they may be planning any of the first three things, but they may just as well be planning the fourth, and we aren't justified in overlooking it. And if we're going to do anything about it, we've got to do it pretty quickly. I know you don't think much of me, sir,' said Corrio with unwonted candour, 'but you must admit that I was right a few days ago when you wouldn't listen to me, and now I think it 'd be only fair for you to give me another chance.'
Almost against his will Fernack forced himself to be just.
'All right,' he said grudgingly. 'Where do we find this guy?'
'If you can be free about a quarter to five this afternoon,' said Corrio, 'I'd like you to come along with me.'
Simon Templar walked west along Fifty-second Street. He felt at peace with the world. At such times as this he was capable of glowing with a vast and luxurious contentment, the same deep and satisfying tranquillity that might follow a perfect meal eaten in hunger or the drinking of a cool drink at the end of a hot day. As usually happened with him, this mood had made its mark on his clothes. He had dressed himself with some care for the occasion in one of the most elegant suits and brightly colored shirts from his extensive wardrobe, and he was a very beautiful and resplendent sight as he sauntered along the sidewalk with the brim of his hat tilted piratically over his eyes, looking like some swashbuckling medieval brigand who had been miraculously transported into the twentieth century and put into modern dress without losing the swagger of a less inhibited age. In one hand he carried a brown paper parcel.
Fernack's huge fist closed on his arm near the corner of Seventh Avenue, and the Saint looked around and recognized him with a delighted and completely innocent smile.
'Why, hullo there,' he murmured. 'The very man I've been looking for.' He discovered Corrio coming up out of the background and smiled again. 'Hi, Gladys,' he said politely.
Corrio seized his other arm and worked him swiftly and scientifically into a doorway. Corrio kept one hand in his side pocket, and whatever he had in his pocket prodded against the Saint's stomach and kept him pinned in a corner. There was a gleam of excitement in his dark eyes. 'I guess my hunch was right again,' he said to Fernack.
Fernack kept his grip of the Saint's arm. His frosted grey eyes glared at the Saint angrily, but not with the sort of anger that most people would have expected.
'You damn fool,' he said rather damn-foolishly. 'What did you have to do it for? I told you when you came over that you couldn't get away with that stuff any more.'
'What stuff?' asked the Saint innocently.
Corrio had grabbed the parcel out of his hand and he was tearing it open with impatient haste.
'I guess this is what we're looking for,' he said.
The broken string and torn brown paper fluttered to the ground as Corrio ripped them off. When the outer wrappings were gone he was left with a cardboard box. Inside the box there was a layer of crumpled tissue paper. Corrio jerked it out and remained staring frozenly at what was finally exposed. This was a fully dressed and very lifelike doll with features that were definitely familiar. Tied around its neck on a piece of ribbon was a ticket on which was printed: 'Film Star Series, No. 12: CLARK GABLE. 69? .'
An expression of delirious and incredulous relief began to creep over the harsh angles of Fernack's face -- much the same expression as might have come into the face of a man who, standing close by the crater of a rumbling volcano, had seen it suddenly explode only to throw off a shower of fairy lights and coloured balloons. The corners of his mouth began to twitch, and a deep vibration like the tremor of an approaching earthquake began to quiver over his chest; then suddenly his mouth opened to let out a shout of gargantuan laughter like the bellow of a joyful bull.
Corrio's face was black with fury. He tore out the rest of the packing paper and squeezed out every scrap of it between his fingers, snatched the doll out of the box and twisted and shook it to see if anything could have been concealed inside it. Then he flung that down also among the mounting fragments of litter on the ground. He thrust his face forward until it was within six inches of the Saint's.
'Where are they?' he snarled savagely.
'Where are who?' asked the Saint densely.
'You know damn well what I'm talking about,' Corrio said through his teeth. 'What have you done with the stuff you stole from Oppcnheim's last night? Where are the Vanderwoude emeralds?'
'Oh, them,' said the Saint mildly. 'That's a funny question for you to ask.' He leaned lazily on the wall against which Corrio had forced him, took out his cigarette case and looked at Fernack.
'As a matter of fact,' he said calmly, 'that's what I wanted to see you about. If you're particularly interested I think I could show you where they went to.'
The laugh died away on Fernack's lips, to be replaced by the startled and hurt look of a dog that has been given an unexpected bone and then kicked almost as soon as it has picked it up.
'So you do know something about that job,' he said slowly.
'I know plenty,' said the Saint. 'Let's take a cab.'
He straightened up off the wall. For a moment Corrio looked as if he would pin him back there, but Fernack's intent interest countermanded the movement without speaking or even looking at him. Fernack was puzzled and disturbed, but somehow the Saint's quiet voice and unsmiling eyes told him that there was something there to be taken seriously. He stepped back, and Simon walked past him unhindered and opened the door of a taxi standing by the curb.
'Where are we going to ?' Fernack asked, as they turned south down Fifth Avenue.
The Saint grinned gently and settled back in 'his corner with his cigarette. He ignored the question.
'Once upon a time,' he said presently, 'there was a smart detective. He was very smart because after some years of ordinary detecting he had discovered that the main difficulty about the whole business was that you often have to find out who committed a crime, and since criminals don't usually leave their names and addresses behind them this is liable to mean a lot of hard work and a good many disappointments. Besides which, the pay of a police lieutenant isn't nearly so big as that amount of brainwork seems to deserve. So this guy, being a smart fellow, thought of a much simpler method, which was more or less to persuade the criminals to tell him about it themselves. Of course, he couldn't arrest them even then, because if he did that they might begin to suspect that he had some ulterior motive; but there were plenty of other ways of making a deal out of it. For instance, suppose a crook got away with a tidy cargo of loot and didn't want to put it away in the refrigerator for icicles to grow on; he could bring his problem to our smart detective, and our smart detective could think it over and say, 'Well, Elmer, that's pretty easy. All you do is just go and hide this loot in an ash can on Second Avenue or hang it on a tree in Central Park, or something like that, and I'll do a very smart piece of detecting and find it. Then I'll collect the reward and we'll go shares in it.' Usually this was pretty good business for the crook, the regular fences being as miserly as they arc, and the detective didn't starve on it either. Of course the other detectives in the bureau weren't so pleased about it, being jealous of seeing this same guy collecting such a lot of credits and fat insurance company checks; but somehow it never seemed to occur to them to wonder how he did it.'
He finished speaking as the taxi drew up at an apartment hotel near the corner of East Twelfth Street.
Fernack was sitting forward, with his jaw square and hard and his eyes fixed brightly on the Saint's face.
'Go on,' he said gruffly.
Simon shook his head and indicated the door.
'We'll change the scene again.'
He got out and paid off the driver and the other two followed him into the hotel. Corrio's face seemed to have gone paler under its olive tan.
Simon paused in the lobby and glanced at him.
'Will you ask for the key, or shall I? It might be better if you asked for it,' he said softly, 'because the clerk will recognize you. Even if he doesn't know you by your right name.'
'I don't quite know what you're talking about,' Cor-rio said coldly, 'but if you think you can wriggle out of this with any of your wild stories, you're wasting your time.' He turned to Fernack. 'I have got an apartment here, sir--I just use it sometimes when I'm kept in town late and I can't get home. It isn't in my own name, because--well, sir, you understand--I don't always want everybody to know who I am. This man has got to know about it somehow, and he's just using it to try and put up some crazy story to save his own skin.'
'All the same,' said Fernack with surprising gentleness, 'I'd like to go up. I want to hear some more of this
