Call for the Saint

but he saw Frankie Weiss sitting a few rows back from the dais.

'Ladies, gentlemen, and others,' Simon began. 'Some of you may have heard of me. Some of you may not. I'm some­times known as the Saint.'

He waited till the low resultant buzz died down, and little dancing devils of mischief showed in his eyes.

'I won't make a long speech,' he said. 'I know you're prob­ably anxious to get at the refreshments. Anyway, I'm no good at speeches. I'd rather show you a few tricks which might come in useful; since it's been brought to my attention that some of you have been victimized by unscrupulous extortionists, which is a polite name for some dirty racketeering rats.'

He ignored the dead silence that suddenly brimmed the room, and went blandly on.

'Now I'm sure it wouldn't need Detective Lieutenant Kear­ney, who is also here with us tonight, to remind you that carry­ing concealed weapons is illegal. But it's quite possible for a man to protect himself without carrying firearms. One good judo hold is often worth as much as a gun. So for the benefit of some of you who might want to defend yourselves one day, I thought I'd demonstrate a few for you. If I'm to show them properly, of course, I'll need a volunteer to work with.'

There was no rush to volunteer. Mrs. Wingate chirped brightly: 'Come on, somebody!' Stephen Elliott stood up and beamed around with vaguely schoolmasterish encouragement.

Simon pointed a finger.

'You. No, not you-I mean the gentleman with the mus­tache. You look able to defend yourself. How about giving me a hand?'

Frankie Weiss huddled deeper on the bench and shook his head.

'Oh, come now,' Simon insisted. 'You never know when a little judo might come in handy. How do you know you won't meet some goon with a gun one of these days? Here!'

He bounced down from the stage and hurried up the aisle. Frankie tried to ignore everything, but the Saint was as irre­sistible as a radio interviewer. His hand appeared to stroke lightly over Frankie's arm and pause there. Only those in the immediate vicinity heard Frankie's yelp of pain, immediately smothered by the Saint's laughter.

'The man's got muscle!' he announced jovially. .'You'll give me a fight, won't you, my friend? Come on, don't disap­point the audience.'

He practically yanked Frankie out of his chair and caught him in a hold that left the man completely helpless, his legs in the air and his neck imprisoned under the Saint's arm.

'Just like that,' Simon proclaimed. 'Let's go up on the stage where the audience can enjoy it. We'll try it again more slowly.'

He retraced his steps as resiliency as though he were not burdened with a tight-lipped glaring assistant.

Lieutenant Kearney moved to get a better view. His face was a study in perplexed, suspicion. Common sense told him that there was more in this than met the eye, but he couldn't guess what it was; and Simon hoped the detective's mind would continue, for a little while, to move slowly. He had his hands full with Frankie Weiss, who was struggling like a bear cat and growling imprintable inarticulacies which were fortunate­ly smothered in the Saint's coat.

Laura Wingate gazed up in a glow of girlish eagerness, twisting her hands together in her overflowing lap. Stephen Elliott clung to a benign if somewhat nervous smile. The rest of the audience was divided between those who merely sensed a welcome variation in the schedule of innocent entertainment, those who derived personal gratification from the choice of the victim, and a smaller group of hard-featured hombres who seemed to be sweating out a purely private anguish of frustrated indecision.

'Let's do it again,' Simon lectured, releasing his victim. 'More slowly now. Watch!'

Frankie showed his teeth. He ducked away from the Saint, felt a long arm snake around his waist, and, turning swiftly, drove a vicious punch at Simon's groin. The Saint evaded it easily.

'Fine!' he exclaimed. 'That's right. Fight me-make it look realistic. Now I'll do it slowly.'

He did it slowly; and Frankie presently found himself in­volved in another excruciating posture from some manual of satanic yogi.

His mouth nearly touching Frankie's ear, Simon breathed: 'Where's Monica Varing?'

'Let go of me! You goddam--'

'Sh-h! Lieutenant Kearney's out in front, Frankie. Don't give him any ideas.'

The Saint wrenched slightly, eliciting a howl of pain from Frankie, and brought him back to his feet with dislocating solicitude.

'Everyone get that?' he asked. 'Now let's try another one. This is harder.'

He collared Frankie and tied him in an even more complex knot.

'What about Monica?'

'You son of a--'

'If you think I won't break your arm,' the Saint whispered icily, 'you're crazy. I can say it was an accident. I can even break your neck.'

He proved this by applied pressure, with one hand gagging Frankie, though the audience could not see that.

It took three more holds, each a little more agonizing than the last, with Frankie trying desperately to escape, while none of his putative allies dared lift a finger to help him because Kearney was watching.

'So we've got her. Let go!'

'Where?'

'Second floor. Room by the stairs-uh!'

'Front or back?'

'Back'

'Thank you, Frankie,' Simon said, and his hands moved swiftly.

He jumped up. Frankie did not.

'He's fainted,' the Saint gasped in well-simulated alarm. 'It may be his heart. ... Get a doctor!'

He leaped down from the platform and hurried toward the nearest exit; but Kearney caught him before he had gone more than a few steps.

'Just a minute,' Kearney snarled. 'What did you do to that guy?

'I just gave him a mild chiropractic treatment,' said the Saint wintrily. 'I know it wasn't as good as you could have done at headquarters, but I thought a rubber hose might have been rather conspicuous. He'll wake up in about ten minutes and be as good as new.'

The detective kept hold of his arm.

'What's the idea, anyway? And where do you think you're going?'

'I think I'm going to search this hotel, without bothering about a warrant,' Simon answered in a flat voice. 'Because my idea is that Monica Varing is being kept a prisoner here.'

'The actress? Are you crazy?'

'I don't think so. In fact, just before Frankie passed out he told me she was upstairs.'

Those of the audience who had moved were crowding to­wards the stage to obstruct the efforts of the first eager beavers who had moved to offer Frankie Weiss first aid. The others cast glances at the Saint but did not try to get near him, being probably kept at a distance by the presence of Kearney as much as anything else; so that the two of them might almost have been alone in the crowded room. At least until Mrs. Wingate bore down upon them, with Stephen Elliott bobbing like a towed dinghy in her wake.

'Whatever is the matter?' she squeaked frantically. 'This is terrible--'

'You tell them, Alvin,' Simon suggested; and with a side step as swift and light as a ballet dancer he made way for Mrs. Wingate to plow into a berth between them, and vanished through the door he had originally been heading for before the detective had the remotest chance of circumnavigating Mrs. Wingate's bulk to intercept him.

Simon raced up the stairs to the ground floor and from there to the second without interference. There were four doors back of the stairs, and he flung each of them open in turn. None of them was locked. Two of the rooms were six-bed dormitories, empty, but smelling rancidly of habitation. In the third room a very old man with a pock- marked face looked up with an idiotic grin from a game of solitaire.

The fourth room was empty-not only empty but so cleaned out that it had the same prison barrenness that