Call for the Saint

diagnosis. And yet ...

'Perhaps,' said the Saint. 'But I collect those one-in-a-million chances.' He slipped the snub-barreled revolver out of his pocket and laid it almost casually on Grady's desk. 'No doubt it was also one chance in a million that I found this in my apartment last night.'

Grady stared at the gun in openmouthed amazement.

'Where the hell did you get that?' he demanded stupidly.

'It's yours, of course?'

'Sure it's mine. My initials are on it! Where'd you get it?'

'I told you. In my apartment last night. After my little in­terview with Spangler last night, some character broke into our ivory tower with the apparent idea of air-conditioning us with your heater. Unfortunately we had just booby-trapped the door in preparation for a visit from the tax collector. This other character didn't have a sense of humor, so he went away in a sort of huff.'

Grady thrust himself from his chair and walked to the win­dow. He stared out blindly, his hands folded across his chest, his face a thundercloud.

'I don't understand,' he muttered. 'Unless he sold it, or --' He turned to Simon abruptly. 'That gun was stolen from me,' he said flatly, 'by Steve Nelson!'

The Saint tapped the ash from his cigarette dispassionately.

'Stolen?' he murmured.

'Yes, stolen!' Grady returned to his chair. 'Last week. Right in this office. He took the gun and I've never seen it since- that is, until .this moment.'

'How do you know he took it?' the Saint asked.

'How do I know he took it!' Grady bawled. 'The bastard nearly broke my arm!'

'Oh,' Simon deduced, innocently. 'This, I take it, was dur­ing the quarrel you didn't have.'

Grady glowered at the gun on the desk.

'If it wasn't a matter of business and money out of my pocket, I'd have had him thrown in jail for so long--'

'That Connie wouldn't even know him when he did come out?'

'Skip it.'

'You pulled that gun on him, didn't you? And he took it away from you. Was that it?'

Grady's high-blood pressure became painfully evident.

'I said skip it!' he shouted. 'I was defending myself-not that I couldn't handle the lowser with me bare hands if I had to!'

Simon rose to his feet and retrieved the gun.

'You won't mind if I borrow this until I trace the character who tried to use it on me last night?'

'Help yourself,' Grady grunted darkly. 'Did you have any idea who it was?'

'Do you think Steve Nelson could answer that question?'

Grady scowled and shook his head, 'It doesn't sound like him-sneakin' into a man's house . . . No, it couldn't have been! The lowser must have sold it or-lost it. Whoever got it from Nelson is the man you'll be wantin'.'

The Saint stood up.

'That's who I'm going to find,' he said. 'I'll see you again, Mike.'

Before the promoter realized that the interview was over, he had opened the door and sauntered out.

There was a sudden dampening of volume in the conversa­tion about him as he emerged from Grady's office. Whereas he had attracted little attention on entering the reception room, his effrontery in crashing Grady's office ahead of everyone else now made him a marked man, the target of a concentrated battery of indignant eyes. But the Saint seemed wholly una­ware of the hushed hostility as he paused by the girl at the switchboard and watched her plug in a connection.

'Yes, Mr. Grady,' she said. And after a moment: 'Dr. who? . . . Yes, sir, I'll get him for you right away.'

She reached for the telephone directory on a shelf beside her.

'Crescent 3-1465,' the Saint prompted helpfully.

She looked up like a startled gopher; and Simon Templar gave her the same friendly smile with which he had short-circuited her before.

'It was Dr. Kurt Spangler you wanted, wasn't it?' he said, and strolled on out before she could find her voice.

Hoppy Uniatz had the engine of the convertible racing as Simon opened the door, and he scarcely gave the Saint time to sit down before he banged in the clutch and sent the car roar­ing up the street and lurching around the first corner against the lights.

'What are you trying to do?' Simon asked. 'Pick up a ticket?'

'Don't worry, boss,' Hoppy said. 'De getaway is a cinch. I drove lotsa dese jobs before. Dijja blast him good?'

Simon considered him.

'What on earth are you talking about?'

''Dat bum, Grady! Ya just give him de business, don'tcha?'

The Saint shook his head patiently.

'No, Hoppy, no. I never said that our visitor last night was Mike Grady. Let's head for Riverside Drive-I want to talk to Steve Nelson in person.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

The blue convertible swept up Riverside Drive through the sixties, past the seventies, with the sun­drenched wind whispering through Simon Templar's crisp dark hair; it was a clean brisk wind cooled by the majestic mile- wide ribbon of the Hudson which ran parallel on their left, its shining waters stippled by the wind in a million break­ ing facets that caught the bright sunlight in broad mosaics of burnished gold. All in all, the Saint thought, it was much too gay and lovely a day for exploring spiritual sewers, or delving into the fetid labyrinths of murder.

They were in the eighties before the Saint signaled Hoppy to slow down.

'It's that house at the end of the block,' he said.

The big car swooped to the curb and drew to a halt before one of the three-storied brownstone buildings which stand along Riverside Drive like autumnal spinsters, their old-fash­ioned elegance reminiscent of a more sedate and happier era.

'De champ live here?' Hoppy asked with some wonder.

'It says so in the directory.'

'Wit' his dough, I'd be livin' on Park Avenue.'

'That's why you wouldn't have his dough for long.' Simon got out of the car. 'Wait for me, Hoppy. I won't be long.'

A glance at the letter boxes revealed that Steve Nelson had an apartment on the second floor. Simon opened the door and went to the foot of the thickly carpeted stairway. The gloom inside was stygian by contrast with the brightness of the street, but he was able to make out the doorway of Steve Nelson's apartment at the head of the stairs. From the same direction came the sound of male voices raised in argument.

Simon gripped the ornately carved banister and bounded upward lightly and with absolute silence; before he reached the top, however, the voices suddenly rose to shouting violence. There was a girl's scream, and the door flew open with a crash. A bull-necked citizen staggered backward out of the door, followed by a taller quick-moving younger man who gripped him by the shoulder, spun him around with a jerk, and sent him crashing down the stairs with a savage kick.

If the Saint hadn't been in the way, it is probable he would have continued to the bottom without more than two bounces. But, as it happened, Simon caught the impact of his weight on one arm and shoulder, lifted him to his feet, and had a good look at his face.

'Why, Karl!' Simon greeted him affably, keeping a firm grip on the dazed thug's lapel. 'How you do get around.'

Recognition and fear flared simultaneously in the gunman's eyes. With a sudden turn he jerked away and leaped the rest of the way down the stairs and disappeared out the door, leaving his coat in the Saint's hands.

'The Saint!' Connie Grady gasped.