The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror)

'It's part of the blunt end of the pig of the aunt of the gardener. Let that pass for a minute. Is there one single crime that even your pop-eyed imagination can think of to charge me with? There is not. But we understand the functioning of your so-called brain. Some loutish cop thought he heard some­one scream in Hampshire this morning, and because I happened to be passing through the same county you think I must have had something to do with it. If somebody tells you that a dud shilling has been found in a slot machine in Blackpool, the first thing you want to know is whether I was within a hundred miles of the spot within six months of the event. A drowned man is fished out of the ocean at Boston, and if you hear a rumour that I was staying beside the same ocean at Biarritz two years before——'

'I never—'

'You invariably. And now get another earful. You haven't a search-warrant, but we'll excuse that. Would you like to go upstairs and run through my wardrobe and see if you can find any bloodstains on my clothes? Because you're welcome. Would you like to push into the garage and take a look at my car and see if you can find a body under the back seat? Shove on. Make yourself absolutely at home. But digest this first.' Again that dictatorial forefinger impressed its point on the preliminary concavity of the detective's waistcoat. 'Make that search—accept my invitation—and if you can't find anything to justify it, you're going to wish your father had died a bachelor, which he may have done for all I know. You're becoming a nuisance, Claud, and I'm telling you that this is where you get off. Give me the small half of less than a quarter of a break, and I'm going to roast the hell out of you. I'm going to send you up to the sky on one big balloon; and when you come down you're not going to bounce—you're going to spread your­self out so flat that a shortsighted man will not be able to see you sideways. Got it?'

Teal gulped.

His cherubic countenance took on a slightly redder tinge, and he shuffled his feet like a truant schoolboy. But that, to do him justice, was the only childish thing about his attitude, and it was beyond Teal's power to control. For he gazed deep into the dancing, mocking, challenging blue eyes of the Saint standing there before him, lean and reckless and debonair even in that preposterous bath-robe outfit; and he understood the issue exactly.

And Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal nodded.

'Of course,' he grunted, 'if that's the way you take it, there's nothing more to be said.'

'There isn't,' agreed the Saint concisely. 'And if there was, I'd say it.'

He picked up the detective's bowler hat, dusted it with his towel, and handed it over. Teal accepted it, looked at it, and sighed. And he was still sighing when the Saint took him by the arm and ushered him politely but firmly to the door.

Chapter III

'And if that,' remarked the Saint, blithely returning to his interrupted breakfast, 'doesn't shake up Claud Eustace from the Anzora downwards, nothing short of an earthquake will.'

Patricia lighted another cigarette.

'So long as you didn't overdo it,' she said. 'Quis s'excuse, s'accuse ——'

'And honi soil qui mal y pense,' said the Saint cheerfully. 'No, old sweetheart—that outburst had been on its way for a long while. We've been seeing a great deal too much of Claud Eustace lately, and I have a feeling that the Teal-baiting sea­son is just getting into full swing.'

'But what is the story about Beppo?'

Simon embarked upon his second egg.

'Oh, yes! Well, Beppo . . .'

He told her what he knew, and it is worth noting that she believed him. The recital, with necessary comment and dec­oration, ran out with the toast and marmalade; and at the end of it she knew as much as he did, which was not much.

'But in a little while we're going to know a whole lot more,' he said.

He smoked a couple of cigarettes, glanced over the headlines of a newspaper, and went upstairs again. For several minutes he swung a pair of heavy Indian clubs with cheerful vigour; then a shave, a second and longer immersion in the bath with savon and vox humana accompaniment, and he felt ready to punch holes in three distinct and different heavy-weights. None of which being available, he selected a fresh outfit of clothes, dressed himself with leisurely care, and descended once more upon the sitting-room looking like one consolidated ray of sunshine.

'Cocktail at the Bruton at a quarter to one,' he murmured, and drifted out again.