Call for the Saint

A rich brogue was still ingrained in his gravelly tenor, al­though as the Saint well knew it had been thirty years since he had left his native Ireland. The ups and downs of Mike Grady's turbulent career to his present eminence as promoter of the Manhattan Arena was a familiar story to the city's sporting gentry; it was a career which on the whole, Simon knew, had won Grady more friends than enemies-and those enemies the kind an honest but headstrong man easily makes on his way to the top.

'The name,' Simon announced, 'is Simon Templar.'

Grady stared at him, digesting the name, seeking a familiar niche for it, his brows drawn in a guarded frown. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again as recognition dawned in his eyes and wiped away the frown. He leaned for­ward on his desk.

'The Saint?' he asked unbelievingly, and sprang to his feet without waiting for a reply. 'Of course! I should've known!' He came from behind the desk, extending an eager hand. 'Glad to meet you, Saint!'

Simon rose to his feet and allowed his arm to be used like a pump handle.

'And it's a shame you've not visited me before,' Grady enthused. 'Why, only yesterday one of the boys brings up your name as a possibility for master of ceremonies for the Summer Ice Follies we're puttin' on soon. The Saint and Sonja Henie! Can't you just see that billin'! It'd be sensational! You'd pack 'em in! We'd have it in all the papers-on billboards-on the radio--'

'And in skywriting,' said the Saint. 'Well, I suppose the world will always beat a path to the door of the man who builds a better claptrap, but I didn't come as a performer in that line. I-er-already have a-sort of profession, you know.'

'A profession? You?' Grady smiled jestingly. 'And what would that be?'

'I'm what you might call a haunter,' said the Saint.

Grady's brows knitted.

'A haunter?'

'Of guilty consciences.'

'That,' said Mr. Grady after a pause, 'I don't get.'

Simon helped himself to a cigarette from the dispenser on the desk.

'Well,' he said engagingly, 'take your conscience, for ex­ample.'

Grady grinned at him.

'And why would you be hauntin' my conscience? It's crystal clear.'

Simon struck a match.

'Is it?'

'Indeed it is.'

'Even about your secret partnership with Doc Spangler?'

Grady's grin faded. He turned abruptly, went back behind his desk, and sat down. His fingertips tapped a nervous tattoo on the top of his desk for a moment.

'Even if that were true,' he said finally, 'would it be a crime?'

The Saint also sat down again, lowering himself through a leisured breath of smoke.

'I always heard you were an honest man, Mike,' he said quietly. 'Spangler's a crook, and you know it.'

Grady flushed.

'I don't know anything of the sort!' he snapped. 'So he served time once. What of it? A man can make a mistake.'

'I know,' Simon nodded. 'And you put him back on his feet; gave him a job at the Queensberry Gym.'

'The best damn' masseur I ever had!'

'Very likely. He was an MD before they took away his license for peddling dope.' Simon consulted his cigarette ash. 'Mike, you even advanced him money to go into business as a fight manager, didn't you?'

Grady stirred impatiently.

'Well, what of it?' he demanded. 'When I got this job here at the Arena I gave up the gym. Doc didn't want to work there without me, so I loaned him a couple of grand.'

'For which he gave you a share in Barrelhouse Bilinski as collateral.'

'Well --' Grady chuckled, but his humor was laciniated with unease. 'It didn't seem like much collateral at the time. He wasn't the Masked Angel then, you know.'

'I know.'

'Well, then,' Grady said, spreading his square freckled hands expressively, 'you know how good Spangler is. A great fighter he's made out of a broken-down stumble bum.'

The Saint shook his head sadly.

'Mike,' he protested, 'anyone, a child-even Connie, your own daughter-might be skeptical of that. In fact, if she knew about your partnership with Spangler, she might even be afraid that you're mixed up in something not quite--'

Grady stiffened, his face reddening.

'And what the hell has my daughter to do with this?'

The Saint's disclaimer was as bland as cold cream.

'Why, nothing at all, Mike. I merely mentioned her as a possibility.'

'Well, you just leave her out of this!' Grady glared at him and then looked away restlessly. 'Maybe it isn't according to Hoyle for me to have a financial interest in Bilinski,' he grum­bled, 'but it doesn't matter a damn to me if he wins or loses, just so I get my two grand back.'

'By the way,' said the Saint, 'how does Spangler get away with Bilinski wearing that old sock over his head?'

'He has special permission from the Boxing Commission,' Grady replied curtly.'It's a legitimate publicity stunt.'

'If there is such a thing,' Simon admitted. 'But it certainly improves his appearance.'

'He'll have to take it off for the Championship fight,' Grady informed him sourly, 'when he gives Steve Nelson the beatin' he deserves!'

The Saint's probing eyes drooped with offensive restraint.

'You seem to lack a certain enthusiasm for your future son-in-law,' he observed.

'Not my son-in-law!' roared the promoter. 'No common knuckle-head box fighter is going to marry the daughter of Mike Grady, I can tell you. I don't know what tales you been hearing, but she's not marrying that punk, you can depend on it!'

'What are you going to do-forbid the banns?'

'I'll not see her tied to a lowser with no more future than a cake of ice,' Grady said belligerently. 'I've seen what hap­pens to the most of 'em after their fightin' days are done, with their brains addled and the eyes knocked out of 'em, no money saved and their wives drudges!'

The Saint built an 'O' with a smoke ring.

'So that's why you quarreled.'

'I wouldn't call it a quarrel.' The promoter's eyes glittered. 'I told him just what I've told you, and I told him to let Connie alone.'

'But if Steve is retiring after his fight with the Angel, as he says--'

'Sure! That's what he says,' Grady snorted. 'How many times have I heard that one before! So he's retiring. On what?'

Simon shrugged.

'On the purse, I suppose. Unless, of course, he gets killed before he can collect it. The way Smith was.'

Mike Grady put his elbows on the desk and cupped his fore­head in his hands, staring down at his desk.

'That was a terrible thing to happen,' he said somberly. 'But it was an accident.' He looked up defiantly. 'It wouldn't happen once in a million fights.'

The Saint gazed at him thoughtfully. A pattern seemed to be unfolding. So Grady wanted no part of Connie's fiance. He was in semi-partnership with Doc Spangler. But did he dis­approve of Nelson enough to arrange his death? Was he of the same stripe as Spangler ? . . . Somehow the Saint couldn't quite accept that. Grady was not wanting in the essential ele­ments of humanity. A hotheaded obstinate old blowhard, per­haps-but not a wicked man. Shrewd, conniving, scheming maybe-but not a crook. Somewhere the thorn of conscience prickled. Somewhere beneath the flinty carapace was a naively sentimental heart. An expert in such things, the Saint felt cer­tain of his