The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror)

mazuma is ordered, and that printing goes into a separate box. Ordered on official notepaper, too, with Beppo's own signature in the south-east corner. And meanwhile Beppo is indisposed. The first crate of spondulix departs in the golden galleon without him, completely surrounded by soldiers, secret service agents, and general detectives, all armed to the teeth and beyond. Another of those nice letters apologises for Beppo's absence, and instructs the guard to carry on; a third letter explains the circumstances, ditto and ditto, to the Bank——'

Patricia sat up.

'And the box is empty?'

'The box is packed tight under a hydraulic press, stiff to the sealing-wax with the genuine articles as per invoice.'

'But——'

'But obviously. That box had got to go through. The new issue had to spread itself out. It's been on the market three days already. And the ground bait is now laid for the big haul —the second box, containing approximately one million hundred-lire bills convertible into equivalent sterling on sight. And the whole board of the Bank of Italy, the complete staff of cashiers, office-boys, and outside porters, the entire vigilance society of soldiers, secret service agents, and general detectives, all armed to the teeth and beyond, are as innocent of the existence of that million as the unborn daughter of the Ca­liph's washerwoman.'

The girl looked at him with startled eyes.

'And do you mean Beppo was in this?'

'Does it seem that way?' Simon Templar swivelled round towards her with one eyebrow inquisitorially cocked and a long wisp of smoke trailing through his lips. 'I wish you could have seen him. . . . Sure he's in it. They turned him over to the Negro Spiritual, and let that big black swine pet him till he signed. If I told you what they'd done to him you wouldn't be in such a hurry for your lunch.' For a moment the Saint's lips thinned fractionally. 'He's just shot to pieces, and when you see him you'll know why. Sure, that bunch are like brothers to Beppo!'

Patricia sat in a thoughtful silence, and the Saint emptied his glass. Then she said: 'Who are this bunch?'

Simon slithered his cigarette round to the corner of his mouth.

'Well, the actual bunch are mostly miscellaneous, as you might say,' he answered. 'But the big noise seems to be a bird named Kuzela, whom we haven't met before but whom I'm going to meet darn soon.'

'And this money—_:—'

'Is being delivered to Kuzela's men today.' The Saint glanced at his watch. 'Has been, by now. And within twenty-four hours parcels of it will be burning the sky over to his agents in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid. Within the week it will be gravitating back to him through the same channels— big bouncing wads of it, translated into authentic wads of francs, marks, pesetas—while one million perfectly genuine hundred-lire bills whose numbers were never in the catalogue are drifting home to a Bank of Italy that will be wondering whether the whole world is falling to pieces round its ears. ... Do you get me, Pat?'

The clear blue eyes rested on her face with  the twist of mocking hell-for-leather delight that she knew so well, and she asked her next question almost mechanically. 'Is it your party?'

'It is, old Pat. And not a question asked. No living soul must ever know—there'd be a panic on the international ex­changes if a word of it leaked out. But every single one of those extra million bills has got to be taken by hand and led gently back to Beppo's tender care—and the man who's going to do it is ready for his lunch.'

And lunch it was without further comment, for the Saint was like that. ... But about his latest meeting with the Ne­gro Spiritual he did not find it necessary to say anything at all —for, again, the Saint was that way. . . . And after lunch, when Patricia was ordering coffee in the lounge, yet another incident which the Saint was inclined to regard as strictly private and personal clicked into its appointed socket in the energetic history of that day.

Simon had gone out to telephone a modest tenner on a horse for the 3.30, and was on his way back through the hall when a porter stopped him.

'Excuse me, sir, but did you come here from the Berkeley?' The Saint fetched his right foot up alongside his left and lowered his brows one millimetre.

'Yeah—I have been in there this morning.'

'A coloured gentleman brought these for you, sir. He said he saw you drop them as you came out of the hotel, but he lost you in the crowd