the well-known Thompson variety, and he handled both of them in much the same way. The keys rattled under his fingers like gunfire, and his choice of words had the impact of bullets. He worked at white heat, while his wrath still had all its initial impetus.
He told his own full story of the finding of 'Henry Stephens', and every word that the dying man had said, together with a general summary of the other facts as he knew them, in a fusillade of hardboiled sinewy prose that would have qualified him for a job on the toughest tabloid in the country. Then he squared off to a fresh sheet of paper and went into his second movement. He wrote:
It now grieves me to have to break it to all you nice people that thes? sensitive nostrils, which long ago became extraordinarily appreciative of certain characteristic smells, have caught wind of the grand inspiration that this guy committed suicide, which Lieutenant Kinglake was feeling out this morning.
Now I am in here with quite a different story, and it has got to be known that Bulldog Templar does not brush off that easy.
I am remembering a legend, true or not, that once when S S Van Dine happened to be close to the scene of another murder, it was suggested by some newspaper that he might cooperate with the gendarmerie and help run the villain to earth in the best Philo Vance manner; whereupon Mr Van Dine placed himself in the center of four wheels and trod on the loud pedal so rapidly that his shadow had to be sent after him by express.
We Templars are made of sterner stuff. Just give us a chance to stick our neck out, and a giraffe is not even in our league.
So we are going to sign our name to this invitation to all of you voting citizens to take a good long look at the suicidal Mr Stephens.
He was, we observe, the stern and melancholy type which can get along without life anyway. He proved that by the way he spent his last days here, drinking all night in speakeasies and dancing with the girls. He didn't go much for fun of any kind, which is said to soften people up. He was strictly an ascetic; and when he knocked himself off he was still going to be tough. He wouldn't jump out of a window, or take an overdose of sleeping tablets, or put a gun in his ear and listen to see if it was loaded. He deliberately picked the most painful way that a man can die.
He figured he had some suffering coming to him. After all, he wasn't broke, for instance, which has been known to make some people so . unhappy that they have let air into their tonsils with a sharp knife. He seems to have had plenty of spending money. So he was going to have his hard times on his deathbed instead of before.
He even went 20 miles out of town to do it, walking all the way, since the street cars don't go there, so that he'd have lots of time to look forward to it and enjoy the prospect.
He was a consistent guy, too. He didn't mean to be selfish about his suffering. He wanted somebody else to have some of it too. So after he'd taken his gasoline shower, and before he struck the match, he carefully chewed up and ate the bottle he'd brought it in, so that Lieutenant Kinglake could have something to worry about. Not knowing, of course, that Lieutenant Kinglake wouldn't worry about a little thing like that at all.
It always gives us Templars a great respect for the benignness of Providence to observe how frequently a hard-pressed police department, facing a nervous breakdown before the task of breaking a really difficult case, has been saved in the nick of time by discovering that there never was a murder after all. It makes us feel pretty good to think that cops are practically people, and God takes care of them as well as Pearl White.
The Saint was beginning to enjoy himself by then. He lighted a cigarette and gazed at the ceiling for a while, balancing his ideas for the finale. Then he went on when he was ready.
But let's pretend that we don't have the clear and penetrating vision of Lieutenant Kinglake. Let's just pretend that we are too dumb to believe that a man in the dying agonies of third degree burns cooked up that wonderful story about three men who did it to him, just because he was too modest to want to take the credit. Let's pretend there might really have been three other men.
Men with names. Blatt, Weinbach, Maris. A nice trio of Herrenvolk.
Then we might go along with the gag and say, suppose Henry Stephen Matson was a traitor. Suppose he'd gotten into some sabotage organisation, and he'd been given a job to do in this explosives plant in Missouri. Suppose he'd even drawn payment in advance--just to account for what he was using for dough in Galveston.
Then suppose he welshed on the job--either from an attack of cold feet or a relapse of patriotism. He knew that the heat was on. He couldn't stay in this country, because they might have turned him in to the FBI. If they didn't do anything worse. He took it on the lain for here, hoping to get a passport, and hoping he'd shaken off his pals. But they were too good for him. They tracked him down, struck up an acquaintance with him, and gave him what he had coming. In a very nasty way, just to discourage imitators.
That's my fairy-tale. And I like it.
Blatt, Weinbach, Maris. I have a description of two of those men, and I've got my own good ideas about the third. And I am hereby announcing that I shall now have to get them for you myself, since we must not disturb Lieutenant Kinglake in bis august meditations.
The city editor read it all through without a change of expres-sion. Then he tapped the last page with his forefinger and said; 'It's an ingenious theory, but what's your basis for it?'
'Nothing but logic, which is all you can say for any theory. The, facts are there. If you can do better with them, you can join King-lake's club.'
'This last statement of yours, about the three men--is that fact?'
'Some of it. But the main point of it is that that's what you pay me with. If I can make them believe that I know more than I do, I may scare them into making some serious mistakes. That's why I'm making you a present of all the rest of that luscious literature.'
The editor pulled at his under lip. He was a pear-shaped man with a long forbidding face that never smiled even when his eyes twinkled.
'It's good copy, anyway, so I'll print it,' he said. 'But don't blame me if you're the next human torch. Or if Kinglake has you brought in again and beats hell out of you.'
'On the contrary, you're my insurance against that,' said the Saint. 'Going my own way, I might have had a lot more trouble with Kinglake at any moment. Now, he won't dare to do anything funny, because it would look as if he was scared of me.'
'Kinglake's a good officer. He wouldn't do a thing like this unless there was a lot of pressure on him.'
Simon recalled the Lieutenant's tight-lipped curtness, his harried and almost defensive belligerence.
'Maybe there was,' he said. 'But whose was it?'
The editor put his fingertips together.
'Galveston,' he said, 'has what is now called the commission form of government. Commissioner Number One--what other cities would call the mayor--is coming up for re-election soon. He appoints the Chief of Police. The Chief controls such men as Lieutenant Kinglake. Nobody wants any blemish on the record of the police department at this time. I'm quite confident that neither the Commissioner nor the Chief of Police is mixed up in inything crooked. It's just best for everybody concerned to let sleeping dogs--in this case, dead dogs--lie.'
'And that is perfectly jake with you.'
'The Times-Tribune, Mr Templar, unlike yourself, is not addicted to sticking its neck out. We are not a political organ; and if we did start a crusade, it would not be on the basis of this one sensational but insignificant killing. But we do try to print the whole truth, as you'll see by the fact that I'm ready to use your article.'
'Then you still haven't told me where the pressure would come from.'
The city editor's long equine face grew even more absorbed in the contemplation of his matched fingers.
'As a stranger in town, Mr Templar, it may surprise you to know that some of our most influential citizens sometimes go to the Blue Goose for their--er--relaxation. The Blue Goose is one of the leads in this story as you have it. So while none of these people, from the Commissioner down, might want to be a party to hushing up a crime, you can see that they might not be keen on too comprehensive an investigation of the Blue Goose. So that the management of the Blue Goose, which naturally doesn't want the spot involved in a murder mystery, might find a lot of sympathetic ears if they were pointing out the advantages of forgetting the whole thing. I shall not allow you to print that in your next article, but it might help you personally.'
'It might,' said the Saint. 'And thank you.'
He spent several hours after that on a conscientious job of verifying his background material that would have amazed some people who thought of him as a sort of intuitive comet, blazing with pyrotechnic violence and brilliance to ends and solutions that were only indicated to him by a guardian angel with a lot of spare time .and an
