The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

had come at last, the chance that he had been praying for. It followed so closely on the trend of his daydream that he could scarcely believe it was true. Now if only luck was with him-if the sudden fit of trembling that had seized his limbs wore off and left him as cool and steady-nerved as he had been in his dreams . . .

He did not notice the way they went, or give another thought or glance to the man who drove him. Again and again he lived over, in visions, a score of shootings in which he was the only surviving hero. . . . And then, in what seemed only a few minutes, he became aware that the car had stopped and the engine was switched off. They were in one of the small side streets of Chelsea -he could identify the district by the shops he could see in the King's Road at the end.

'Wot's up?' he demanded. 'This ain't the place.'

'This is a special secret headquarters,' said the driver, with a scrappy smile. 'You haven't been here before.'

Clem Enright's chest swelled as he followed his guide through the street door, along a narrow passage, and up a long flight of stairs. Special secret headquarters! He had had no notion that there was such a place. He would swear that Ted Orping had never seen it. And he was the privileged one who had been chosen for what must be an extraordinarily important mission. All at once his opinions of Ted Orping underwent a catastro­phic change. They became almost pitying. A nice chap, Ted, but a bit full of himself. Liked to pretend he was bigger than he was. Plenty of muscle, of course, but you wanted more than that. Brains. Personality. . . .

They went through a miniature hall and passed into a spacious studio that lofted right up into the roof. It was impossible to see out, for all the light came from two large skylights high up in the rafters. And then Clem heard the unmistakable click of a lock and spun round.

His guide was leaning against the door, detaching the key from the lock and dropping it into his pocket. While Enright stared at him, fascinated, he pitched away the cigar and removed the tinted glasses which had so effectively disguised him.

'What d'you think you could pose as, Clem?' inquired the Saint chattily. 'Ajax defying the light­ning ?'

CHAPTER VII ENRIGHT crouched back against a divan, with his eyes distending as if they were being inflated by a couple of power pumps.

'Wot's the idea?' he croaked.

'Just words,' answered Simon urbanely. 'Words, words, words, as the Swan of Avon used to tell his pals when Ann Hathaway had one of her off days.'

He took out his cigarette case and selected a cigarette, sauntering across the room with his level gaze fixed on Clem Enright all the time. There was something terrifying to the cockney about that unswerving and passionless stare. In a flash of unspeakable fear Clem remembered his gun and reached for it; and his stomach seemed to turn to water when he found that it was no longer at his hip.

Simon produced it from his own pocket.

'I borrowed it, Clem,' he explained easily. 'You haven't got a license for it, and that's a serious offense. Besides, it might have chipped the wallpaper if you missed me.'

He was right in front of Enright then, and the edge of the divan was directly behind the man's knees. Simon gave him a gentle push, and the cockney sat down with a bump.

'Now we can talk,' said the Saint.

He lighted his cigarette deliberately, while Clem watched him with scared and shrinking eyes. And then that very clear and level gaze found Enright's face again.

'This racket of yours is over, Clem,' said the Saint quietly. 'I'm cleaning it up today. As far as you're concerned, it's just a question whether we should hand you over to the police or give you a run for it.'

'I ain't never done nuffink, guv'nor,' Enright whined. 'Strite I ain't --'

'Straight you certainly aren't,' answered the Saint calmly. 'But we didn't bring you here to discuss that. We brought you here because there's something we want you to do, and the only interesting point is how long it's going to take to persuade you to do it. Have you ever heard of the third degree ?'

Enright cringed away with his face going white.

'Yer can't do that to me!' he yelped. 'Yer can't 'We can only try,' said the Saint mildly.

He opened a cupboard and proceeded to lay out on the table a life preserver, a short length of rubber hose, a large pair of pincers, and an instrument that looked very like a thumbscrew but was actually a patent tin opener. As he produced each item he weighed it in his hand, tested it meditatively, and gave Enright every chance to visualize its employment before he put it down.

Then he turned again to the shaking man.

'The flat underneath is empty,' he remarked pleasantly, 'so you can yell as much as you like. What would you like to have done to you first?'

Enright swallowed a lump in his throat. The stimulat­ing effects of the whisky he had drunk had vanished altogether, leaving him at the stage where he would have burst into tears on the slightest provocation. Nobody loved him, and he was going to be tortured till he talked.

'They'd kill me,' he said huskily. 'Joe Corrigan squealed, and 'e was killed.'

'No one will kill you if you behave,' said the Saint. 'You can lie low here till the gang's broken up, and I'll see you out of the country if you want to go abroad. Also I'll say nothing about you to the police, and I'll let you keep all your money.'

Clem Enright tried to lick the saliva round a mouth that had gone unaccountably arid. All his dreams of glory had gone west, and yet he felt lucky. There was that in the Saint's eye which told him that Ted Orping's lurid descriptions paled into fairy tales beside what that lean soft-spoken man was capable of doing.

'Wot d'yer want to know?'