Follow the Saint

another piece of his mosaic settled neatly into place,

He came into the living-room like a ray of sunshine and spun his hat over Patricia's head into a corner.

'Miracle Tea is on the air in about ten minutes,' he said, 'with a program of chamber music. Could anything be more appropriate ?'

Patricia looked up from her book.

'I suppose you've heard about our curtain measurers.'

'Sam Outrell told me. Do I get my diploma in advanced prophetics? After the party I had this morning, I knew it wouldn't be long before someone wanted to know what had happened to Comrade McGuire. Did you get him to Wey­bridge in good condition?'

'He didn't seem to like being locked in the trunk of the Daimler very much.'

The Saint grinned, and sat down at the desk to dismantle his automatic. He opened a drawer and fished out brushes and rags and cleaning oil.

'Well, I'm sure he preferred it to being nailed up in a coffin,' he said callously. 'And he's safe enough there with Orace on guard. They won't find him in the secret room, even if they do think of looking down there.... Be a darling and start tuning in Radio Calvados, will you ?'

For a short while she was busy with the dials of the radio­gram; and then she came back and watched him in silence while he went over his gun with the loving care of a man who knew how much might hang on the light touch of a trigger.

'Something else has happened,' she said at last. 'And you're holding out on me.'

Simon squinted complacently up a barrel like burnished silver, and snapped the sliding jacket back into place. There was a dynamic exuberance in his repose that no artist could have captured, an aura of resilient swiftness poised on a knife-edge of balance that sent queer little feathery ripples up her spine.

'A lot more is going to happen,' he said. 'And then I'll tell you what a genius I am.'

She would have made some reply; but suddenly he fell into utter stillness with a quick lift of his hand.

Out of the radio, which had been briefly silent, floated the opening bars of the Spring Song. And his watch told him that it was the start of the Miracle Tea Company's contribution to the load that the twentieth-century ether has to bear.

Shortly the music faded to form a background for a deli­cate Oxford accent informing the world that this melody fairly portrayed the sensations of a sufferer from indigestion after drinking a nice big cup of Miracle Tea. There followed an unusually nauseating dissertation on the manifold virtues of the product, and then a screeching slaughter of the Grand March from Tannhauser played by the same string quartet. Patricia got up pallidly and poured herself out a drink.

'I suppose we do have to listen to this ?' she said.

'Wait,' said the Saint.

The rendition came to its awful end, and the voice of Miracle Tea polluted the air once again.

'Before we continue our melody programme, we should like to read you a few extracts from our file of unsolicited letters from sufferers who have tried Miracle Tea. Tonight we are choosing letters one thousand and six, one thousand and fourteen, and one thousand and twenty-seven. . ..'

The unsolicited letters were read with frightful enthusi­asm, and the Saint listened with such intentness that he was obviously paying no attention to the transparently bogus effusions. He sat with the gun turning