the state of the village baker's stock.
Simon left the Blue Dragon stealthily, and returned an hour later considerably laden.
He was busy for some hours after that, but he replaced Lemuel's grip looking as if it had not been touched, opening the door with Lemuel's own key.
It is quite easy to lock a door from the outside and leave the key in the lock on the inside-if you know the trick. You tie a string to the end of a pencil, slip the pencil through the hole in the key, and pass the string underneath the door. A pull on the string turns the key; and the pencil drops out, and can be pulled away under the door.
And after that the Saint slithered into his pajamas and rolled into bed as the first grayness of dawn lightened the sky outside his bedroom window, and slept like a child.
In the morning they flew on to Hanworth, where Lemuel's car waited to take them back to London.
The Saint was dropped at Piccadilly Circus; and he walked without hesitation into the Piccadilly Hotel. Settling himself at a table within, he drew a sheet of the hotel's notepaper towards him, and devoted himself with loving care to the production of a Work of Art. This consisted of the picture of a little man, drawn with a round blank head and straight-lined body and limbs, as a child draws, but wearing above his cerebellum, at a somewhat rakish angle, a halo such as few children's drawings portray. Then he took an envelope, which he addressed to Francis Lemuel. He posted his completed achievement within the hotel.
At half-past one he burst in upon Patricia Holm, declaring himself ravenous for lunch.
'With beer,' he said. 'Huge foaming mugs of it. Brewed at Burton, and as stark as they make it.'
'And what's Francis Lemuel's secret?' she asked.
He shrugged.
'Don't spoil the homecoming,' he said. 'I hate to tell you, but I haven't come within miles of it in a whole blinkin' week.'
He did not think it necessary to tell her that he had deliberately signed and sealed his own death warrant, for of late she had become rather funny that way.
5
There are a number of features about this story which will always endear it-in a small way to the Saint's memory. He likes its logical development, and the neat way in which the divers factors dovetail into one another with an almost audible click; he likes the crisp precision of the earlier episodes, and purrs happily as he recalls the flawless detail of his own technique in those episodes; but particularly is he lost in speech less admiration when he considers the overpowering brilliance of the exercise in inductive psychology which dictated his manner of pepping up the concluding states of the adventure.
Thus he reviewed the child of his genius: 'The snow retails at about sixty pounds an ounce, in the unauthorized trade; and I must have poured about seventy thousand pounds' worth down the sink. Oh, yes, it was a good idea-to fetch over several years' supply at one go, almost without risk. And then, of course, according to schedule, I should have been quietly fired, and no one but Uncle Francis would have been any the wiser. Instead of which, Uncle's distributing organization, whatever that may be, will shortly be howling in full cry down Jermyn Street to ask Uncle what he means by ladling them out a lot of tins of ordinary white flour. Coming on top of the letter which will be shot in by the late post tonight, this question will cause a distinct stir. And, in the still small hours, Uncle Francis will sit down to ponder the ancient problem-What Should 'A' Do?'
This was long afterwards, when the story of Francis Lemuel was ancient history. And the Saint would gesture with his cigarette, and beam thoughtfully upon the assembled congregation, and presently proceed with his exposition: 'Now, what should 'A' do, dear old streptococci? . . . Should he woofle forth into the wide world, and steam into Scotland Yard, bursting with information? . . . Definitely not. He has no information that he can conveniently lay. His egg, so to speak, has addled in the oviduct. . . . Then should he curse me and cut his losses and leave it at that? . . . Just as definitely not. I have had no little publicity in my time; and he knows my habits. He knows that I haven't finished with him yet. He knows that, unless he gets his counterattack in quickly, he's booked to travel down the drain in no uncertain manner. . . . Then should he call in a few tough guys and offer a large reward for my death certificate? ... I think not. Francis isn't that type. ... He has a wholesome respect for the present length of his neck; and he doesn't fancy the idea of having it artificially extended in a whitewashed shed by a gentleman in a dark suit one cold and frosty morning. He knows that that sort of thing is frequently happening- sometimes to quite clever murderers. ... So what does he do?'
And what Francis Lemuel did was, of course, exactly what the Saint had expected. He telephoned in the evening, three days later, and Simon went round to Jermyn Street after dinner-with a gun in his pocket in case of accidents. That was a simple precaution; he was not really expecting trouble, and he was right.
The instructions which he actually received, however, were slightly different from the ones he had anticipated. He found Lemuel writing telegrams; and the impresario came straight to the point.
'Einsmann-you remember the fellow who came to dinner?-seems to have got himself into a mess. He's opening a new night club to-morrow, and his prize cabaret attraction has let him down at the last minute. He hasn't been able to arrange a good enough substitute on the spot, and he cabled me for help. I've been able to find a first-class girl, but the trouble is to get her to Berlin in time for a rehearsal with his orchestra.'
'You want me to fly her over?' asked the Saint, and Lemuel nodded.
'That's the only way, Old Man. I can't let Einsmann down when he's just on the point of signing a big contract with me. You have a car, haven't you?' 'Yes, sir.'
'I'll give you this girl's address'-Lemuel took a slip of paper, and wrote. 'She's expecting you to pick her up at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. You must go straight to Hanworth. . . .'
Simon folded the paper and stowed it carefully away in his pocketbook, while Lemuel gave further instructions.
Lemuel was showing signs of the strain. There was a puffiness about his eyes, and his plump cheeks seemed to sag flabbily. But he played his part with a grim restraint.
Leaving Jermyn Street, the Saint found himself heading mechanically for the Piccadilly Hotel. There he composed, after some careful calculations with the aid of a calendar, a brief note: Unless the sum of L20,000 (Twenty Thousand Pounds) is paid into the account of J. B. L. Smith at the City and Continental Bank, Lombard Street, by 12 noon on Saturday, I shall forward to the Public Prosecutor sufficient evidence to assure you of five years' penal servitude.
The note was signed with one of the Saint's most artistic self-portraits, and it was addressed to Francis Lemuel.
This was on Thursday night.
As he strolled leisurely home the Saint communed with himself again.
'Uncle Francis wanted a disreputable aviator so that if anything went wrong the aviator could be made the scapegoat. But when he deduced that I was the Saint, that idea went west. What should I have done if I'd been Uncle Francis? ... I should have arranged for Mr. Templar to fall out of an aeroplane at a height of about four thousand feet. A nasty accident-he stalled at the top of a loop, and his safety belt wasn't fastened. . . . And Uncle knows enough about the game to be able to bring the kite down. . . . And that's what I thought it was going to be, with a few drops of slumber mixture in my beer before we went up next time. . . . But this is nearly as good. I do my last job of work for Uncle, and doubtless there is an entertainment arranged for my especial benefit in Berlin to-morrow night-or a man hired to file my elevator wires ready for the return journey on Saturday. Yes- perhaps this is even cleverer than my own idea. The commission to take this girl to Berlin is intended to disarm my suspicions. I am meant to think that I'm not suspected. I'm sup posed to think that I'm absolutely on velvet, and therefore get careless. . . . Oh, it should be a great little week-end!'
The only trouble he expected the next morning would not be directly of Lemuel's making-and in that, again, his deduction was faultless.
Stella Dornford was surprised to see him.
'What do you want?' she asked.
'I want you to fly with me,' said the Saint dramatically, and she was taken aback.
