The Saint Steps In

been compiled by dewy-eyed romanticists. If Hobart Quennel had even been more than essentially polite to any Nazi or known fifth columnist, the slip would almost certainly have been recorded.

And yet . . .

Simon thought about Andrea Quennel again. She had the build and beauty and coloring that Wagner was probably dreaming of before the divas took over. She might easily have been flattered by the ideals of the Herrenvolk . . . There had been the Prussian baron . . . And definitely she was the Diana Barry who had commissioned Schindler ... If you disre­garded the rules of legal evidence, her own father had transparently taken advantage of her glandular propensities before. In the same way that she had been using them ever since the Saint met her.

That was so much. like the words she had used herself that he could almost hear her saying them again. He saw her life­like in front of him, her warm rich lips and the too-perfect contours of her body; and the remembrance was not helpful to dwell on.

He lighted a cigarette and picked up the last docket of the sheaf ——the story of the man who was still the most nebulous personality of all.

Frank Imberline.

Born in New York's most expensive maternity home. A silver spoon case. Private school. Princeton. Colonial Club. Graduated minima cum laude, being much too busy for affairs of the higher intellect. Was then drafted by his father into the service of Consolidated Rubber. Served a six-year apprentice­ship, being driven sluggishly through all the different depart­ments of the business, Steadied down, acquired a stodgy and even pompous sense of responsibility, became an executive, a Rotarian a member of the Akron Chamber of Commerce; eventually became Consolidated Rubber's head or figurehead. The latter seemed more probable, for there was a board of directors with plenty of shrewd experience behind them. The character estimate of Imberline said: 'Generally considered honest and well-meaning, but dull.' He played golf in the nineties, subscribed to all the good causes, and could always be depended on for a salvo of impressive and well-rounded cliches at any public dinner. His farthest traveling had been to Miami Beach. He had no labor battles, no quarrels with any Government bureaus. He did everything according to what it said in the book. His only political activity had been when some group persuaded him to run for Mayor on what was vaguely called a 'reform ticket': he lost the election by a com­ fortable minority, and stated afterwards that politics were too confusing for him. Certainly the things that Simon had heard him say made that sound plausible. All the rest of his career— if such a swift-sounding word could be applied to anything so rutted and ponderous—had been devoted to Consolidated Rub­ber, from that early enforced apprenticeship until the time when he had resonantly donated his services to the National Emergency. And that was that. Nothing else.

Not the barest hint of sharp practice, corruption, chicanery, rebellion, conniving, strongarming, conspiracy, political ambi­tion, or adventuring in social philosophies. 'Generally consid­ered honest and well- meaning, but dull ...'

Of all the suspect records, his was the most open and hum­drum and unassailable.

Which turned everything inside out and upside down. The Saint lay back with his glass held between his knees and blew chains of spaced smoke-rings towards the ceiling. Once again he put all the pieces together, fitting and matching them against all the facts that he had learned and memorised, esti­mating and analyzing with the utter impersonality of a mathe­matician. And only getting back again and again to the same irreconcilable equations.

He got up and freshened the melted ice in the remains of his drink, and lighted another cigarette. For several minutes he paced the room with monotonous precision, up and down on one seam of the carpet like a slow shuttle in a machine.

He could cogitate his brain into a pretzel, but it wouldn't advance him a single millimeter. He would be in the same fore­doomed position as an Aristotelian philosopher trying to dis­cover the nature of the universe with no other instrument than pure and transcendent logic. But one renegade factor might be within a few yards of him at that moment, and if he left it untouched it would only be his own fault that the solu­tion didn't come out.

There had been moments like that in many of his adventures —there nearly always seemed to be. Moments when the fragile swinging balance of thought became a maddening pendulum that only physical action would stop. And this was one of them.

From there on he was through with theories. He knew what he knew, he had dissected all the arguments, he had pinned down and anatomised all the ifs and buts. He would never have to go back to them. The solution and the answers were all there, if he could beat them out of the raw material. The loose ends, the contradictions, the gaps, would all merge and blend and fill out and explain themselves as the shape forged. But from there on, win or lose, right or wrong, the rest was action.

He still had time before he had to meet Andrea.

He put on his tie, his holster, and his coat, and left his room. He went a few yards down the corridor and knocked on the door of 1013.             

4

Imberline was in his shirtsleeves, his waistcoat unbuttoned. He recognised the Saint in a surprised and startled way that was too slow in maturing to influence the course of events. Simon was inside the door and closing it for him before he had decided on his response.

'You'll begin to think this is a habit of mine, Frank,' said the Saint apologetically. 'But honestly, I do make appoint­ments when I have time.'

'This is going too far,' Imberline spluttered belatedly. 'I told you I'd see you and your—er—-Miss Gray when I got back to Washington. I don't expect you to follow me all over the country. Even if it's a hotel, a man's house is his castle——'

'But needs must,' said the Saint firmly, 'when the devil drives.'

He allowed Imberline to follow him into the room, and helped himself to the most inviting chair.

Imberline stood in front of him, bulging like a pouter pigeon.

'Young man, if you don't get out of here at once I'll pick up the telephone and have you thrown out.'

'You can do that, of course. But I'll still have time to say what I want to say before the bouncers arrive. So why not just let me say it, and save a lot of commotion?'

The rubber rajah made the mistake of trying to find an an­swer to that one, and visibly wrestled himself to a standstill. He inflated himself another notch to try and distract attention from that.

'Well, what is it?' he barked.

'A few things have happened since last night,' said the Saint. 'I don't know what all of them add up to, but they do make it seem very probable that Calvin Gray's invention isn't a crackpot dream.'

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating,' Imberline pronounced sententiously. 'We've already discussed that——'

'But that was before Calvin Gray was kidnaped.'

Imberline had his mouth open for a retort before he fully realised what he was replying to.

He swallowed the unborn epigram, and groped for some­thing else. It came out explosively enough, but the roar in his voice lacked its normal fullness.

'What's that?'

'Kidnaped.'

'I didn't see anything about it in the papers.'

'It's being kept as quiet as possible. So is the fact that a man was murdered during the return engagement this morn­ing.'

Imberline's jowls swelled.

'Mr. Templar, if this is some cock-and-bull story that you've concocted to try and stampede me, let me tell you——'