The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror)

labours in a car which the Saint knew at a glance it would be useless to attempt to follow in a taxi. On the second morning, the Saint decorated the same middle distances at the wheel of his own car, but a traffic jam at Marble Arch baulked him of his quarry. On the third morning he tried again, and collected two punctures in the first half-mile; and when he got out to inspect the damage he found sharp steel spikes strewn all over the road. Then, fearing that four consecutive seven-o'clock breakfasts might affect his health, the Saint stayed in bed on the fourth morning and did some thinking.

One error in his own technique he perceived quite clearly.

'If I'd sleuthed him on the first morning, and postponed the backchat till the second, I should have been a bright lad,' he said. 'My genius seems to have gone off the boil.'

That something of the sort had happened was also evi­denced by the fact that during those four days the problem of evolving a really agile method of inducing Mr. Garniman to part with a proportion of his ill-gotten gains continued to elude him.

Chief Inspector Teal heard the whole story when he called in on the evening of that fourth day to make inquiries, and was almost offensive.

The Saint sat at his desk after the detective had gone, and contemplated the net result of his ninety-six hours' cerebration moodily. This consisted of a twelve-line epilogue to the Epic History of Charles.

His will was read. His father learned

Charles wished his body to be burned

With huge heroic flames of fire

Upon a Roman funeral pyre.

But Charles's pa, sole legatee,

Averse to such publicity,

Thought that his bidding might be done

Without disturbing anyone,

And, in a highly touching scene,

Cremated him at Kensal Green.

 

And so Charles has his little shrine

With cavalier and concubine.

Simon Templar scowled sombrely at the sheet for some time; and then, with a sudden impatience, he heaved the inkpot out of the window and stood up.

'Pat,' he said, 'I feel that the time is ripe for us to push into a really wicked night club and drown our sorrows in iced ginger-beer.'

The girl closed her book and smiled at him.

'Where shall we go?' she asked; and then the Saint suddenly shot across the room as if he had been touched with a hot iron.

'Holy Pete!' he yelled. 'Pat—old sweetheart—old angel——'

Patricia blinked at him.

'My dear old lad——'

'Hell to all dear old lads!' cried the Saint recklessly.

He took her by the arms, swung her bodily out of her chair, put her down, rumpled her hair, and kissed her.

'Paddle on,' he commanded breathlessly. 'Go on—go and have a bath—dress—undress—glue your face on—anything. Sew a gun into the cami-whatnots, find a butterfly net—and let's go!'

'But what's the excitement about?'

'We're going entomo-botanising. We're going to prowl around the West End fishing for beetles. We're going to look at every night club in London—I'm a member of them all. If we don't catch anything, it won't be my fault. We're going to knock the L out of London and use it to tie the Home Secretary's ears together. The voice of the flatfooted periwinkle shall be heard in the land——'

He was still burbling foolishly when Patricia fled; but when she returned he was resplendent in Gents' Evening Wear and wielding a cocktail-shaker with a wild exuberance that made her almost giddy to watch.

'For heaven's sake,' she said, catching his arm, 'pull your­self together and tell me something!'

'Sure,' said the Saint daftly. 'That nightie of yours is a