personally procured the passport aforementioned, which was absolutely indistinguishable from the genuine article although it had never been inside the Foreign Office in its life.
Frankie had made that trip a number of times before—often enough to acquire a fairly extensive knowledge of the possible pitfalls. And this time he was reckoning to clean up, and he was taking no chances. The man from Johannesburg had bothered him more than a little, but the voyage back to England had given him time to forget that. And in the train that was speeding him towards Waterloo, Frankie thought ahead into a pleasant and peaceful future—with a chalet in Switzerland, probably, and a villa on the Riviera thrown in, and an endless immunity from the anxieties that are inseparable from what those who have never tried to earn it call 'easy money'.
And so, perhaps, his vigilance relaxed a trifle on the last lap of the journey—which was a pity, because he was quite a likeable man in spite of his sins. Perrigo got him somewhere between Southampton and Waterloo—Perrigo of the big coarse hands that were so quick and skilful with the knife. Thus Frankie Hormer enters the story and departs; and two men have been killed in the first four pages, which is good going.
Of this, Simon Templar knew nothing at the moment. His absorbing interest in Mr. Perrigo, and particularly in Mr. Perrigo's trousers, developed a little later. But he knew a whole lot of other things closely connected with the dramatis person? already introduced, for it was part of the Saint's business to know something about everything that was happening in certain circles; and on the strength of that he went after Isadore Elberman in quest of further information.
The structural alterations along the south side of Upper Berkeley Mews, which had recently been providing the Saint with as much exercise as he wanted, were now completed; and by means of a slight elaboration of his original scheme, he was able to enter and leave his home without in any way disturbing the stolid vigil of the two plain-clothes men who prowled before his front door, day and night, in a variety of disguises which afforded him continuous entertainment.
At nine o'clock that night he went upstairs to his bedroom, slid back the tall pier-glass which adorned one wall, and stepped into a narrow dimly-lighted passage, closing the panel again behind him. Thus with his feet making no sound on the thick felt matting that was laid over the floor, he passed down the corridor between the back of the mews and the dummy wall which he had built with his own hands, through numbers 5 and 3—which highly desirable residences had already been re-let to two impeccably respectable tenants who never knew that their landlord had a secret right-of-way through their homes. So the Saint came (through the false back of a wardrobe) into the bedroom of No. 1, which was occupied by the chauffeur of a Mr. Joshua Pond, who was the owner of No. 104, Berkeley Square, which adjoined the corner of the mews. Mr. Pond was not otherwise known to the police as Simon Templar, but he would have been if the police had been clever enough to discover the fact. And the Saint left No. 1, Upper Berkeley Mews through another cupboard in the room at which he had entered it, and reappeared out of a similar cupboard in one of the bathrooms of No. 104, Berkeley Square, and so became a free man again, while Chief Inspector Teal's watchers went on patrolling Upper Berkeley Mews in an ineffable magnificence of futility which can't really have done them any harm.
This was one of the things that Perrigo didn't know; and the possibility that the Saint might have any business with Isadore Elberman that night was another.
Perrigo had got what he wanted. It had been easier than he had expected, for Frankie Hormer had made the mistake of occupying a reserved compartment all by himself on the boat train. Perrigo walked in on him with some gold braid pinned to his overcoat and a guard's cap on his head, and took him by surprise. The trouble had started at Waterloo—a detective had recognised him in the station, and he had only just managed to make his getaway.
He reached Elberman's house at Regent's Park by a roundabout route, and morsed out the prearranged signal on the bell with feverish haste. The entrance of the house was at the back, in a little courtyard which contained the doorways of four other houses that also overlooked the Park. While he waited for the summons to be answered, Perrigo's eyes searched the shadows with the unsleeping instinct of his calling. But he did not see the Saint, for the simple reason that the Saint was at that moment slipping through a first-floor window on the Park side.
Elberman himself opened the door, and recognised his visitor.
'You're late,' he said.
His pale bird-like face, behind the owlish spectacles, expressed no more agitation than his voice. He merely stated the fact—a perkily unemotional little man.
'I had to run for it at Waterloo,' said Perrigo shortly.
He pushed into the hall, and shed his overcoat while Elberman barred the door behind him. Divested of that voluminous garment, he seemed even huskier than when he was wearing it. His jaw was square and pugnacious, and his nose had been broken years ago.
Elberman came back and looked up at him inquiringly.
