Follow the Saint

'I know,' she said. 'Teal and the Flying Squad are about two blocks behind you. I can tell by the smug look on your face.'

'For once in your life you're wrong,' he said as he lowered himself into a chair. 'They're so far behind that if Einstein is right they ought to have been here an hour ago.'

Over lunch he gave her an account of his morning.

'But what is it all about ?' she said.

He frowned.

'I just wish I knew, darling. But it's something bigger than burglary-—you can take bets on that. If Henry Osbett is the Miracle Teapot in person, the plot is getting so thick you could float rocks on it. If I haven't got mixed on what Claud Eustace told me last night, they run a radio programme, and that costs plenty of dough and trouble. No gang of burglars would bother to go as far as that, even to keep up appear­ances. Therefore this is some racket in which the dough flows like water; and I wish I could think what that could be. And it's run by experts. In the whole of that shop there was­n't a single clue. I'll swear that Claud Eustace himself could put it through a sieve and not find anything. ... I was just bluffing Henry, of course, but I think I made a good job of it.'

'You don't think he'll pay, do you?'

'Stranger things have happened,' said the Saint hope­fully. 'But if you put it like that—no. That was just bait. There wasn't anything else useful that I could do. If I'd had them somewhere else I might have beaten it out of them, but I couldn't do it there, and I couldn't put them in a bag and bring them home with me. Anyhow, this may be a better way. It means that the next move is up to the ungodly, and they've got to make it fast. And that may give us our break.'

'Of course it may,' she agreed politely. 'By the way, where did you tell me once you wanted to be buried?'

He chuckled.

'Under the foundation stone of a brewery,' he said. ''But don't worry. I'm going to take a lot of care of myself.'

His idea of taking care of himself for that afternoon was to drive the Hirondel down to the factory at an average speed of about sixty miles an hour to discuss the installation of a new type of supercharger designed to make the engine several degrees more lethal than it was already, and after­wards to drive back to London at a slightly higher speed in order to be punctual for his appointment with Mr Teal. Con­sidering that ride in retrospect, he sometimes wondered whether he would have any chance of claiming that the astounding quality of care which it showed could be credited entirely to his own inspired forethought.

It was on the stroke of four when he sailed into the May Fair and espied the plump and unromantic shape of Chief Inspector Teal dumped into a pink brocade armchair and looking rather like a bailiff in a boudoir.

Teal got up as the Saint breezed towards him; and some­thing in the way he straightened and stood there almost checked Simon in the middle of a stride. Simon forced him­self to keep coming without a flaw in the smooth surface of his outward tranquillity; but a sixth sense was rocketing red danger signals through his brain even before he heard the detective's unnaturally hard gritty voice.

'I've been waiting for you, Saint!'

'Then you must have been early, Claud,' said the Saint. His smile was amiable and unruffled, but there was an out­law's watchfulness at the back of his bantering eyes. 'Is that any excuse for the basilisk leer ? Anyone would think you'd eaten something——'

'I don't want to hear any more of that,' Teal said crunchily. 'You know damned well why I'm waiting for you. Do you know what this is ?'

He flourished a piece of paper in Simon's face.

The Saint raised his eyebrows.

'Not another of those jolly old warrants ?' he murmured. 'You must be getting quite a collection of them.'