further.'
The Saint lighted his cigarette and used it to mark off a paragraph.
'The deceased's name,' he said, 'was Henry Stephen Matson. Until recently, he was a foreman at the Quenco plant near St Louis. You may remember that Hobart Quennel got into a lot of trouble a while ago, on account of some fancy finagling with synthetic rubber--and mostly because of me. But that hasn't anything to do with it. The Quenco plants are now being run by the Government, and the one outside St Louis is now making a lot of soups that go bang and annoy the enemy. Matson pulled out a while ago, and came here. He used his real name at the Ascot, because he'd applied for a passport to Mexico and he wanted to get it. But in his social life he called himself Henry Stephens, because he didn't want to die.'
'How do you know all this?' Kinglake rapped at him. 'And why didn't you----'
'I didn't tell you yesterday, because I didn't know,' said the Saint tiredly. 'The thing I found on the road said it was Henry Stephens, and it was all too obvious to bother me. So I was too smart to be sensible. It wasn't until I started hunting for Matson that it dawned on me that coincidences are still possible.'
'Well, why were you hunting for Matson?'
The Saint pondered about that one.
'Because,' he said, 'a Kiwanis convention just picked him as Mr Atlantic Monthly of 1944. So in the interests of this survey of mine I wanted to get his reaction to the Galveston standards of strip-teasing. Now, the grade of G-string at the Blue Goose . . .'
There had to be a breaking-point to Detective Yard's self-control, and it was bound to be lower than Kinglake's. Besides, Mr Yard's feet had endured more.
He leaned down weightily on the Saint's shoulder.
'Listen, funny man,' he said unoriginally, 'how would you like to get poked right in the kisser?'
'Pipe down,' Kinglake snarled; and it was an order.
But he went on glaring at the Saint, and for the first time his nervous impatience seemed to be more nervous than impatient. Simon was irresistibly reminded of his own efforts to cover confusion with a poker pan, only the night before.
'Let me tell you something, Templar,' Kinglake said dogmatically. 'We've made our own investigations; and no matter what you think, our opinion is that Stephens, or Matson, committed suicide by pouring gasoline on himself and setting himself alight.'
It took a great deal to shatter the Saint's composure, but that was great enough. Simon stared at the Lieutenant in a state of sheer incredulity that even took his mind off the crude conventional ponderance of Detective Yard.
'Let me get this straight,' he said slowly. 'Are you going try and work off Henry as a suicide?'
Lieutenant Kinglake's hard face, if anything, grew harder.
'On all the evidence, that's what it looks like. And I'm not going to make a monkey out of myself to get you some headlines. I told you, I don't want any trouble in this town.'
'So what're you gonna do about it?' demanded Detective Yard, with an aptness which he must have learned from the movies.
Simon didn't even notice him.
'Evidence my back door,' he said derisively. 'So this guy who was so reckless with his gas ration was careful enough to swallow the flask he carried it in so it could eventually be recovered for the scrap drive.'
'We just didn't happen to find the container yesterday. But if we search again, we may find it.'
'Probably the coke bottle that Scotland Yard takes out with him to keep his brain watered.'
'One more crack like that outa you,' Yard said truculently, 'an' I'll----'
'You might just tell me this, Kinglake,' said the Saint bitingly. 'Is this your idea of a brilliant trick to trap the killers, or are you just a hick cop after all? The only thing you've left out is the standard suicide note. Or have you got that up your sleeve too?'
The Lieutenant's thin lips tightened, and his battleship jaw stuck out another half inch. He had all the chip- on-the-shoulder characteristics of a man in the wrong who wouldn't admit it while there was a punch left in him; yet he met the Saint's half jeering and half furious gaze so steadily as to almost stare Simon out of countenance.
'Get this, Templar,' Kinglake said coldly. 'We think Stephens committed suicide----'
'In the most painful way he could think of----'
'He must have been nuts. But I've met nuts before.'
'And even while he was dying he tried to make up a story----'
'He was out of his mind. He must have been, after a burning like that. You haven't been burned yet, so you use your head. And if you want to keep your nose clean, you will forget the whole thing--or you may find yourself with your can in the can. Do I make myself clear?'
The Saint met his eyes lengthily.
'If you were rolled flat, you could rent yourself out as a window,' he said. 'Instead of which, you have the colossal crust to sit there and spew that pap at me even after I've told you that I know more about Matson than you did.'
'Yes,' was all Kinglake replied.
'You aren't even going to make an issue out of the Blue Goose and my going there.'
'No,' Kinglake said curtly.
For once in his life, Simon Templar was frankly flabbergasted. He searched the shreds of his brain for a better word, and couldn't find one. Theories whirled through his head; but they were too fast and fantastic to be coordinated while he had to think on his feet.
Which was where he was thinking, since Kinglake's impenetrable stonewall had brought him up there, shrugging off Detective Yard's clumsy physical obstruction as if it had been a feather which had accidentally drifted down on to him out of a cloud.
'I've met an astonishing variety of cops in my time,' he remarked absorbently; 'but you, chum, are an entirely new species. You don't even attempt to give me the guileless runaround or the genteel brushoff. . . . Have you said your last word on the subject?'
'Yes,' snapped the Lieutenant. 'Now will you kindly get the hell out of here and go on with the survey you were talking about?'
'I will,' retorted the Saint. 'And don't blame me if you find G-men in your G-string.'
He stalked out of there with another unique feeling which was the precise antithesis of the sensation he had had when a certain log moved on the shore road. His blood had run cold then. Now it was boiling.
He had had to cope with local politics and obstruction before, in different guises and for different reasons. But this game was something else. And in that swift invigorating anger, the Saint knew just what he was going to do about it.
Kinglake had taunted him about publicity. Well, the Saint didn't need to hire any press agents. . . . He had seen himself waiting and hoping for a lead; but he could always ask for one. He had used newspapers before, in sundry ways, when he wanted to lead with his chin and invite the ungodly to step up and introduce themselves while they looked at it.
Almost literally without looking to left or right, he followed Center Street towards the waterfront on the north or channel side of the city. He walked into the building that housed the Times-Tribune, and worked his way doggedly through the trained interference until he stood in front of the city editor's desk.
'My name is Simon Templar,' he said for about the fourteenth time. 'If you spelt me right, I'd be the traveling salesman who found that botched biscuit on the shore road yesterday. I want to cover that case for you; and all I want out of you is a by-line.'
The editor scrutinised him quite clinically.
'Our police reporter must have messed up his spelling,' he said. 'It's funny--the name started to ring a bell when I read it. ... So you're the Saint. But what are you selling?'
'I'm selling you your lead story for the afternoon edition,' said the Saint. 'I may be nuts, but I'm still news. Now shall we play gin rummy, or will you lend me a typewriter and stop the press?'
5 If only to be different in one more way from most typical men of action, Simon Templar was perfectly happy with words and paper. He could play just as fluently on the legitimate or L C Smith form of typewriter as he could on
