15 The Saint in New York

Saint was prepared to raise merry hell that night; and he was sublimely indifferent to the details of where and how the fun broke loose.

But nobody interfered with him on that passage. He turned in, almost disappointed by the tameness of the evening, be­fore the basement entrance of a three-story brownstone house and pressed the bell at the side of the iron-barred door. After a moment the inner door opened, and the silhouette of a stocky shirt-sleeved man came out against the light.

'Hullo, Chris,' drawled the Saint.

For a second or two he was not recognized; and then the man within let out an exclamation:

'Buon Dio! And where have you been for so many years?'

A bolt was drawn, and the portal was swung inwards. The Saint's hand was taken in an iron grip; another hand was slap­ping him on the back; his ears throbbed to a rich, jovial laughter.

'Where have you been, eh? Why do you stay away so long? Why didn't you tell me you were coming, so I could tell the boys to come along?'

'They aren't here tonight?' asked the Saint, spinning his hat dexterously onto a peg.

Chris shook his head.

'You ought to of telephoned, Simon.'

'I'm just as glad they aren't here,' said the Saint looking at him; and Chris was serious suddenly.

'I'm sorry—I forgot. . . . Well, you know you will be all right here.' He smiled, and his rich voice brightened again. 'You are always my friend, whatever happens.'

He led the Saint down the passage towards the kitchen, with a brawny arm around his shoulders. The kitchen was the supplement to the one small dining-room that the place boasted—it was the sanctum sanctorum, a rendezvous that was more like a club than anything else, where those who were privileged to enter found a boisterous hospitality un­dreamed of in the starched expensive restaurants, where the diners are merely so many intruders, to be fed at a price and bowed stiffly out again. Although there were no familiar faces seated round the big communal table, the Saint felt the reawakening of an old happiness as he stepped into the brightly lighted room, with the smell of tobacco and wine and steaming vegetables and the clatter of plates and pans. It took him back at one leap to the ambrosial nights of drinking and endless argument, when all philosophies had been probed and all the world's problems settled, that he had known in that homely place.

'You'll have some sherry, eh?'

Simon nodded.

'And one of your steaks,' he said.

He sat back and sipped the drink that Chris brought him, watching the room through half-closed eyes. The flash of jest and repartee, the crescendo of discussion and the ring of laughter, came to his ears like the echo of an unforgettable song. It was the same as it had always been—the same hu­morous camaraderie presided over and kept vigorously alive by Chris's own unchanging geniality. Why were there not more places like that in the world, he began to wonder— places where a host was more than a shopkeeper, and men threw off their cares and talked and laughed openly together, without fear or suspicion, expanding cleanly and fruitfully in the glow of wine and fellowship?

But he could only take that in a passing thought; for he had work to do that night. The steak came—thick, tender, succulent, melting in the mouth like butter; and he devoted himself to it with the wholehearted concentration which it deserved. Then, with his appetite assuaged, he leaned back with the remains of his wine and a fresh cigarette to pon­der the happenings of the day.

At all events he had made a good beginning. Irboll was very definitely gone; and the Saint inhaled with deep con­tentment as he recalled the manner of his going. He had no regrets for the foolhardy impulse that had made him attach his own personal signature uncompromisingly to the deed. Some of the terror that had once gone with those grotesque little drawings still clung to them in the memories of men who had feared them in the old days; and with a little adroit manipulation much of that terror could be built up again. It was good criminal psychology, and Simon was a great believer in the science. Curiously enough, that theatrical touch would mean more to a brazen underworld than anyone but an expert would have realized; for it is a fact that the hard-boiled gangster constitutes a large proportion of the dime novelette's most devoted public.

At any rate, it was a beginning. The matter of Irboll had been disposed of; but Irboll was quite a minor fish in the aquarium. Valcross had been explicit on that point. The small fry