The Saint Sees It Through

fighting lines of a face that was quite differently handsome from other good-looking faces that had sometimes strayed into Cookie's Cellar, and the hopeful mockery of translucent blue eyes which had a disconcerting air of being actively interested in trouble as a fine art; and for some reason he changed his mind. Whereby he revealed himself as the possessor of a sound instinct of self-preservation, if nothing else.

For those rather pleasantly piratical features had probably drifted in and out of more major forms of trouble than those of any other adventurer of this century. Newspaper reproductions of them had looked out from under headlines that would have been dismissed as a pulp writer's fantasy before the man whom they accoladed as the Robin Hood of modern crime arrived to make them real. Other versions of them could have been found in the police files of five continents, accompanied by stories and suspicions of stories that were no less startling if much more dull in literacy style; the only thing lacking, from the jaundiced viewpoint of Authority, was a record of any captures and con­victions. There were certain individual paladins of the Law, notably such as Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, of Scotland Yard, and Inspector John Henry Fernack, of New York's Cen­tre Street, whose pet personal nightmares were haunted by that impudent smile; and there were certain evil men who had thought that their schemes were too clever to be touched by justice who had seen those mocking blue eyes with the laughter chilling out of them, the last thing before they died.

And now so many of those things were only memories, and the Saint had new enemies and other battles to think of, and he sat in Cookie's Cellar with as much right and reason as any law-abiding citizen. Perhaps even with more; for he was lucky enough never to have heard of the place before a man named Hamilton in Washington had mentioned it on the phone some days before.

Which was why Simon was there now with absolutely no in­tention of succumbing to the campaign of discouragement which had been waged against him by the head waiter, the melancholy waiter, the chef, and the chemist who measured out eyedroppers of cut liquor behind the scenes.

'Are you waiting for somebody, sir?' asked the melancholy waiter, obtruding himself again with a new variation on his primary motif; and the Saint nodded.

'I'm waiting for Cookie. When does she do her stuff?'

'It ain't hardly ever the same twice,' said the man sadly. 'Sometimes it's earlier and sometimes it's later, if you know what I mean.'

'I catch the drift,' said the Saint kindly.

The orchestra finally blew and banged itself to a standstill, and its component entities mopped their brows and began to dwindle away through a rear exit. The relief of relative quiet was something like the end of a barrage.

At the entrance across the room Simon could see a party of salesmen and their lighter moments expostulating with the head waiter, who was shrugging all the way down to his outspread hands with the unmistakable gesture of all head waiters who are trying to explain to an obtuse audience that when there is simply no room for any more tables there is simply no room for any more tables.

The melancholy waiter did not miss it either.

'Would you like your check, sir?' he inquired.

He put it down on the table to ease the decision.

Simon shook his head blandly.

'Not,' he said firmly, 'until I've heard Cookie. How could I look my friends in the eye if I went home before that? Could I stand up in front of the Kiwanis Club in Terre Haute and confess that I'd been to New York, and been to Cookie's Cellar, and never heard her sing? Could I face——'

'She may be late,' the waiter interrupted bleakly. 'She is, most nights.'

'I know,' Simon acknowledged. 'You told me. Lately, she's been later than she was earlier. If you know what I mean.'

'Well, she's got that there canteen, where she entertains the sailors—and,' added the glum one, with a certain additionally defensive awe, 'for free.'

'A noble deed,' said the Saint, and noticed the total on the check in front of him with an involuntary twinge. 'Remind me to be a sailor in my next incarnation.'

'Sir?'

'I see the spotlights are coming on. Is this going to be Cookie?'

'Naw. She don't go on till last.'

'Well, then she must be on her way now. Would you like to move a little to the left? I can still see some of the stage.'

The waiter dissolved disconsolately into the shadows, and Simon settled back again with a sigh. After having suffered so much, a little more would hardly make any difference.

A curly-haired young man in a white tuxedo appeared at the microphone and boomed through the expectant hush: 'Ladies and gentlemen—Cookie's Cellar—welcomes you again—and proudly presents—that sweet singer of sweet songs: . . . Miss —Avalon—Dexter! Let's all give her a nice big hand.'

We all gave her a nice big hand, and Simon took another mouthful of his diluted ice-water and braced himself for the worst as the curly-haired young man sat down at the piano and rippled through the introductory bars of the latest popular pain. In the course of a reluctant but fairly extensive education in the various saloons and bistros of the metropolis, the Saint had learned to expect very little uplift, either vocal or visible, from sweet singers of sweet songs. Especially when they were merely thrown in as a secondary attraction to bridge a gap between the dance music and the star act, in pursuance of the best proven policy of night club management, which discovered long ago that the one foolproof way to flatter the intellectual level of the average habitue is to give him neither the need nor the oppor­tunity to make any audible conversation. But the Saint felt fairly young, in fairly good health, and fairly strong enough to take anything that Cookie's Cellar could dish out, for one night at least, buttressing himself with the knowledge that he was doing it for his Country. . . .

And then suddenly all that was gone, as if the thoughts had never crossed his mind, and he was looking and listening in complete stillness.

And wondering why he had never done that before.

The girl stood under the single tinted spotlight in a simple white dress of elaborate perfection, cut and draped with artful artlessness to caress every line of a figure that could have worn anything or nothing with equal grace.

She sang:

'For it's a long long time

From May to December,

And the days grow short

When you reach November . . .'

She had reddish-golden-brown hair that hung long over her shoulders and was cut straight across above large brown eyes that had the slightly oriental and yet not-oriental cast that stems from some of the peoples of eastern Europe. Her mouth was level and clean-cut, with a rich lower lip that warmed all her face with a promise of inward reality that could be deeper and more enduring than any ordinary prettiness.

Her voice had the harmonic richness of a cello, sustained with perfect mastery, sculptured with flawless diction, clear and pure as a bell.

She sang:

'And these few precious days

I'd spend with you;

These golden days

I'd spend with you.'

The song died into silence; and there was a perceptible space of breath before the silence boiled into a crash of applause that the accompanist, this time, did not have to lead. And then the tawny hair was waving as the girl bowed and tossed her head and laughed; and then the piano was strumming again; and then the girl was singing again, something light and rhythmic, but still with that shining accuracy that made each note like a bubble of crystal; and then more applause, and the Saint was applauding with it, and then she was singing something else that was slow and indigo and could never have been important until she put heart and understanding into it and blended them with consummate artistry; and then again; and then once more, with the rattle and thunder of demand like waves breaking between the bars of melody, and the tawny mane tossing and her generous lips