The Saint Sees It Through

butter——'

Avalon said: 'Huh?'

The Saint took another grip on himself, brought his con­scious mind up from whirling in dark chasms, lifted it with every ounce of will power he could command.

'Sorry, I wandered. ... The pitch was made. 'How would you like to make some extra money, chum, and here's a hundred on account. Just go to 903 Bubbling Well Road and say Benny sent you. Bring back the packages you'll be given, bring them here, and collect some more money.' ... So our lad does it. Now the sale and distribution of the dope won't bring in enough to pay the overhead of a really big-scale setup like this, so Operation B goes into effect. A doctor can supply patients with narcotics, can turn them into hopheads more safely than anybody else. Then, by shutting off the supply, he can get almost anything in return for more dope to ease the craving. Blackmail —or services. That's where Dean's Warehouse and Docking Company is tied up with Operation A, or Shanghai. The hop-heads knock it over, bring in the sheaves—of furs, jewels, whis­key, whatnot. Or a bank is held up, instead. Or anything. A whole empire of crime begins to spread out from one central system.'

The Saint sighed. He was weary. Avalon took his hand in hers.

'So that's it,' she said. 'That explains a lot of things I didn't understand before. Why they'd go overboard for some creep who knew the difference between port and starboard and noth­ing else.'

They were still keeping their voices very low, as if they were in a room full of ears.

'This is all new to you?' Simon asked expressionlessly.

'Why do you ask that?'

'I thought I would. I've told you all this because it doesn't matter now how much anybody knows I know.'

The Saint's fingers had almost finished with the odd metal shape in his pocket. And the message which had begun to spell itself slothfully out from it by some multi-dimensional alchemy between his fingertips and his remembrance began to sear his brain with a lambent reality that cauterized the last limp tissues of vagueness out of his awakening.

He felt his own grip biting into her flesh.

'Avalon,' he said, in a voice that came from a long way off in the dark 'You've been in this up to the neck from the begin­ning. You might even have started a lot of it—for all of us—by that parting crack of yours about the Saint after I socked Zeller­mann. But the play-acting is over, and I must know something now.'

'What, darling?' she asked; and her voice was so easy in contrast to his own that he knew where he had to keep his own sanities together.

'I must know which side you're on, Avalon. Even if you haven't had any sense—even if it's all words of one syllable now. Are you going all the way with me, or is this just an excursion?'

It seemed as if she stiffened beside him for an instant, and then softened so that she was closer and more real than ever before.

Her voice came from a great distance also in the darkness between them.

'You damn fool,' she said. 'I worship the ground you walk on. I want you more than I ever wanted anyone in my whole life, or ever will.'

They were both very quiet then, as if something had been said which should never have been put into words.

And there were other sounds far away, faint frettings against the monotonous rolling of the sea.

The Saint's fingers touched the hard sharp metal in his trou­ser pocket for one last assurance, and brought it out. He said very matter-of-factly: 'Can you find a match, Avalon?'

She was in movement all around him, and he kept still; and then there was a sudden hurtful flare of light that flickered agonisingly over the scrap of embossed metal that he had taken out of pocket and held towards her in the palm of his hand.

'No,' he said, without any inflection. 'Not mine. Pat Hogan must have stuck his badge into my pocket as a last desperate resort—as a clue or a signal of some kind. He never knew me from Adam. But he was an undercover man in this racket for the Treasury Department.'

2

The match flickered once more and went out, leaving him with the moulding of her face stamped on his memory. And he knew that that was not only printed by one match, but by more lights than he had seen in many years.

'How long have you known that?' she asked.

'Only since I found the badge and figured it out,' he said. 'But that's long enough . . . Until then, I'm afraid I was off with some very wrong ideas. When I picked him up at the Can­teen this evening I happened to see that he was going heeled— he had a gun in his hip pocket—and I began wondering. I've been listening to his rather shaky brogue all night, and watch­ing him sell the blarney to Kay Natello, who never could be a sailor's swateheart no matter what else; and I knew before we left town that there was something screwy in the setup . . . But I had everything else wrong. I had Hogan figured as one of the Ungodly, and I thought he was playing his game against me.'

'If he wasn't,' she said, 'why did he pick on you and knock you out?'

'To get me out of the way. He didn't know who I was. I was playing the part of a blabber-mouthed drunken sailor, and just doing it too damn well. I was doing everything I could to make myself interesting to Cookie and Zellermann anyhow. I was banging around in the dark, and I happened to hit a nail on the head by mentioning Shanghai. So I was something to work on. And I was being worked on, the last thing I remember. But Hogan didn't want me being propositioned. His job was to get the goods on this gang, so he wanted to be propositioned himself. I might have been too drunk to remember; or I might have refused to testify. So he had to create a good interruption and break it up. And he did a lovely job, considering the spot he was in.'

'I'm getting some of my faith back,' she said. 'If a govern­ment man knocks you cold, that's legitimate; but you can't let anybody else do it. Not if I'm going to love you.'

He smiled very fractionally in the gloom, and his hand lay on her wrist in a touch that was not quite a caress, but something to which nothing had to be added and from which nothing could be taken away.

'And now,' he said, 'I suppose you're wondering where I belong in this, and why Hogan doesn't know me.'

'I didn't ask you.'

'I might as well tell you. Hogan is doing his best, and so is the Department over him; but this thing goes too far over the world, into too many countries and too many jurisdictions. Only an organisation that's just as international can cope with it. There is such a thing, and I'm part of it. That's all I'm allowed to say.'

'And meanwhile,' she said, with a coldness that was not really her, 'why isn't Pat in bed? And why did he leave you his badge?'

'Either because he's still trying to wring the  last drop out of his act, or because he's trying to do some more dangerous snoop­ing. Either because he hoped he could tip me off to keep my mouth shut and give him a chance, or because he knew he was facing the high jump and if he made a bad landing he hoped I might get some word out for him.' The Saint stood up. 'Either way, I'm going to find out.'

He heard and felt the rustle of her quick movement out of his sight; and then she was in front of him, face to face, and her arms around him and his hands under the soft eaves of her hair.

'Simon—are you all right now?'

'I'm as much use as I'll ever be tonight.' His smile was still invisible through the darkness, and in some ways he was glad of it. His touch was strong and tender together. He said: 'And Pat did his best, and I'm sure nothing is going to wait for him.'

He kissed her again and held her against him; and he re­membered a great many things, perhaps too many, and perhaps too many of them were not with her. But none of that mattered any more.

He let her go presently, and in time it had only been a mo­ment.

'I suppose,' he said, 'you wouldn't happen to have any ar­tillery in your weekend kit? A machine-gun might be useful; but if you're travelling light a small stiletto would help.'

'I haven't anything better than a pair of nail scissors.'

'I'm afraid,' Simon said sadly, 'it might be hard to persuade Zellermann to sit still for that.'

Light slashed through the room like a stealthy blade as he found the door handle and opened it.