The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

in fact do anything whatsoever that might by any conceivable chance endanger the life of a reasonably healthy and intelligent man, the insurance company would be charmed to accept his premiums. His opinion of insurance companies was that they were bloated organizations which were delighted to take anybody's money over risks that had been eliminated from every angle that human ingenuity could foresee. They were fair game so far as he was concerned, and his conscience was even more pachydermatous than usual over their rare misfortunes.

But he came back to a London in which the insurance companies were more worried than they had been for many years.

Patricia Holm met him in the Haymarket, where the Air Union bus decanted him after an uneventful journey from Ostend. One of the first things he saw was a crim­son evening newspaper poster proclaiming 'Another Bank Hold-up,' but he was not immediately impressed. They strolled up to Oddenino's for a cocktail, and she sprang the news on him rather suddenly.

'They got Joe Corrigan,' she said.

Simon raised his eyebrows. He read the newspaper cutting which she handed him, and smoked a cigarette.

'Poor devil!. . . But what a fool! He shouldn't have gone back-at least, I thought he'd have the sense to put up a good story. Goldman must have caught him out somehow. . . .. Tex is clever!'

The cutting simply described the finding of the body and its identification. Corrigan was the man of doubtful associations with three convictions to his name, and the police were hopeful of making an early arrest.

'I saw Claud Eustace in Piccadilly the day before yesterday,' said Patricia. 'He as good as told me they hadn't a hope of getting the man who did it.'

'I suppose it'd be a long shot if the night porter in Tex's block recognized the photograph,' said the Saint thoughtfully. 'It isn't particularly flattering to Joe. And the whole Green Cross bunch would have their alibis.' He speared a cherry and frowned at it. 'Tex might have done it himself-or else it was Ted Orping. I don't see Brother Clem as a cold-blooded killer.'

'There've been some odd-looking men hanging about Manson Place,' she told him; and the Saint's eyebrows slanted again-dangerously.

'Any trouble?'

'No. But I've been taking care not to come home late at night.'

Simon sipped his Bronx and gazed at the Bac­chanalian array of shakers and glasses stencilled on the coloured glass behind the bar.

'I expected things would be quiet. Tex isn't the lad to waste his energies on side issues when there's big stuff in the offing. Now that I'm home, South Kensing­ton may get unhealthy. Glory be, Pat-wouldn't you love to see the faces of the local trouts if Tex started spraying S.W.7 with Tommy guns for my benefit?'

It was characteristic of him to turn off the menace with a flippant remark, and yet he knew better than anyone what a threat hung over others in London besides himself-others who had a far sounder claim than he to object to a lavish expenditure of ammunition. The Saint had never cared to live safely; but there were others who held their lives less lightly.

Before dinner was over he had learned more. Things had been happening quickly in London while he had been away, and behind them all he could see the guiding hand of the man from St. Louis. After the fiasco of the Peabody raid it seemed as if Goldman had gone all out for a restoration of confidence in his followers. The work was rapid, ruthlessly thorough, a desperate bid for power under the standards of sudden death. The day after the Peabody raid, another jeweller's shop had been successfully smashed in Bond Street, and on the same night a small safe deposit off the Tottenham Court Road had been blasted open and half emptied while masked men with revolvers held a small crowd at bay and covered the escape of the inside party before the police reached the scene. In those cases the victims were discreet rather than valorous.

It was different at the Battersea branch of the Metropolitan Bank, which the same men held up the following midday. A cashier attempted to reach for a gun under the counter, and was shot dead where he stood. The gang escaped with over two thousand pounds in cash.

While officialdom was still humming with that out­rage, another bank in Edmonton was similarly held up; but with the warning of the Metropolitan Bank murder fresh in their memories, the staff showed no resistance.

Conferences were held, and special reserves of armed men in plain clothes were called out to cover as many likely spots as possible. But the police were again out­guessed. The next day, an excess of confidence on the part of the management concerned allowed a private car bearing the week's pay envelopes for half a dozen branches of a popular library to leave a bank in the City. It was intercepted at its first stop, the messenger sandbagged, and fifteen hundred pounds in cash stolen. A constable on point duty saw the incident and tried to pursue the bandits' car on the running board of a commandeered taxi. He was shot off it by the fugitives and seriously injured, but it was expected that he would live.

The tale went through a sequence of barefaced brigandage that was staggering.

'We're getting 'em scared,' Tex Goldman said. 'That's the only way to do it. Hit 'em, and keep on hitting. Don't give 'em time to think. In a month or two they'll be begging for mercy.'

'You bet,' said Orping.

He had automatically become Goldman's aide-de­camp, and held his position by his own audacity. It was he who had shot the Metropolitan Bank cashier- in a week he had become a confirmed killer, with two notches on his gun and the bravado of experience. 'Basher' Tope, who had shot the policeman, ran him a fair second.

Ted Orping poured out a dose of brandy from a silver hip flask. He had learned that trick too, and he used it often. Alcohol braced his recklessness up to a point at which murder meant nothing.

'The guy I'm wantin' to see again is the Saint,' he said.

'You'll get your chance,' said Goldman. 'We'll know about it the minute he comes home. I'd like to see him myself.'

He might or might not have been pleased to know that Simon Templar shared that wish with him in no uncertain manner.

As far as the Saint was concerned, the desired opportunity came his way with a promptness for which he had