ride, even at our age.'
Mr Uniatz blinked at him. Even in isolation, the face that Nature had planted on top of Mr Uniatz's bull neck could never have been mistaken for that of a matinee idol with an inclination towards intellectual pursuits and the cultivation of the soul; but when viewed in exaggerating contrast with the tanned piratical chiselling of the Saint's features it had a grotesqueness that was sometimes completely shattering to those who beheld it for the first time. To compare it with the face of a gorilla which had been in violent contact with a variety of blunt instruments during its formative years would be risking the justifiable resentment of any gorilla which had been in violent contact with a variety of blunt instruments during its formative years. The best that can be said of it is that it contained in mauled and primitive form all the usual organs of sight, smell, hearing, and ingestion, and prayerfully let it go at that. And yet it must also be said that Simon Templar had come to regard it with a fondness which even its mother could scarcely have shared. He watched it with good-humoured patience, waiting for it to answer,
'I dunno, boss,' said Mr Uniatz.
He had not thought over the point very deeply. Simon knew this, because when Mr Uniatz was thinking his face screwed itself into even more frightful contortions than were stamped on it in repose. Thinking of any kind was an activity which caused Mr Uniatz excruciating pain. On this occasion he had clearly escaped much suffering because his mind—if such a word can be used without blasphemy in connection with any of Mr Uniatz's cerebral processes—had been elsewhere.
'Something is bothering you, Hoppy,' said the Saint. 'Don't keep it to yourself, or your head will start aching.'
'Boss,' said Mr Uniatz gratefully, 'do I have to drink dis wit' de paper on ?'
He held up the parcel he was nursing.
Simon looked at him blankly for a moment, and then felt weak in the middle.
'Of course not,' he said. 'They only wrapped it up because they thought we were going to take it home. They haven't got to know you yet, that's all.'
An expression of sublime relief spread over Mr Uniatz's homely countenance as he pawed off the wrapping paper from the bottle of Vat 69. He pulled out the cork, placed the neck of the bottle in his mouth, and tilted his head back. The soothing fluid flowed in a cooling stream down his asbestos gullet. All his anxieties were at rest.
For the Saint, Consolation was not quite so easy. He finished his tankard and pushed it across the bar for a refill. While he was waiting for it to come back, he pulled out of his pocket and read over again the note that had brought him there. It was on a plain sheet of good notepaper, with no address.
Dear Saint,
I'm not going to write a long letter, because if you aren't going to believe me it won't make any difference how many pages I write.
I'm only writing to you at all because I'm utterly desperate.
How can I put it in the baldest possible way ? I'm being forced into making myself an accomplice in one of the most gigantic frauds that can ever have been attempted, and I can't go to the police for the same reason that I'm being forced to help.
There you are. It's no use writing any more. If you can be at the Bell at Hurley at eight o'clock on Sunday evening I'll see you and tell you everything. If I can only talk to you for half an hour, I know I can make you believe me.
Please, for God's sake, at least let me talk to you.
My name is
NORA PRESCOTT
Nothing there to encourage too many hopes in the imagination of any one whose mail was as regularly cluttered with crank letters as the Saint's; and yet the handwriting looked neat and sensible, and the brief blunt phrasing had somehow carried more conviction than a ream of protestations. All the rest had been hunch—that supernatural affinity for the dark trail of ungodliness which had pitchforked him into the middle of more brews of mischief than any four other freebooters of his day.
