'Say,' he protested aggrievedly, 'whaddaya t'ink I got for a memory--a sieve?' He beamed again, reminiscently; and then another thought overcast his homely features with a shadow of retrospective alarm. 'An' I might of killed you!' he said in an awed voice.
The Saint smiled.
'If I'd known it was you, I mightn't have thought this gun was quite so funny,' he admitted. 'Well, well, well, Hoppy--this is a long way from little old New York. What brings you here?'
Mr. Uniatz scrambled up from the floor and scratched his head.
'Well, boss,' he said, 't'ings never were de same after prohibition went out, over dere. I bummed around fer a while, but I couldn't get in de money. Den I hoid dey was room fer guys like me to start up in London, so I come over. But hell, boss, dese Limeys dunno what it's all about, fer God's sake. Why, I asks one mob over here what about gettin' a coupla typewriters, an' dey t'ink I'm nuts.' Mr. Uniatz frowned for a moment, as if the incapability of the English criminal to appreciate the sovereign uses of machine guns was still preying on his mind. 'I guess I must of been given a bum steer,' he said.
Simon nodded sympathetically and strolled across to the table for a cigarette. He had known Hoppy Uniatz many years ago as a seventh-rate gunman of the classical Bowery breed and had never been able to regard him with the same distaste as he viewed other hoodlums of the same species. Hoppy's outstanding charm was a skull of almost phenomenal thickness, which, while it had protected his brain from fatal injury on several occasions, had by its disproportionate density of bone left so little space for the development of grey matter that he had been doomed from the beginning to linger in the very lowest ranks even of that unintellectual profession; but at the same time it lent to Hoppy's character a magnificent simplicity which the Saint found irresistible. Simon could understand that Hoppy might easily have been lured across the Atlantic by exaggerated rumours of an outbreak of armed banditry in London; but that was not all he wanted to know.
'My heart bleeds for you, Hoppy,' he murmured. 'But what made you think I had anything worth stealing?'
'Well, boss,' explained MY. Uniatz apologetically, 'it's like dis. I get interdooced to a guy who knows annudder guy who's bein' blackmailed, an' dis guy wants me to get back whatever it is he's bein' blackmailed wit' an' maybe bump off de guy who's got it. So I'm told to rent an apartment here, an' I got de one next door to you--it's a swell apartment, wit' a bathroom an' everyt'ing. Dat's how I'm able to come in de building wit'out de janitor stoppin' me an' askin' who I wanna see.''
Simon blew out a thoughtful streamer of smoke --he had overlooked that method of slipping through his defenses.
'Didn't they tell you my name?' he asked.
'Sure. But all dey tell me is it's a Mr. Templar, When I hear it, I feel somehow I oughta remember de name,' said Mr. Uniatz, generously forgetting the indignation with which he had received a recent aspersion on his memory, 'but I never knew it was you. Honest, Saint, if I'd of known it was you, it'd of been ixnay on de job, for mine. Ya wouldn't believe anyt'ing else, woujja, boss?'
The Saint shook his head.
'You know, Hoppy,' he said slowly, 'I don't think I would.'
An idea was germinating in his mind--one of those sublimely fantastic ideas that sometimes came to him, an idea whose gorgeous simplicity, even in embryo, brought the ghost of a truly Saintly smile back to his lips. He forgot his interrupted beauty sleep.
'Could you do with a drink, old man?' he asked.
Hoppy Uniatz allowed the breath to hiss between his teeth, and a light of childlike beatitude irradiated his face.
'Boss,' he replied, 'what couldn't I do with a drink?'
Simon refrained from suggesting any answers to the conundrum. He poured out a liberal measure and saved his soda water. Mr. Uniatz took the glass, sniffed it, and sucked his saliva for a moment of disciplined anticipation.
'Don't get me wrong, boss,' he said earnestly. 'Dose t'ings I said about Limeys wasn't meant poisonal. I ain't never t'ought about you as a Limey. You been in New York, an' you know what it's all about. I know we had some arguments over dere, but over on dis side it don't seem de same. Say, I been so lonesome here it makes me feel kinda mushy just to have a little fight like we had just now wit' a guy like you, who knows what a Roscoe's for. I wish you an' me could of teamed up before, boss.'
The Saint had helped himself to a more modest dose of whisky. He stretched himself out on the davenport and waved Mr. Uniatz to an armchair.
'Maybe it's not too late even now, Hoppy,' he said; and he had much more to talk about, which kept him out of bed for another two hours.
V
Chief Inspector Teal arrived while the Saint was finishing a belated breakfast. Simon Templar's breakfasts were usually belated, for he had never been able to appreciate the spiritual rewards of early rising; but on this particular morning the lateness was not entirely his fault. He had already been interrupted twice during the meal, and the bell which heralded the third interruption made him finally abandon a cup of coffee which had abandoned all pretension to being even lukewarm.
'Mr. Teal is here, sir,' said Sam Outrell's voice on the telephone; and the Saint sighed.
'Okay, Sam. Send him up.' He replaced the microphone and turned back to Mr. Uniatz, who was engulfing quantities of toast with concentrated gusto. 'I'm afraid you've got to blow again, Hoppy,' he said. 'I'll see you later.'
Mr. Uniatz rose wearily. He had been shot out of the Saint's apartment to make room for other visitors so often that morning that he had grave fears for his digestion. There was one slice of toast left for which even his Gargantuan mouth was temporarily unable to find room. In order to eliminate any further risks of having his meal disturbed, he put the slice in his pocket and went out obediently; and he was the first thing that Teal saw when Simon opened the door.
'Hi, Claud,' said Mr. Uniatz amiably and drifted on towards the sanctity of his own quarters.
'Who the deuce is that?' demanded the startled detective, staring after Hoppy's retreating rear.
