certain Mr Matson, for instance, might have been capable of setting such a trap--if Mr Matson had known that Simon Templar was the Saint, and was on his way to interview Mr Matson in Galveston, and if Mr Matson had had the prophetic ability to foretell that Simon Templar was going to take this coastal road. But since Simon himself hadn't known it until about half an hour ago, it appeared that this hypothesis would have credited Mr Matson with a slightly fantastic grade of clairvoyance.
The Saint stared at the log with all these things in his mind; and while he was doing it he discovered for the first time in his life the real validity of a much handled popular phrase.
Because he sat there and literally felt his blood run cold.
Because the log moved.
Not in the way that any ordinary log would have moved, in a sort of solid rolling way. This log was flexible, and the branches stirred independently like limbs.
Simon Templar had an instant of incredulous horror and sheer disbelief. But even while he groped back into the past for any commonplace explanation of such a defection of his senses he knew that he was wasting his time. Because he had positively seen what he had seen, and that was the end of it.
Or the beginning.
Very quietly, when there was no reason to be quiet, he snappec open the door of the car and slid his seventyfour inches of whipcord muscle out on to the road. Four of his quick light strides took him to the side of the huge ember in the highway. And then he had no more doubt.
He said, involuntarily: 'My God . . .'
For the ember was not a tree. It was human.
It had been a man.
Instead of a six-foot log of driftwood, the smouldering obstacle had been a man.
And the crowning horror was yet to come. For at the sound of the Saint's voice, the blackened log moved again feebly and emitted a faint groan.
Simon turned back to his car, and was back again in another moment with his light topcoat and a whisky flask. He wrapped the coat around the piece of human charcoal to smother any remaining fire, and gently raised the singed black head to hold his flask to the cracked lips.
A spasm of pain contorted the man, and his face worked through a horrible crispness.
'Blue . . . Goose . . .' The voice came in a parched whisper. 'Maris . . . contact . . . Olga--Ivan--Ivanovitch . . .'
Simon glanced around the deserted landscape, and had never felt so helpless. It was obviously impossible for him to move that sickening relict of a human being, or to render any useful first aid.
Even if any aid, first or last, would have made any difference.
'Can you hold it until I get some help--an ambulance?' he said. 'I'll hurry. Can you hear me?'
The burned man rallied slightly.
'No use,' he breathed. 'I'm goner . . . Poured--gasoline-- on me . . . Set fire . . .'
'Who did?' Simon insisted. 'What happened?'
'Three men . . . Met last night--in bar . . . Blatt . . . Weinbach . . . And Maris . . . Going to party--at Olga's . . .'
'Where?'
'Don't know . . .'
'What's your name? Who are you?'
'Henry--Stephens,' croaked the dying man. 'Ostrich-skin-- leather case--in gladstone lining . . . Get case--and send . . . send . . .'
His voice trailed off into an almost inaudible rasp that was whisked away along with his spirit on the wings of the wind that swept across the flats. Henry Stephens was dead, mercifully for him, leaving Simon Templar with a handful of unexplained names and words and a decided mess.
'And ----- damn it,' said the Saint unreasonably, to no better audience than the circling gulls, 'why do people like you have to read that kind of mystery story? Couldn't one of you wait to die, just once, until after you'd finished saying what you were trying to get out?'
He knew what was the matter with him, but he said it just the same. It helped him to get back into the shell which too many episodes like that had helped to build around him.
And then he lighted a cigarette and wondered sanely what he should do.
Any further identification of Henry Stephens was impossible. His hair was all burned off, his hands were barbecued from try- ing to beat out the flames of his own pyre, and the few remnants of his clothes were charred to him in a hideous smelting. Simon debated whether to take the body with him or leave it where it was. He glanced at his watch and surveyed the lonely country about him. There was still no living person in sight, although in the distance he could see a couple of summer shacks and the indications of a town beyond.
Simon moved the body gently to one side of the road, re-entered his car, and drove carefully around it. Then his foot grew heavy on the accelerator until the side road eventually merged with the main highway and took him on to Virginia Point.
It was inevitable that the Saint's irregular past should have given him some fundamental hesitations about going out of his way to make contact with the Law, and on top of that he had projects for his equally unpredictable future which argued almost as strongly against inviting complications and delays; but he heaved a deep sigh of resignation and found his way to the local police station.
The sergeant in charge, who was sticking his tongue out over a crossword puzzle in a prehistoric and dog- eared magazine, listened bug-eyed to the report of his find, and promptly telephoned the police across the Causeway in Galveston proper.
'I'll have to ask you to stay here until the Homicide Squad and the ambulance comes over to pick up the corpse,' he said as he hung up.
'Why?' Simon asked wearily. 'Don't you think they'll bring enough men to lift him? I've got business in Galveston.'
The sergeant looked apologetic.
'It's--it's a matter of law, Mr--er--'
'Templar,' supplied the Saint. 'Simon Templar.'
This apparently meant no more to the local authority than John Smith or Leslie Charteris. He excavated a sheet of paper and began to construct a report along the lines which he had probably memorised in his youth, which had been a long time ago.
'You're from where, Mr Temple?' he asked, lifting his head.
'Tem-plar,' Simon corrected him, with his hopes beginning to rise again. 'I just came from St Louis, Missouri.'
The sergeant wrote this down, spelling everything carefully.
'You got any identification papers on you?'
'What for?' Simon inquired. 'It's the corpse you're going to have to identify, not me. I know who I am.'
'I reckon so; but we don't,' the other rejoined stolidly. 'Now if you'll just oblige me by answering my questions--
Simon sighed again, and reached for his wallet.
'I'm afraid you're going to be difficult, so help yourself, Lieutenant.'
'Sergeant,' maintained the other, calmly squinting at the Saint's draft cards and driving licenses and noting that the general descriptions fitted the man in front of him.
He was about to hand the wallet back without more than glancing into the compartment comfortably filled with green frogskins of the realm quaintly known as folding money when his eye was caught by the design stamped on the outside of the leather where a monogram might ordinarily have been. It was nothing but a line drawing of a skeletal figure with a cipher for a head and an elliptical halo floating above it. The pose of the figure was jaunty, with a subtle impudence that amounted almost to arrogance.
The sergeant examined it puzzledly.
'What's this?'
'I'm a doodler,' Simon explained gravely. 'That is my pet design for telephone booths, linen tablecloths, and ladies' underwear.'
