Call for the Saint

'Excuse me, sir. I'm looking for the Elliott Hotel. Can you tell me --'

'Right here,' said the florid man Simon had accosted. 'Want to go in?' He took the Saint's arm and guided him up the steps to the door. 'Okay now?'

'Thank you, sir. God bless you,' Simon said, and the florid man, who does not hereafter appear in this record, vanished into the Chicago evening.

The Saint stood in a broad high-ceilinged hall. There were doors and a drab carpet and merciless light bulbs overhead. Fresh paint could not disguise the essential squalor of the place. A few framed mottoes' told any interested unfortunates it might concern that there was no place like home, that it was more blessed to give than to receive, that every cloud had a silver lining, and that a fixed and rigid smile was, for some unexplained reason, an antidote to all ills. The effect of these bromides was to create a settled feeling of moroseness in the beholder, and Simon had no difficulty in maintaining his patiently resigned expression beneath the dark glasses.

Through an open door at the Saint's left a radio was playing. At the back of the hall were closed doors, and facing Simon was the desk clerk's cubbyhole, occupied now by an inordi­nately fat woman who belonged in a freak show, though not for her obesity. The Saint greatly admired the woman's beard.

It was not so black as a skunk's nor so long as Monty Woolley's; but 'twas enough, 'twould serve.

The woman said: 'Well?'

Simon said tremulously: 'I'm looking for Miss Green. Miss Hazel Green?'

'Big Hazel Green?'

'Yes-yes, that's right.'

'You're talking to her,' the woman said, placing enormous forearms on the counter and leaning forward to stare at the Saint. 'What is it?'

'I was advised to come here. A Mr. Weiss . . .' Simon let his voice die away.

Big Hazel Green rubbed her furry chin, 'Yeah,' she said slowly. 'Mr. Weiss, huh? I guess you want to move in here. Is that it?'

Simon nodded.

Big Hazel said: 'Shouldn't you have been here before?'

'I don't know,' Simon said feebly. 'Mr. Weiss did say something about . . . But I had my rent paid in advance at- at the place where I was staying. I couldn't afford to waste it. I-I hope I haven't done anything wrong.'

He could feel her eyes boring into him like gimlets.

'That isn't for me to say. I just take reservations and see who checks in.'

The woman rang a bell. A thin meek little man came from somewhere and blinked inquiringly.

Big Hazel said: 'Take over. Be back pretty soon.' She forced her bulk out of the cubbyhole and took Simon's arm in strong fingers. 'I'll show you your room. Right up here.'

The Saint let her guide him toward the back of the hall, through a door, and up winding stairs. Behind the glasses, his blue eyes were busy-charting, noting, remembering. Like many old Chicago structures, this one was a warren. There was more than one staircase, he saw, which might prove use­ful later.

'How much higher is it?' he asked plaintively.

'Up top,' Big Hazel told him, wheezingly. 'We're crowded. But you've got a room all to yourself.'

It was not a large room, as the Saint found when Big Hazel conducted him into it. The single window overlooked a sheer drop into darkness. The furniture was clean but depressingly plain.

Big Hazel said: 'Find your way around. I'll register you later.'

She went out, Closing the door softly. Simon stood motion­less, listening, and heard the lock snap.

The shadow of a smile touched his lips. In his pocket was a small instrument that would cope with any ordinary lock. The lock didn't bother him-only the reason why it had been used. The vital point was whether it was merely a house custom, or a special courtesy. ...

He felt his way methodically around the room. Literally felt it. There were such things as peepholes; there were creaking boards, and floors not soundproofed against footsteps. He was infinitely careful to make no movement that a blind man might not have made. He tapped and groped and fumbled from one landmark to another, performing all the laborious orientations of a blind man. And in fact those explorations told him almost as much as his eyes.

There was an iron bedstead, a chair, a lavatory basin, a battered bureau-all confined within a space of about seventy square feet. The walls were dun-painted plaster, relieved only by a framed printing of Kipling's If, There was the one little window, of the sash variety, which he was able to open about six inches. He stood in front of it, as if sniffing the grimy air, and noted that the glass panes had wire mesh fused into them.

After a while he took off some of his clothes and lay down on the bed. He did not switch off the one dim light that Big Hazel had left him. He might have been unaware of its existence.

He dozed. That was also literally true. The Saint had an animal capacity for rest and self-refreshment. But not for an instant was he any more stupefied than a prize watchdog; and he heard Big Hazel's cautious steps outside long before she unlatched the door.

He didn't know how much time had gone by, but it must have been about three hours.

He was wide awake, instantly, and alert as a strung bow, but without the least movement.

'Who is it?' he mumbled grumpily; and even then he could see her clearly in the doorway.

'It's Hazel Green. I didn't mean to disturb you' Some people came in late and held me up.'

'That's all right,' he said, and sat up.

She came in and shut the door behind her, and stood looking down at him.

'Everything all right?'

'Yes, thank you, ma'am.'

'What's your name?'

He remembered that she had never asked him before.

'Smith,' he said. 'Tom Smith.'

'Like all the rest of 'em,' she observed, without rancor. 'You been in town long?'

'No, not long.'

'How's it going?'

'Not bad.'

'You're not a bad-looking guy to end up in a dump, like this.'

'That's how it goes.' He took a chance, keeping his eyes averted. 'You've got a nice voice, to be running a dump like this.'

'It's a job.'

'I suppose so.' He ventured another lead, making himself querulous again. 'Why did you lock me in? I wanted to go to the bathroom-- 'There's a thing under the bed. We lock everybody in. It isn't only men who come here. You have to keep a place like this respectable. Women stop here too.'

For no good reason, an electric tingle squirmed up the Saint's spine. There was nothing he could directly trace it to, and yet it was unmistakable, a fleeting draught from the flutter of psychic wings. Without time to analyze it, without knowing why, he deadened every response except that of his mind, exactly as he had controlled his awakening when she walked in, and turned the instinctive quiver into a bitter chuckle.

'You wouldn't expect them to give people like me any trouble, would you?'

'You never can tell.' Big Hazel moved closer, her hands dropping into the pockets of her voluminous skirt. Her voice was still brisk and businesslike as she went on: 'I'll make out your registration tomorrow, and you can put a cross on it or whatever you do.'

'Thank you, ma'am.'

'Would you like a drink?'

The Saint stirred a little on the bedside, as if in mild embarrassment, as the same reflex prickle retraced its voyage over his ganglions. But he still kept his face expressionless behind the blank windows of his smoked glasses.

'Thank you, ma'am, but I don't drink anything. Not being able to see, it sort of makes me a bit dizzy.'

'You won't mind if I do?'

Without encouraging an answer, she pulled a pint bottle of a cheap blend out of the folds of her skirt and attacked the screw cap. She held the bottle and the cap in pleats of her clothing for a better purchase, but even her massive paws seemed to make no impression on their union.