18 The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

...Already the Saint's brain was wholly occupied with the problems of the future.

The house where David Keena had his apartment looked just the same. There were no suspicious-looking vehicles parked outside or near it, none of the symptoms of recent commotion which the Saint had been half expecting to see. Simon wondered if he could allow himself to breathe again.

He left the taxi waiting and ran up the stairs. The door of the apartment was locked, of course. He knocked impatiently, and after a while the door opened a couple of inches. Simon looked through the crack, over the barrel of Mr Uniatz' Betsy, into the haunting face of Mr Uniatz.

'Oh, it's you, boss,' said Mr Uniatz, unnecessarily but with simple satisfaction. 'I hoped ya might be comin' dis way.'

He stepped back from the door to let the Saint in. Simon took two paces into the room and stopped dead, staring at the figure which lay sprawled in the centre of the carpet.

'What happened to him?' he asked shakily.

'Aw, he ain't hoit much,' said Hoppy confidently. 'He tries to come in de door just after I get here, so I let him in an' bop him on de dome like ya said for me to do, boss. Ja know de guy?'

'Do I know him?'

The Saint swallowed speechlessly. After a moment he moved forward and picked David Keena up and laid him on the settee.

'Where's Christine?' he demanded. 'Didn't she tell you?'

'She ain't got here yet,' began Mr Uniatz untroubledly and the Saint stood very still.

'My God,' he said, 'Then Aliston did find that taxi!'

VIII How Mr Uniatz Was Bewildered about Bopping, and Simon Templar Was Polite to a Lady.

TO SAY that this was Greek to Mr Uniatz would be misleading. He would not have been quite sure whether a Greek was a guy who kept a chop house, something you got in your neck, a kind of small river, or the noise a door made when the hinges needed oiling. It would have involved a great many additional prob­lems, all of which would have been very painful. Tak­ing the line of least resistance, Mr Uniatz simply looked blank.

'I dunno, boss,' he said, striving conscientiously to keep up with the rapid march of events. 'Which taxi was dat?'

'The taxi I brought her here in, you mutt !'

'You mean you brought her here, boss?'

'Yes.'

'Christine?'

'Yes.'

'In a taxi?' ventured Mr Uniatz, who had made up his mind to get to the bottom of the matter.

Simon gathered all his reserves of self-control.

'Yes, Hoppy,' he said. 'I brought Christine here in a taxi, myself, before Palermo and Aliston picked me up- before I went to the house where I found you.. I left her here and told her she wasn't to go out. She ought to have been waiting for you when you got here.'

'Maybe dis guy takes her out,' suggested Mr Uniatz helpfully, hooking his thumb in the direction of the body on the couch. 'Is his name Paloimo or Aliston?'

'It's neither,' said the Saint. 'His name's Keena. This is his apartment.' -- 'Den how --'

'I borrowed it to give Christine a hide-out. He's a friend of mine. He turned out of the place so that Christine could stay here. And you have to bop him on the dome!'

Mr Uniatz gaped dumbly at his victim. Life, he seemed to feel, was not giving him an even break. With things like that going on, how was a guy to know who to bop on the dome and who not to bop? It filled the most ordinary incidents of everyday life I with unnatural complications.

'Chees, boss,' said Mr Uniatz pathetically, 'you know I wouldn't bop any guy on de dome if ya tole me he was on de rise. But how was I to know? De last time, ya tell me I should of bopped de guy I didn't; bop. Dis time --'

'I know,' said the Saint. 'It isn't your fault.'

He turned back to the couch as David Keena began to make sounds indicative of returning consciousness. With the help of the Saint's treatment, he was soon sitting up and rubbing his head tenderly, while his eyes blearily endeavoured to take in his surroundings. Then he recognised Hoppy, and the whole story came back to him. He tried to get up, but the Saint held him down.

'Listen, David-it was all a mistake. Hoppy's a friend of mine. He didn't want to hurt you.'

'Well, what did he have to hit me for?'

'I sent him to look after Christine. He didn't know who you were. You tried to get in, and he naturally thought you were one of the ungodly. I told you to keep away from here, didn't I?'

'Dat's right, boss,' said Mr Uniatz anxiously. 'I didn't know ya was a pal of de Saint. Why'ncha tell me?'

'Get him a drink,' ordered the Saint.

'Mr Uniatz looked guilty.