15 The Saint in New York

heading for? It'd save a lot of expense if we did the job right on the premises. You can take your own choice, of course, but I've always thought the Gates of Heaven Cemetery, Valhalla, N. Y., was the best address of its kind I ever heard.'

Papulos looked into the implacable blue eyes and felt closer to death than he had ever been.

'You gotta listen,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'I'm shootin' the works. I'll talk first, an' you can decide whether I'm tellin' the truth afterwards. Just gimme a break, Saint.. I'm shootin' square with you.'

Simon shrugged.

'There's lots of time between here and Valhalla,' he pointed out affably. 'Shoot away.'

Papulos caught at the breath that would not seem to fill the void in his lungs. The sweat was running down his sides like a trickle of icicles, and his mouth had stiffened so that he had to labour over the formation of each individual word.

'This is straight,' he said. 'Puttin' the snatch on that kid was an accident. That ain't the racket any more—it's too risky, an' there ain't any need for it. Protection's the racket, see? You say to a guy like Inselheim: 'You pay us so much dough, or it'll be too bad about your kid, see?' Well, Insel­heim stuck in his toes over the last payment. He said he wouldn't pay any more; so we put the arm on the kid. You didn't do him no good, takin' her back.'

'You don't tell me,' said the Saint lightly; but his voice was grim and watchful.

Papulos babbled on. He had spent long enough getting a hearing; now that he had it, the words came in a flood like a breaking dam. In a matter of mere minutes, it might be too late.

'You didn't do no good. Inselheim got his daughter back, but he's still gotta pay. We won't be snatching her again. Next time, she gets the works. We phoned him first thing this morning: 'Pay us that dough, or you won't have no daugh­ter for the Saint to rescue.' Even a guy like you can't bring a kid back when she's dead.'

'Very interesting,' observed the Saint, 'not to say blood­thirsty. But I can't somehow see that even a story like that, Pappy, is going to keep you out of the Gates of Heaven. You'll have to talk much faster than this if we're going to fall on each other's shoulders and let bygones be bygones.'

The Greek's hands clenched on the wheel.

'I'll tell you anything you want to know!' he gabbled wildly. 'Ask me anything you like—I'll tell you. Just gimme a break——'

'You could only tell me one thing that might be worth a trade for your unsavoury life, you horrible specimen,' said the Saint coldly. 'And that is—who is the Big Fellow?'

Papulos turned, white-faced, staring.

'You can't ask me to tell you that——'

'Really?'

'It ain't possible! I'd tell you if I could—but I can't. There ain't nobody in the mob could tell you that, except the Big Fellow himself, Ualino didn't know. Kuhlmann don't know. There's only one way we talk to him, an' that's by telephone. An' only one guy has the number.'

Simon drew the last puff from his cigarette and pitched it through the window.

'Then it seems just too bad if you aren't the guy, Pappy,' he said sympathetically; and Papulos shrank away into the farthest corner of the seat at the ruthless quietness of his voice.

'But I can tell you who it is, Saint! I'm coming clean. Wait a minute—you gotta let me talk——'

His voice rose suddenly into a shrill scream—a scream whose sheer crazed terror made the Saint's head whip round with narrowed eyes stung to a knife-edged alertness. .

In one split second he saw what Papulos had seen.

A car had drawn abreast of them on the outside—a big, powerful sedan that had crept up without either of them no­ticing it, that had manoeuvred into position with deadly skill. There were three men in it. The windows were open, and through them protruded the gleaming black barrels of sub­machine-guns.