Follow the Saint

bloke know that I had any miracles in the house ?'

'I dunno——'

Patricia Holm came back into the room with a curling-iron that glowed dull red.

Simon turned and reached for it.

'You're just in time, darling,' he murmured. 'Comrade McGuire's memory is going back on him again.'

Comrade McGuire gaped at the hot iron, and licked his lips.

'I found that out meself, guv'nor,' he said hurriedly. 'I was goin' to tell yer ——'

'How did you find out?'

'I heard somethink on the telephone.' The Saint's eyes narrowed.

'Where?'

'In the fust house I went to—somewhere near Victoria Station. That was where I was told to go fust an' swop over the tea. I got in all right, but the bloke was there in the bed­room. I could hear 'im tossing about in bed. I was standin' outside the door, wondering if I should jump in an' cosh him, when the telephone rang. I listened to wot he said, an' all of a sudding I guessed it was about some tea, an' then once he called you 'Saint', an' I knew who he must be talkin' to. So I got out again an' phoned the guvnor an' told him about it; an' he ses, go ahead an' do the same thing here.'

Simon thought back over his conversation with Mr Teal; and belief grew upon him. No liar could have invented that story, for it hung on the fact of a telephone call which nobody else besides Teal and Patricia and himself could have known about.

He could see how the mind of Mr Osbett would have worked on it. Mr Osbett would already know that someone had interrupted the attempt to recover the package of tea from Chief Inspector Teal on his way home, that that some­one had arrived in a car, and that he had presumably driven Teal the rest of the way after the rescue. If someone was phoning Teal later about a packet of tea, the remainder of the sequence of accidents would only have taken a moment to reconstruct. . . . And when the Saint thought about it, he. would have given a fair percentage of his fifteen hundred pounds for a glimpse of Mr Osbett's face when he learned into what new hands the packet of tea had fallen.

He still looked at Red McGuire.

'How would you like to split this packet of tea with me?' he asked casually.

McGuire blinked at him.

'Blimey, guv'nor, wot would I do wiv arf a packet of tea?'

Simon did not try to enlighten him. The answer was enough to consolidate the conclusion he had already reached. Red McGuire really didn't know what it was all about—that was also becoming credible. After all, any intelligent em­ployer would know that Red McGuire was not a man who could be safely led into temptation.

The Saint had something else to think about. His own brief introductory anonymity was over, and henceforward all the attentions of the ungodly would be lavished on him­self—while he was still without one single solid target to shoot back at.

He sank into a chair and blew the rest of his cigarette into a meditative chain of smoke rings; and then he crushed the butt into an ashtray and looked at McGuire again.

'What happens to your fifty-quid-a-week job if you go back to stir, Red?' he inquired deliberately.

The thug chewed his teeth.