's a lovely story, Karl. The FBI will have lots of fun with it."

"Go ahead. Tell them."

"Aren't you afraid they might be a little rough with you?"

"Why don't you turn me in and find out?"

"Because," said the Saint, "I want to talk to you myself first."

The man licked his lips, standing very stiffly and still holding on to the work-bench with big bony hands.

"I don't want to talk to you, bud."

"But you don't have any choice," Simon pointed out mildly. "And I've got a whole lot of questions I want answered. I want to know who gave you that note to put in my pocket at the Shoreham. I want to know who hired you to put the arm on Madeline Gray. I want to know who you're working for, in a general way. I want to know where Calvin Gray is right now."

"You better ask somebody who can tell you."

"And who's that?"

"I wouldn't know."

The Saint smiled very faintly.

"Tough guy, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

"So am I," Simon said, rather diffidently. "I'm sure you know who I am. And I expect you've heard about me before. I'm a pretty tough guy too, Karl. I could have quite a good time getting rough with you."

"Yeah? When do you start?"

"You don't want to play?"

"No, bud."

The smile didn't leave the Saint's lips.

"Bud," he said, "your dialogue is a little dull."

He put his weight on the foot that was on the floor, and followed it with the other.

He knew exactly what he was going to do, and he was perfectly calm about it. It wouldn't be pretty, but that wasn't his fault. He couldn't see anything handy to tie Morgen up with at the moment, and he couldn't afford to take any chances. The man really was tough, out of the down-to-bone fiber of him — and dangerous.

The Saint's expression was amiable and engaging, and he really felt that way, taking an audit of his good fortune. Only the icy blue of his eyes matched the part of his mind that was detached and passionless and without pity or friendliness.

He walked around the bench until he was within arm's length of Morgen, and raised his right hand until his gun was at the level of Morgen's face. The other stared at it without blinking. Simon swung his wrist and forearm through a sudden arc that smashed the gun barrel against the side of the man's head. Morgen staggered and clung to the table. The Saint took another step towards him and jabbed the muzzle of the gun like a kicking piston into the region of his solar plexus. Morgen gasped throatily and sagged towards him.

The Saint took a half step back and slipped the automatic into his pocket. He used Morgan's chin like a punch-bag, giving him a left hook and then a right. The man let go the table and reeled back until he crashed into the wall behind him and slid down it to the floor.

"Get up," Simon said relentlessly. "This is only the beginning."

The man clawed himself up against the wall. He spat blood, and spat out an unprintable phrase after it.

Simon hit him again. Morgen's head caromed off his knuckles and thudded against the wall. The man's eyes were glazing, and only the same wall at his back held him upright.

He stood flattened against it, his arms spread out a little to hold himself up.

"How does it feel to suffer for your Führer?" Simon asked gently.

He hit the man once more, not so hard, but stingingly.

It wasn't a magnificent performance, and it wasn't meant to be. It was simply and callously the mechanical process known in off-the-record police lore as softening up the opposition. But the Saint had no more compunction about it than he would have had about gaffing a shark. He was too sure of how Karl Morgen would have behaved if the positions had been reversed.

He was even more sure as he stared down Morgen's eyes, still unchangeably vicious and hate-filled in spite of their uncertain focus, but beginning to shift in sheer animal dread of such ruthless punishment.

"This can go on as long as you like, Karl," said the Saint, "and I won't mind it a bit. I can spend the rest of the day beating you to a pulp. And in between times we can try some new tricks with bunsen burners and some of the hungrier acids."

"You son of a bitch!"

"You won't get around me by flattering my mother. Do we talk or shall we go on playing?"

He poised his fist again; and for the first time Morgen flinched and raised one arm to cover his face.

"Well?" Simon prompted.

"What d'ya want to know?"

"That's better."

The Saint took out another cigarette and lighted it. He blew the first breath of smoke deliberately into Morgen's face. If he had to bully a bully, he could go all the way with it.

"Are you working for Imberline?" he asked.

"No."

"What were you doing with him last night?"

"I only just met him. I was tryin' to get a job with Consolidated Rubber."

"Why?"

"I want to eat."

"It seems to me," Simon observed, "that you're rather fond of rubber in your diet."

"You got me wrong, bud. I'm a chemist. I gotta find a job I can do."

Simon's gaze was inclement and unimpressed.

"Who gave you that note to put in my pocket?"

"Somebody else."

"The same guy who hired you to snatch Madeline Gray?"

"That wasn't a snatch. We were just goin' to scare her a bit."

"I said, was it the same guy?"

"Yeah."

"Who?"

"Someone I work for."

"Karl," said the Saint genially, "I'm afraid you're stalling. Don't keep the suspense going too long, or I might get excited. Who are you working for?"

"A business man."

"Is his name Schicklgrüber?"

Morgen's eyes burned.

"No."

Simon smashed him on the mouth with a long straight left that bounced his head off the wall again.

"I told you I was excitable," he said equably. "And besides stalling, you're lying. I'm sure of that. Now tell me who else you're working for, and talk fast. Or else we are going to get really rough."

Morgen wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

"Okay, bud," he rasped. "Have it your way. We have got Calvin Gray. And if anything happens to me, it's gonna be just too bad about him."

"You've been seeing too many B pictures," said the Saint flintily. "That line is so standard that they put it in the script with a rubber stamp."

"You better ask Madeline and see what she thinks."

Simon didn't hesitate for an instant.

"I can't. She's in New York."

"Better ask her, just the same."

"I'd rather ask you. How much will it console you to think about what's going to happen to Calvin Gray while I'm broiling your feet and basting them with nitric acid?"

Morgen looked at him for quite a while, and that was one pause which the Saint didn't hurry. He let it sink in for all it was worth.

The man said: "Couldn't we make a deal?"

"It depends what the deal is."

"Gimme a cigarette, bud."

Simon backed off a couple of paces, dipped in his pocket, fingered out a cigarette, and tossed it over. Morgen fumbled the catch, and the cigarette flipped off his hands and fell towards the work-bench. He muttered something and went to pick it up. And then everything erupted.

Morgen was down on his hands, groping for the cigarette; and he must have been less groggy than he had left himself appear. Or else he was tougher than he boasted. Instead of straightening up, he dived forward like a sprinter off the mark. The dive took him right under the work-bench. Then the whole massive bench heaved up at one end as he rose under it. Glass slid and crashed on the floor; but Morgen was momentarily hidden, arid the Saint had to sidestep fast and put up a hand to deflect the heavy table as it teetered over on to him like a gigantic club. He caught a blurred glimpse of Morgen plunging out through the hall, and squeezed the trigger of his automatic for a snap shot, but he was off balance and moving and it hadn't a chance.

The Saint's vocabulary, displayed to the right audience, would have entitled him to a priority on excommunications.

He skidded around the upturned table and darted through the hall in pursuit. Morgen was out of sight when the Saint got outside, but the blundering and crashing of his flight could be heard distinctly in the coppice to the left, and Simon's brain was working like a comptometer now — when it was a little late. Morgen — car keys — a car — the road… Simon gave a second to clear mechanical thought, and started down the path towards the house. Then after a few yards he swerved off through a thin space in the shrubbery to try and head off the retreat.

Something solid but soft intercepted his feet. He spilled forward with his own momentum, and sprawled headlong into an unsatisfactory cushion and uncut grass. Half winded, he rolled over and sat up.

Then he saw what had tripped him.

It was a body which had been plainly exposed by the encounter. Until recently, it had been inhabited by the late Mr. Sylvester Angert.

4

The "late" was not to be taken too literally. It wasn't so very late. The hands were still limp and supple, and not particularly cold.

As for the instrument which had separated Mr. Angert from his not very statuesquely modeled clay, it was most probably the blackjack which Simon still had in his pocket. There was no blood on Mr. Angert's clothes, no marks of strangulation on his throat. His mousey face was relaxed, and he didn't even seem to have struggled. But there was a depression in his skull just above and behind his right ear which yielded rather sickeningly to the Saint's exploring fingers. Apparently Mr. Angert's assimilation of calcium had failed to provide his cranium with the normal amount of resistance, or else Karl Morgen had underestimated his own strength. Simon had no doubt that it had been Morgen.

And Morgen was gone, now, and couldn't be asked any more questions.

The Saint used a few more time-honored Anglo-Saxon words in interesting combinations. Between the delay of the erupting work-bench, the delay of his fall, and the delay of finding out whether Sylvester Angert was an active obstruction or not, Morgen had stretched out too long a lead for the chase to offer many possibilities. Simon Templar raised himself to his feet, listening, and almost at once he heard the whirr of a starter, the grinding of gears, and the rising roar of an engine too far off to start him running again.

Then he heard something else — a patter of light feet running on the path he had just left. Instinctively he raised the gun he had never let go, and squirmed back into the shelter of the nearest bush. A moment later he saw the girl, and stepped out again.

"Simon!" she got out breathlessly. "Are you all right?"

"Fairly," he said. "I thought I told you to stay in the house."

"I know. But I was watching. I saw Karl running away — I was afraid something had happened to you — and…"

That was when she saw the body of the mousey little man lying at his feet.

Her eyes widened, and then darkened with bewilderment.

"But — I was sure it was Karl — and it wasn't here—"

"It was Karl," said the Saint. "And he did run away. We were in the laboratory, and I was just getting around to a real heart-to-heart talk with him when he pulled a fast one. So I learnt a new trick." Simon twisted his lips wryly. "I was running after Karl when I fell over Sylvester."

Madeline Gray looked down at the motionless figure in rumpled clothes that didn't seem to belong to it any more.

"He looks sort of dead, doesn't he?" she said uncertainly.

"He is dead," said the Saint.

She swallowed something, and found her breath way down in her chest.

"You — killed him?"

"No. He was dead when I tumbled over him. He's been dead a little while, too. He must have been snooping around when Karl came here, and Karl thought he belonged to us and conked him — just a little too hard. So they weren't on the same side after all… This gets more interesting all the time."

"I'm glad you think so," she said, without any intention of being smart.

The Saint would scarcely have noticed if she had. His mind was busy with too many new adjustments, working resiliently ahead from the setback and trying to follow the sudden break in the pattern.

"Go on back to the house," he said, "and keep out of sight. I'll be with you in a minute."

He had already disturbed the body and its surroundings considerably by stumbling over it and then verifying its condition, so a little more disturbance would make no difference. Once again he turned out a set of pockets, and found nothing very extraordinary except the eavesdropping device which he had seen before. Mr. Angert apparently had been trustful enough to carry no weapons. There was a bulging wallet in one inside pocket, and a folded sheet of paper with a lot of cryptic scribbling on it in another. Simon replaced everything else, and took those two items with him.

He found Madeline Gray in the living-room, toying nervously with a cigarette.

"I don't seem to be much good at this, do I?" she said. "I'm frightened."

He smiled encouragement.

"You haven't screamed yet." He sat down beside the telephone. "Now I'm going to do something very dull. I'm going to have to call the FBI."

"I suppose that is the right thing to do."

"It's the only thing to do. I don't have a fingerprinting outfit with me, I don't have access to a lot of criminal records, I can't broadcast your father's description, and I haven't got an army of operatives to follow every lead. Aside from that, I'm wonderful."

He dialed the operator and asked for information, and after a few minutes he was through to New Haven.

"I want to talk to whoever's in charge there," he said. "The name is Simon Templar."

After a moment another voice said: "Yes, Mr. Templar?"

"Did you get a call from Washington about me?"

"Yes. Anything we can do?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to Tun down to Stamford. This is a kidnaping. And incidentally there's another guy murdered, if that makes it sound better."

There was a brief digestive pause.

"Okay," said the voice matter-of-factly. "I can be there in about an hour. Where are you?"

Simon got the address from Madeline, repeated it, and hung up.

He lighted a cigarette, took out his automatic, and replenished the clip with a couple of loose shells from his pocket.

"So," she said, "it was Karl."

"It was. And he was also one of our playmates of last night. And he may have been the man who put that note in my pocket. I did get a few answers out of him, for what they're worth, before he foxed me."

He gave her a complete story of what had happened.

"I haven't any doubt that Karl is a Nazi," he said. "But somehow I don't think he's a big one. I don't know how big the Nazi angle is. It still doesn't look big — or else it's too big to see. But I'd be inclined to say that Karl was just put in here originally as a routine assignment, a sort of leg man, to find out what your father was up to. Did he have any chance to learn this formula?"

"No. Daddy never told anyone the real secret except me."

"I didn't think so. If Karl had known it, they wouldn't have needed to kidnap your father — which he admitted, by the way, when he was getting under my guard by pretending to break down — and Karl wouldn't have needed to come back here. I imagine he was sent back to see if he couldn't find some notes or clues."

"What else did he say?"

"He said he wasn't working for Imberline — yet. But I don't know whether I believe that or not."

"Could Imberline be a Nazi?"

"Anything is possible, in this goddam war. And yet, if he is a very brilliant and cunning guy, he certainly does an amazing job of hiding it… I don't know… At any rate, I'm sure that Karl is working for somebody else besides Schicklgrüber, even if it's only to cover his real boss and help him get into the places where he wants to be."

"Then who is it?"

"If I could tell you that, darling, I wouldn't be getting much of a headache. The new fun that we have to cope with is that the Ungodly don't all seem to be in one camp. Hence the sad fact that Comrade Angert's head will never ache again."

She winced at that.

"And we don't know anything about him at all," she said.

"No. But we may find out something now."

The Saint had his trophies on the table beside him. He turned to them to see if they were going to be any help, and the girl came over to sit on the arm of his chair and look over his shoulder.

He took the paper first. It was a plain quarto sheet, folded four times in one direction, the way many reporters use for taking notes. The jottings, after a little study, became much more intelligible than they had looked at first. There were the initials MG, the name Simon Templar written in full once, and the initials ST afterwards; there were places, figures which could be resolved into times, and an occasional item like "Cab, 85c."

"As we guessed anyway," said the Saint, "Sylvester was on your tail. And mine, too, after we met. He seems to have picked you up yesterday morning — at least, there are no notes before that."

He picked up the wallet next. It contained fifty-five dollars in bills, a deposit book from the Bowery Savings Bank with a record of fairly regular deposits and a final balance of $3127.48, a driving license, a couple of Western Union blanks, four airmail stamps, a 4-H draft card, a New York firearms permit, a snapshot of a young man in Air Corps uniform, a life insurance receipt, a diary with nothing but a few names and addresses written in it, and a selection of visiting cards. The visiting cards were professionally interesting — Simon had a similar but even more extensive collection himself. They were designed to associate Mr. Angert with an assortment of enterprises that ranged from the Choctaw Pipe and Tube Company to the advertising department of Standard Magazines.

There were three cards, however, that the Saint stopped at. They said:

"This," said the Saint, "I can find out about."

"What's different about it?"

"It happens to be a real agency. One of the best. You remember I told you in Washington that I could hire you some guards if you wanted them? If you'd taken me up on it, I'd have passed you on to Ray Schindler… By God, Ray has a summer place near here, and there's just a chance—"

He was reaching for the telephone again without finishing the sentence.

He had that one stroke of luck, at least. He knew the voice that answered his ring without asking.

"Ray," he said, "this is Simon Templar."

"Well, well. Long time no see. How 've you been?"

"Good enough. Listen, Ray, this is business. Do you happen to know a bird by the name of Sylvester Angert?"

There was a fractional pause.

"Yes. I know him."

"Does he work for you?"

"Sometimes."

"You're going to have to replace him," said the Saint coldbloodedly. "Sylvester has gone to the Happy Sleuthing Grounds."

The wire hummed voicelessly for a second.

"What happened?"

"Somebody used his head for a drum and broke it."

"Where was this?"

"At Calvin Gray's place, just a little while ago. I found the body. He was following Madeline Gray, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"And me too."

"I didn't know about that. If I'd known you knew her—"

Schindler didn't go on. He said: "Have you called the police?"

"No. But I've got an FBI man coming down. There's more to this than just a murder."

"Just the same, if there's been a murder we'll have to notify the police."

"I suppose so. I'll call them."

"Better let me do it. I know the Chief. And I'll be right over."

"You know the place?"

"Yes. I'll see you in a few minutes."

Simon hung up.

"I'm afraid you're going to be hostess to a real convention of detectives," he said. "You'd better put a blue light outside and get out the cuspidors."

"You know this man Schindler," said the girl.

"I've known him for years. And whatever dirty work is going on, he isn't part of it. But anybody could have hired him to check up on you, on some pretext or other. I'm just hoping this will give us another lead. We'll see. Meanwhile — don't you think a drink would do you a bit of good?"

He went into the kitchen to organize a cocktail, and the girl followed him in there and watched him.

Presently she said: "You've been very sweet, trying to take everything out of my hands. But now, I've got to know. Do you think there's any chance of finding Daddy?"

"There's always a chance of anything," he replied, stirring his mixture methodically. "But this won't be easy. This is an awful quiet neck of the woods. Two or three men could easily come here, and pull a job, and get away again without ever being seen by anyone within miles of here."

Her eyes were stony and searching.

"If you're keeping anything back, I've got a right to know it. What do you think the truth is?"

He put down the shaker and faced her bluntly, and yet as kindly as he could.

"I think that I'm entirely responsible for whatever has happened to your father. I still don't know what makes it tick. But there's a pattern. Look. You've had incidental sabotage and threats. They didn't stop you. Last night. I began to think that kidnaping your father, and the attempt to kidnap you, were a sort of co-ordinated maneuver — they could have been timed to happen about the same time, and you'd both have disappeared the same night, only in different places. But that doesn't work."

"Why?"

"The note you got in the Shoreham. 'Don't try to see Imberline.' Your appointment with Imberline was a phony, a plant to take you to a place where you could be kidnaped. Therefore, why try to stop you keeping the appointment? Only for one reason. The Ungodly were still trying to weasel on their ungodliness. They still didn't want to go right in up to their ears. But you weren't scared off. You spoke to me. They told me to mind my own business, but they must have guessed even then that I wouldn't. They still might have thought they could put on some act and scare you off, but when I crashed on to the battlefield even that last hope was shot. At last they had to start really playing for keeps. You did all that when you dragged me in, and now it remains to be seen whether I can make it worth while." His lips set in a sardonic fighting line. "I'm sorry, kid, but at the moment that's how I think it is."

He was taking more blame than he need have, for it was obvious that a kidnaping of Calvin Gray could not have followed so quickly unless the plans had been laid in advance and there had been men waiting in the vicinity of Stamford who only needed a telephone call to set them in motion; but it made him feel better to take all the responsibility he could inflict on himself. It helped to build up a strength of cold anger that was some antidote to a groping helplessness which was not his fault.

But the girl didn't break. She said steadily: "Then you think they meant to leave me—"

"So that you'd play ball for fear of what might happen to your father. They weren't actually ready to tie you both up and work on you with hot irons. The threat and the war of nerves might have done the trick. Which is another thing that doesn't quite seem to fit the Nazi angle. And good heel heiler like Karl would have seen it the more straightforward way. But now — I don't know."

"Whatever it comes to," she said, "I'll be as tough as I can. I'm all right now. I promise."

He grinned, with one of his sudden carefree flashes of unreserving comradeship that could make people feel as if they had been elected to a unique and exclusive fraternity; and his hand rested briefly and lightly on her shoulder.

"You always were all right, Madeline," he said. "You just wanted a little time to find your feet in this racket."

He was impatient for the convoy that he was expecting to arrive. Even though he would be equally impatient with the routines that would have to be gone through, they would give a temporary air of positive action which he needed.

It was a long half-hour before the first car crunched into the driveway and Ray Schindler hauled his not inconsiderable bulk out of it. He had sparse white hair and mephistophelian black eyebrows and an amused inquisitive nose which gave him an absurdly appropriate resemblance to the late Edgar Wallace.

Simon went out to meet him, and they shook hands as another car drove in and disgorged a big ruddy man in loose tweeds with an ancient fedora tilted on the back of his head. Schindler introduced them.

"This is Chief Wayvern — Mr. Templar."

"Well," Wayvern said impersonally, "what's this all about?"

Simon told the complete story as briefly as he could, leaving out all speculation, while they walked to the place where the funny little man had so abruptly ceased to be funny. They stood and looked down at him in his final foolishness.

"That's Angert all right," Schindler said grimly.

Wayvern moved carefully to the body and made a superficial examination without disturbing it. Then he stepped back and turned to the two satellites who had trailed him with a load of equipment. -

"Get started, boys," he said. "But don't move him until the doctor's seen him. He said he'd be here in a few minutes."

One of his men began to set up a camera, and Wayvern took a cigar out of his vest pocket and tilted his hat even further back.

"You say this man was working for you, Ray, keeping an eye on Madeline Gray?"

"That's right. He went to Washington the night before last to pick her up. But I didn't know about any of these other things that Simon has told you. This client who came to me said that Miss Gray had said that she was being blackmailed, and they wanted to help her. But Miss Gray had made this person promise not to tell the police. Coming to me was a dodge to get around that. At least, that was the story. I was commissioned to put a man on to watch Miss Gray and get a report on everyone who came in contact with her."

"Who was this client?" Simon asked.

"I called my office in New York to make sure of the name and address. Here it is."

Schindler took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Wayvern.

"Miss Diana Barry," Wayvern said, reading off the paper.

"What did she look like?" asked the Saint.

"A big tall girl — beautiful figure — blonde — blue eyes — very well dressed and well spoken—"

Simon kept his face studiously blank, but he had been wondering how long it would be before Andrea Quennel crossed bis path again.