The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

'It will not really be necessary to go to Penzance, Ali,' he remarked deliberately; and the man nodded and went out.

Stride's bloodshot eyes stared at the Egyptian.

'''My God-you're a cold-blooded devil!' he half gasped.

Osman chuckled wheezily.

'Oh, no, not cold-blooded, my dear Stride! You ought to know that. Far from it. But a dead fool is a safe fool, and I believe in safety first. But not cold­blooded. There are times when my flesh burns like fire- have I not told you?'

Galbraith Stride shuddered in spite of himself, for he knew what Osman meant.

'I came to see you about that,' he said jerkily.

'Ah! You have decided?'

Stride nodded. He sat down at the table, helped him­self with nervous fingers from the inlaid cigarette box. The secretary stood by, ignored by both.

It was a strange venue for a peace conference, but that was what it was-and it explained also the terror which had come to Galbraith Stride that afternoon on the sunny deck of his yacht, the terror that had looked at him out of two cold reckless eyes that were as blue as the sea. Each of those two men was a power in an underground world of ugly happenings, though in their personal contact there was no question about which was the dominating personality. Even as Abdul Osman's tentacles of vice reached from Shanghai to Constanti­nople, so did Galbraith Stride's stretch from London south to the borders of the Adriatic and out west across the ocean to Rio.

Looking at Abdul Osman, one could build about him just such a mastery, but there was nothing about Galbraith Stride to show the truth. And yet it was true. Somehow, out of the restless cunning that evolved from the cowardice of his ineffectual physique, Stride had built up that subterranean kingdom and held it together, unknown to his stepdaughter, unknown to the police, unknown even to the princelings of his noisome empire, who communicated with him only through that silent Ramon Almido who passed as Stride's secretary. And thus, with the growth of both their dominions, it had come to a conference that must leave one of them supreme. Abdul Osman's insatiable lust for power dictated it, for Stride would have been content with his own boundaries. And with it, in the first meeting between them, had come to Abdul Osman the knowledge that he was Stride's master, that he need not be generous in treating for terms. The spectacle of Stride's uneasiness was another sop to Osman's pride.

'What a different conclusion there might have been if we had not both simultaneously thought of depositing the same letters with our solicitors!' said Osman re­flectively. 'To think that if either of us died suddenly there would be left instructions to the police to investigate carefully the alibi of the. other! Quite a dramatic handicap, isn't it?'

Stride licked his lips.

'That's the only part of the bargain you've kept,' he said. 'Why, I've just heard you admit that your men have been landing cocaine here.'

'I took the liberty of assuming our agreement to be a foregone conclusion,' said Osman smoothly. Then his voice took on a harsher tone. 'Stride, there's only one way out for you. For the last two years my agents have been steadily accumulating evidence against you- evidence which would prove absorbing reading to your good friends at Scotland Yard. That is the possibility for which you were not prepared, and it's too late now for you to think of laying the same trap for me. In another month that evidence can be brought to the point where it would certainly send you to prison for the rest of your life. You see, it was so much easier for me than for the police-they did not know whom to suspect, whereas I knew, and only had to prove it.'

Stride had heard that before, and he did not take much notice.

'And so,' continued Osman, 'I make you the very fine offer of your liberty; and in return for that you retire from business and I marry Miss Laura.'

Stride started up.

'That's not what you said!' he blurted. 'You said if I-if I gave you Laura-you'd retire from Turkey and --'

'I changed my mind,' said Osman calmly. 'Why should I give? I was foolish. I hold all the cards. I am tired of arguing. As soon as this Simon Templar is on board I wish to leave-the year is getting late, and I can't stand your winters. Why should I make con­cessions?' He spat-straight to the priceless carpet, an inch from his visitor's polished shoes. 'Stride, you were a fool to meet me yourself. If you had dealt with me through your clever Mr. Almido I might have had some respect for you. You are not sufficiently important to look at-it shows me too plainly which of us is going to get his own way.'

He spoke curtly, and, oddly enough for him, with a lack of apparent conceit that made his speech deadly in its emphasis. And Stride knew that Osman spoke only the truth. Yet, even then, if certain things had not happened ...

'You are afraid of the Saint, Stride,' said Osman, reading the other's thoughts. 'You are more afraid of him perhaps than you are of prison. You did not know that he knew you, but now that you know, you want nothing more than to run away and hide in some place where he can't find you. Well, you can go. I shouldn't stand in your way, my dear Stride.'

The other did not answer. Something had broken in the core of his resistance-a thing which only a psychologist who knew the workings of his mind, and the almost superstitious fear which the name of the Saint could still drive into many consciences, could have understood. He sat huddled in a kind of collapse; and Osman looked at him and chuckled again.

'I shall expect a note to tell me that you agree by ten o'clock tonight. You will send it across by hand- and who could be better employed to deliver it than Miss Laura?'

Galbraith Stride stood up and went out without a word

CHAPTER VI

SIMON TEMPLAR saw young Harry Trape and his com panion carrying their suitcases down to the quay and thought they were trying to catch the Scillonian, which was scheduled to sail for the mainland at 4:15. He watched their descent rather wistfully, from the hillside where he was walking, for it was his impression that they had got off much too lightly. He was not to know that Abdul Osman had himself decided to dispense with their existence according to the laws of a strictly oriental code by which the penalty of failure was death; but if he had known, the situation would have appealed to his sense of humour even more than the memory of his recent treatment of young