Call for the Saint

he had found in the room he himself had occupied the night before. There were rumples in the bed that didn't follow the same contours as careless bedmaking; and he knew this must have been the room, even before he saw that the opaque window glass con­tained the same fused-in netting as his own window had had, even before his nostrils detected in the mustiness of the air a clear fragrance that could only be Monica. . . .

Kearney caught up with him there a moment later and stuck a gun into his ribs.

'All right, Mr. Saint,' he grated. 'Don't try anything else, or I'll blast you.'

'You blathering nitwit,' said the Saint, with icy calm. 'Why couldn't you stay downstairs and make sure they wouldn't smuggle her out?'

'From where?' Kearney jeered.

'From here. Frankie told me the truth. She was in this room. Don't you smell anything?'

The detective sniffed.

'It smells lousy to me.'

Simon's eye caught a gleam on the floor. He ignored Kear­ney's revolver entirely to step forward and pick it up.

'Look.'

'A tooth out of a comb,' Kearney said scornfully. 'So what?'

'A spring tooth,' Simon said, 'from the kind of comb women wear in their hair. And dark red-brown-the color she'd use.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mrs. Wingate and Stephen Elliott caught both of them up at that point. The philanthropist was quivering with a kind of pale-lipped restraint.

'This is the most outrageous suggestion I've ever heard, Mr. Templar,' he said. 'Lieutenant Kearney tells me--'

'Oh, I do hope you're mistaken!' babbled Laura Wingate. 'She's such a sweet person, I'd die if anything happened to her.'

'If anything happened to her, it would not be here,' Elliott stated frostily. 'Lieutenant, I think you'd better take Mr. Templar and his accusations to the proper authority.'

Kearney nodded.

'It'll be a pleasure, Mr. Elliott.'

'In spite of the comb?' Simon persisted.

'We have quite a number of lady guests,' Elliott said stiffly. 'If that is any grounds for this kind of behavior--'

'It isn't,' Kearney said. 'And I'm going to enjoy booking the Saint on charges of disturbing the peace, just to keep him quiet for a while.' He prodded Simon again with his gun. 'Come along, you.'

'I loved your show,' Mrs. Wingate trilled, apparently feel­ing that some expression was due from her. 'You must do it for us again one day.'

Simon and Kearney went downstairs, passing a barrage of eyes that had seeped up from the basement.

'By the way,' Simon said, 'Frankie is wearing a gun.'

'He has a permit,' said Kearney. 'I know the judge who issued it. Keep going.'

They went out to the sidewalk, and there was a brief but awkward pause while the total cablessness of the street estab­lished itself.

'Why don't we take my car?' suggested the Saint accom­modatingly. 'It's right here.'

'Okay,' Kearney said belligerently. 'I'll let you drive it- and just don't try anything.'

He opened the door, and followed Simon in. While the Saint was still fitting the key in the lock, he reached over and snapped one loop of a pair of handcuffs over Simon's left wrist. The other cuff he secured to the steering wheel.

'All right,' he said grimly. 'Let's go.'

Simon started the engine and nursed the car north for a few blocks. Kearney held the revolver in his lap and glowered with rather strenuously sustained triumph.

'How about your big case against me?' Simon asked after a while. 'Aside from my breaches of the peace, I mean. Is that coming along?'

Kearney flexed his jaw muscles.

'We got a letter this afternoon. It was addressed to the Chief, and it was signed by Cleve Friend. It said he was mixed up in some deal with you and he was trying to get out of it because he'd got cold feet. And he was afraid you wouldn't let him get out. You'd threatened to kill him unless he played along. The letter said he was leaving it with a friend, to be mailed if he-died.'

The Saint kept his eyes straight ahead.

'Did you check the signature?'

'It was Friend's signature, all right. A little shaky, but it compared.'

'Shaky?' Simon pondered. 'And I'll bet the letter itself was typewritten.'

'It was.'

'It would be. Either Friend signed under the influence of scopolamin-which is a hypnotic-or else he was tortured into signing it,'

'You can explain anything, can't you?' Kearney gibed. 'Somebody's trying to frame you, of course.'

'Of course,' Simon agreed coolly. 'That- should be ob­vious, even to a policeman.'

'Yeah? And how did they make this Varing dame disap­pear?'

'Probably through a secret passage . . .'

His voice trailed away as the thought hit him like a splash of cold water between the eyes.

'My God,' he said softly. 'Secret passage. Of course. What a feeble-minded flop I am!'

'Hey!' Kearney squawked suddenly. 'Where d'you think you're going? This ain't the way to Headquarters.'

'It's the way I'm taking,' said the Saint. 'Come in, Hoppy.'

Mr. Uniatz rose from behind the front seat and applied the muzzle of his Betsy to the nape of Kearney's neck.

'Okay, copper,' he said. 'Take it easy.'

The detective's face went white, then red.

'You can't get away with this,' he said desperately.

'We can try,' said the Saint. 'I've just had an inspiration, and I'm going to be much too busy to horse around with any footling rap about disturbing the peace.'

He sped the car west on Roosevelt, and presently turned up Central Avenue to Columbus Park, where he stopped.

'Okay, Hoppy,' he said.

'De woiks, boss?'

'Just let him take a nap,' Simon said hastily.

Mr. Uniatz raised his gun and brought it down with profes­sional precision; and the detective napped. . . .

Simon found Kearney's keys, unlocked the handcuffs, and transferred them to the detective's wrists. He took Kearney's badge and identification, figuring that a handcuffed man with­out credentials would be more than ordinarily delayed in start­ing a hue and cry. Then they took Kearney out of the car and laid him under a tree with his hat over his face, and drove quickly away.

The Saint's brain flogged itself pitilessly under the impas­sive mask of his face.

'Secret passages,' he repeated, as he opened up the head­lights on the road to Wheaton. 'Hoppy, I ought to have my head examined.'

'What for, boss?'

'Maggots. What the hell's the first thing you'd expect to find in a hide-out that used to belong to Al Capone? And don't you remember Sammy said he had a safe place to hide Junior?'

'Sure.'

'Well, it was safe. So safe that Kearney couldn't find it. But we'll find it this time, if we have to blast for it.