Call for the Saint

moraine.

'Boss,' Hoppy ruminated, 'I got an idea.'

The Saint kicked off the other-shoe.

.'Be kind to it, Hoppy,' he yawned, 'it's in a strange place.'

But Hoppy, lost in contemplation of a glorious tomorrow evolving from the stuff of his dreams, went on unheeding.

'Dis fat slob, Bilinski, who is de Masked Angel. He beats de Champ. Dat makes him de Champ, don't it?'

The Saint eyed him curiously. 'He hasn't beaten him yet.'

'But if Barrelhouse Bilinski gets de crown,' Hoppy con­tinued with growing inspiration, 'dey is one guy who can take it away from him. Dey is one guy who can knock him on his can any day in de week. Dat's me, boss! If dat fat slob gets de champeenship, I'm de guy what can take it away from him. Den I'll be de champ and you'll be my manager!'

The telephone rang again.

'Excuse me,' said the Saint. 'My bottle seems to be moving towards your hand.'

He rescued it in the nick of time, and picked up the phone.

He recognized at once the soft husky lilt of the voice.

'I-I do hope you'll forgive my calling you at this hour,' Constance Grady apologized hurriedly. 'I called several times after I-I thought you might have gotten home, but there was no answer.'

'I just got in,' Simon explained. 'I didn't have a chance to call you right after the fight as I'd promised, and I thought it was rather late to phone you now. But,' he added quickly, 'I'm glad you called. Thanks for the tickets.'

'Thank you for using them.' She hesitated, her voice drop­ping almost to a whisper. 'You-you saw what hap­pened ...'

'Yes. Very interesting.'

A slight pause.

'Daddy--' she began, and stopped. 'My father came home a few minutes ago. He's very upset. I-I made an excuse that I had to go to an all-night drugstore on the corner to get some aspirin. I'm talking to you from there.'

'I see.' The Saint's voice was speculative. 'Naturally he would be upset by tonight's accident.'

'Accident? . . . Yes, I know.' She hesitated again. 'There was something else-something about you and that-that man you call Hoppy--'

'Oh?'

'You went into the Masked Angel's dressing room after the fight. Daddy said there was a brawl.'

'I wouldn't say that,' Simon said gravely. 'One of Dr. Spangler's assistants happened to trip on one of Hoppy's big feet and knock himself out. The Angel fell over a table, caus­ing Dr. Spangler to get the wind knocked out of him.'

'But . . . You-didn't go down to see this-Masked Angel because you saw something-something wrong?'

'Wrong? No, Connie, if you mean fouling or anything like that, I didn't see a thing. By the way, it seems the Masked Angel is one of Hoppy's old chums.'

'Oh.'

'What makes you think there was anything wrong?'

'I-I don't know. I'm-I'm just afraid.' Her answer was just as vague now as it had been the first time. 'I thought you might have been able to-to see something, or-or figure something out. I--'

'Why not drop in for breakfast and we'll talk it over?'

'All right.' She seemed reluctant to finish, and yet unable to find an excuse to go on. 'And thanks again.'

The Saint poured himself another drink, and surrendered the bottle.

'Who was dat, boss?' Hoppy asked.

'A lady,' Simon replied, 'who is holding out on me.'

'You can't trust 'em, boss,' Hoppy affirmed, shaking his head. 'None of 'em. I know a doll once.' He sighed, shaking his head like a wistful grizzly. 'She has coives like a-a--'

'A scenic railway?' Simon suggested.

Hoppy beamed.

'Dat wuz Fanny, boss! All over! I can see her now.' He sighed with the stentorian nostalgia of a libidinous walrus. 'She was de goil of my dreams!'

The Saint yawned and turned to the bedroom.

'Then let's go see her there,' he said.

The doorbell rang a sudden prolonged pizzicato.

Simon halted in his tracks. Ghostly caterpillars crawled along his backbone. Instinct, sensitive and prescient, had whis­pered its warning of further explosions in the chain reaction he had started that night; the clamor of the bell came as if on a long-awaited cue. A faint smile flitted over his reckless mouth.

'Who da hell is dat dis time of night?' Hoppy wondered.

'Open the door and find out,' Simon told him.

Mr. Uniatz slipped a meaty hand into his gun pocket and strode out into the foyer to the doorway. The Saint heard the door open fractionally; he grinned slow­ly as he recognized the impatient imperative voice that an­swered Hoppy's gruff inquiry. The door opened all the way . . . The determined clomp of hard-heeled brogans entered the foyer, heading for the living-room door.

'Boss,' Hoppy trumpeted in warning, 'it's--'

'Don't tell me,' the Saint broke in cheerfully. 'Give me one guess-Inspector Fernack!':

CHAPTER FOUR

Devoted students of our hagiography who have been following these chronicles for the past several years may be a little tired of reading the exposition of Inspector John Henry Fernack's emotional state which usually punctu­ates the narrative at moments like this. Your favorite author, to be perfectly candid, is a little tired of writing it. Perhaps this is one occasion when he might be excused. To compress into a few sentences the long epic of failures, disappointments, and frustrations which made up the history of Inspector Fernack's endless pursuit of the Saint is a task before which the staunchest scribe might quail. And it is almost ludicrous to attempt to describe in mere words the quality of incandescent ire that seethed up in him like a roiled volcano as the Saint's welcoming smile flashed in the chiseled bronze of that piratical face.

'Of course,' Simon murmured. 'I knew it.'

The detective glowered at him.

'How did you know?'

'My dear John Henry!' the Saint grinned. 'That concerto you played on my doorbell was unmistakably a Fernack ar­rangement.' He waved him to a chair. 'Sit down, won't you? Let me pour you a drink-if Hoppy can spare it.'

'Sure,' said Mr. Uniatz hospitably. 'Just don't take all of it.'

Inspector Fernack did not sit down. In fact, he looked more as if he might easily rise into the air, from the sheer pressure of the steam that seemed to be distending his chest.

For the same routine was going to be played out again, and he knew it, without being able to do anything to check or vary its course. It was all implicit in the Saint's gay and friendly smile; and the bitterness of the premonition put a crack in his voice even while he plowed doggedly onwards to his futile destiny.

'Never mind that!' he squawked. 'What were you and this big baboon raising Cain about in the Masked Angel's dressing room tonight?'

'You mean last night, don't you? It happens to be tomor­row morning at the moment.'

'I'm asking you,' Fernack repeated deliberately, 'what were you doing--'

'It's funny,' the Saint interjected, 'all the places where a flying rumor will land.'

'It's no rumor!' Inspector Fernack said trenchantly. 'I was at the fight myself.' He removed the stogie from his mouth and took a step forward, his gimlet eyes challenging. 'Why did you steal those gloves?'

The Saint's brows lifted in polite surprise.