Call for the Saint

'Gloves?'

'Yes, gloves! The gloves that killed Torpedo Smith! Doc Spangler told me what happened. Why'd you take 'em?'

'My hands were cold,' Simon said blandly.

An imaginative audience might have fancied that it could hear the perspiration sizzling on Inspector Fernack's face as its rosy glow deepened to purple. He thrust the stogie back into his mouth with a violence that almost choked him, and bit into it savagely.

'You be careful, Templar!' he bellowed. 'If I felt like it, I could pull you in for assault, trespass, malicious mischief, and petty larceny!'

Simon shook his head sadly.

'You disappoint me, Inspector. A hunter of your caliber talking about sparrows when there are tigers in them thar hills.'

'You don't say!' Fernack's cigar angled upward like a naval rifle. 'Meaning what?'

The Saint shrugged.

'Well, almost anything is more interesting than--' Amusement flickering in the lazy-lidded, hawk-sharp blueness of his eyes as he enumerated on his fingers: 'Assault, trespass, malicious mischief, and petty larceny.'

The cigar made another trip from Inspector Fernack's face to his fist, and suffered further damage in transit.

'All right, Saint,' Fernack ground out, 'what are you up to? And don't give me that look of injured innocence. You didn't crash that dressing room just for the exercise.'

'We wanted de Angel's autograft,' Hoppy contributed helpfully.

The Inspector whirled on him.

'I didn't ask you!' he blared, with such ferocity that even Hoppy recoiled.

'John Henry,' the Saint mused wistfully, 'our association through the years has been a beautiful thing-in a futile sort of way-but there are moments when you really embarrass me.'

'I'll bet!'

'Why should you take Spangler's word that I stole those gloves? You know what he is. Besides, what makes you think there's anything wrong with them? What was the doctor's opinion as to the cause of death?'

Inspector Fernack placed the cigar in his mouth, his eyes fixed on the Saint.

'Concussion,' he said'. 'We'll get the medical examiner's report in the morning.'

The Saint nodded.

'Concussion. Undoubtedly caused by the psychic dynamite that Doc Spangler has put in the Angel's punch.'

'Or by a hunk of lead in one of those gloves!' the Inspector growled.

His eyes wandered searchingly about the room.

The Saint said: 'You spoke to the Masked Angel, of course?'

'I spoke to him, of course. Why?'

'What is his theory, if any?'

'His theory!' Inspector Fernack snorted scornfully. 'Why, that moron Bilinski doesn't know he's alive! But he's staying in jail till we find those gloves, understand?' His eyes nar­rowed. 'How long have you known Bilinski? How did you recognize him as the Masked Angel? Is he a friend of yours?'

The Saint smiled wryly.

'Please, Inspector,' he protested. 'My social standing is not indestructible.' He turned to Hoppy. 'Well,' he sighed, 'if it's a matter of getting your little playmate out of the cooler, you'd better bring the Inspector his souvenirs.'

'Okay, boss.'

'I thought so!' Inspector Fernack bared his teeth in uneasy triumph.

Hoppy shuffled to the divan, bent over, and reached under it.

'Here dey are,' he announced, hauling them out. He thrust the damp leather mitts at Fernack with all the graciousness of a dyspeptic mastodon. 'Take 'em!'

The Saint selected a cigarette from the silver box on the table.

'I borrowed them for the same reason you want them,' he said. 'I was afraid there'd be a substitution before you thought of it.'

He held a lighter to his cigarette, smiling at the Inspector over its little golden spear point of flame.

Fernack scowled, staring at the Saint for a longish moment.

'So that's your story!' he began with an imminent crescendo. 'Now let me tell you--'

And there, in a hopeless anticlimax, he stopped. Galling memories of past pitfalls into which his headlong suspicions had tripped him in previous encounters with the Saint seemed for once to take all the conviction out of his attack. What, after all, was he going to tell the Saint? That he was under arrest for stealing a pair of boxing gloves ?

The Saint was engagingly frank.

'I examined them quite carefully, John Henry,' he said, 'and they're really quite in order, believe me. None of the stitches has been tampered with, or the lining torn, or any chemical such as oil of mustard soaked into the leather. I also had a look at Bilinski's hand wraps. No plaster of paris, pads of tinfoil, or calking compound. No hunks of lead--'

'All right, wise guy!,' Fernack exploded. 'If these are the gloves, the police lab will tell me all I want to know!'

The Saint spread his hands with mock resignation, laughter sparkling in his cobalt eyes like sunlight on an Alpine lake.

'Of course, John Henry, if you don't believe me. However, if you should ever feel the need of any further enlightenment, always remember that our motto is service. Sure you won't change your mind about that drink?'

'All right!' Fernack grated, repeating himself. 'Be a wise guy. Play the lone wolf. But remember this, Templar. Sooner or later you're going to make a false move, a mistake you can't get out of. And when that happens, brother, I'll be right there waiting to tag you for it!'

'You an' who else?' Hoppy inquired brilliantly.

Inspector Fernack ignored him. He thrust a finger at the Saint.

'One of these days you're going to reach out just a little too far-and you're going to draw back a bloody stump!'

The Saint's face crinkled in a shrugging smile as he put his cigarette to his mouth with a careless gesture. And as if by accident its glowing tip touched the finger Inspector Fernack held under his nose.

The detective jerked his hand back with a yelp.

'Oh, sorry, John!' Simon exclaimed contritely. 'That should teach me a lesson, shouldn't it?'

Fernack glared at him speechlessly. Then, thrusting the gloves under his arm, he turned and stalked out of the living room. Simon followed him politely to the apartment's threshold.

'Good night,' said the Saint, as Fernack yanked open the door. 'If you should ever need me, you know where to find me.'

'If I ever want you,' Inspector Fernack growled, 'I'll find you, don't worry.'

He strode out; and with a cheerful grin at the two harness bulls waiting outside by the elevators, Simon quietly closed the door.

'Well,' he sighed. 'Now maybe we can get some sleep at last!'

Hoppy yawned in sopprific sympathy, but had enough pres­ence of mind to reach for the Old Forester, which still con­tained an appreciable amount of fluid.

'I better have a nightcap,' he explained.. 'I don't wanna stay awake t'inkin' about Torpedo.'

'A nightcap that size,' Simon observed, watching the level of the bottle descending, 'could double as a sleeping bag.'

He retrieved what was left and poured it into a glass, for a private relaxer of his own.

He tried to tot up what scores there were on hand, to de­termine exactly where he stood at the moment. He