'Open it, Hallin!' someone was shouting. 'You can't get away!'
Hallin's whole body was shaking.
'They can't kill me!' he croaked. 'Moyna, you know that, don't you? I can't be killed. No one can ever kill me.'
'You fool!' came a voice outside. 'You won't break the door down that way. Why don't you shoot the lock out?'
Hallin raised himself slowly from the bed. His eyes were like a babe's.
'Shoot out the lock,' he said dreamily. 'Yes-shoot out the lock--'
With her hand to her mouth Moyna Stanford watched him reel across the room.
He spoke again.
'It's dreadful to die,' he said.
On the landing outside, the Saint was focusing his flashlight on the door, and Teal's automatic was crowded against the keyhole.
The lock shattered inwards with a splintering crash, and Simon hurled himself forward.
Inside the room he heard a heavy fall, and the door jammed half open. Then Teal and Nigel Perry added their weight to the attack, and they went in.
'Nigel!'
The girl struggled up and stumbled, and Perry caught her in his arms.
But Teal and the Saint were looking at the man who lay on the floor, very still, with a strange serenity on his upturned face.
'He wasn't so lucky after all,' said the detective stolidly.
Simon shook his head.
'We never killed him,' he said.
He fell on his knees beside the body; and when he stood up again his right hand was red and wet, and something lay in his palm. Teal blinked at it. It was a key.
'How did that get there?' he demanded.
'It was in the lock,' said the Saint.
10
In the full panoply of silk hat, stock, black coat, flowered waist-coat, gold-mounted umbrella, white gloves, striped cashmere trousers with a razor-edged crease, white spats, and patent-leather shoes (reading from north to south), Simon Templar was a vision to dazzle the eyes; and Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, meeting the Saint in Piccadilly in this array, was visibly startled.
'Where are you going?' he asked.
'I have already been,' said the Saint. 'They do these things at the most ungodly hours. If you want to know, an infant has this day been received into the Holy Catholic Church. I personally sponsored the reception.'
The detective was suitably impressed.
'Moreover,' said the Saint, 'it was christened Simon. Now I call that real handsome.'
'What does Perry call it?' inquired Teal; and the Saint was shocked.
They walked a little way together in silence, and then Teal said: 'The Commissioner's been waiting for an answer to his letter.'
'I have meditated the idea,' said the Saint. 'As a matter of fact, I thought of beetling down to see him this afternoon.'
'What were you going to say?'
Simon's umbrella swung elegantly in his hand.
He sighed.
'The idea is amusing,' he murmured. 'And yet I can't quite see myself running on the side of Law and Order. As you've so kindly pointed out on several occasions, dear old horseradish, my free-lance style is rather cramped now that you all know so much about me; but I'm afraid-oh, Teal, my bonny, I'm terribly afraid that yours is not the only way. I should become so hideously respectable before you finished with me. And there is another objection.'
'What's that?'
The Saint removed his shining headpiece and dusted it lovingly with a large silk handkerchief.
'I could not wear a bowler hat,' he said.
Teal stopped, and turned.
'Are you really going to refuse?' he asked; and Simon nodded.
'I am,' he said sadly. 'It would have been a hopeless failure. I should have been fired in a week anyway. Scotland House would become a bear garden. The most weird and wonderful stories would be told in the Old Bailey. Gentlemen would write to the Times-- Teal, I don't want to be a wet blanket, but I might want that arm again--'
'Templar,' said the detective glumly, 'that's the worst news I've heard for a long time!'
'Is it?' drawled, the Saint, appearing slightly puzzled. 'I thought everyone knew. It's the arm I drink with.'
'I mean, if you really are going on in the same old way--'
'Oh, that!'
The Saint smiled beatifically. He glanced at his watch.
'Let us go and have lunch,' he said, 'and weep over my wickedness. I'm such a picturesque villain, too.' He sighed again. 'Tell me, Teal, where can a policeman and a pirate lunch together in safety?'
'Anywhere you like,' said Teal unhappily.
Simon Templar gazed across Piccadilly Circus.
'I seem to remember a very good restaurant in the Law Courts themselves,' he remarked. 'I lunched there one day just after I'd murdered someone or other. It gave me a great sensation. And this, I think, is my cue to repeat the performance. Come, Algibald, and I will tell you the true story about the Bishop and the Actress.'
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