15 The Saint in New York

his face graven in lines of iron.

'Good God!' he said. 'It's happened!'

He was switching on the ignition even while the metallic voice droned on.

'. . . Kidnappers escaped in maroon sedan. New York li­cense plate. First three serial numbers 5F 3 or 5 F 8. Inspector Fernack call dispatcher. Inspector Fernack call dispatcher. Calling all cars ...'

The engine surged to life with a staccato roar of power, and Simon abruptly decided to be on his way.

'Hold it!' he called, as the car slipped forward. 'That's your party.'

Fernack's reply was lost in the song of the motor as it picked up speed. Simon opened the door and climbed out onto the running board. 'Thanks for the ride,' he said and dropped nimbly to the receding asphalt.

He stood under a tree and listened to the distancing wail of the car's imperative siren, and a slight smile came to his lips. The impulse that had led him back to Fernack had borne fruit beyond his highest hopes.

Beyond Nather was Papulos, beyond Papulos was Morrie Ualino, beyond Ualino was the Big Fellow. And crumpled into the Saint's side pocket, beside his gun, was the slip of paper that had accompanied a gift of twenty thousand dollars which Nather had made such an unsuccessful effort to defend. The inscription on the paper—as Simon had read it while he waited for Fernack under the library window—said, quite simply: 'Thanks. Papulos.'

It seemed logical to take the rungs of the ladder in their nat­ural sequence. And if Simon remembered that this process should also lead him towards the mysterious Fay Edwards, he was only human.

Chapter 3

How Simon Templar Took a Gander at Mr. Papulos, and Morrie Ualino Took a Sock at the Saint

 

Valcross was waiting for him when he got back to the Waldorf Astoria, reaching the tower suite by the private eleva­tor as before. The old man stood up with a quick smile.

'I'm glad you're back, Simon,' he said. 'For a little while I was wondering if even you were finding things too difficult.'

The Saint laughed, spiralling his hat dexterously across the room to the chifferobe. He busied himself with a glass, a bottle, some cracked ice, and a siphon.

'I was longer than I expected to be,' he explained. 'You see, I had to take Inspector Fernack for a ride.'

His eyes twinkled at Valcross tantalizingly over the rim of his glass. Valcross waited patiently for the exposition that had to come, humouring the Saint with the air of flabbergasted perplexity that was expected of him. Simon carried his drink to an armchair, relaxed into it, lighted a cigarette, and inhaled luxuriously, all in a theatrical silence.

'Thank God the humble Players' can be bought here for twenty cents,' he remarked at length. 'Your American concoctions are a sin against nicotine, Bill. I always thought the Spaniards smoked the worst cigarettes in the world; but I had to come here to find out that tobacco could be toasted, boiled, fried, impregnated with menthol, ground into a loose powder, enclosed in a tube of blotting paper, and still unloaded on an unsuspecting public.'

Valcross smiled.

'If that's all you mean to tell me, I'll go back to my book,' he said; and Simon relented.

'I was thinking it over on my way home,' he concluded, at the end of his story, 'and I'm coming to the conclusion that there must be something in this riding business. In fact, I'm going to be taken for a ride myself.'

Valcross shook his head.

'I shouldn't advise it,' he said. 'The experience is often fatal.'

'Not to me,' said the Saint. 'I shall tell you more about that presently, Bill—the more I think about it, the more it seems like the most promising avenue at this moment. But while you're pouring me out another drink, I wish you'd think of a reason why anyone should be so heartless as to kidnap a child who was already suffering more than her share of the world's woes with a name like Viola Inselheim.'