'It doesn't wobble!' yapped the detective furi-ously.
'It wobbles when I poke it with my finger,' said the Saint coldly and proceeded to demonstrate.
Teal struck his hand aside.
'Now listen,' he brayed. 'You may be able to twist the law around to suit yourself for a while------'
'I can twist the law around to suit myself as long as I like,' said the Saint cheerfully; 'and when I fall down on it will be soon enough for you to come and see me again. Now you've completely spoiled my breakfast; and I've got an important appointment in ten minutes, so I can't stop to play with you any more. Drop in again next time you wake up, and I'll have some more to say to you.'
Chief Inspector Teal settled his bowler hat. The wrath and righteous indignation were steaming together under his waistcoat; but with a terrific effort he recovered his pose of torpid weariness.
'I'll have some more to say to you,' he replied curtly, 'and it'll keep you out of trouble for several years.'
'Let me know when you're ready,' murmured the Saint and opened the door for him with Old World courtesy.
A couple of minutes later, with his wide-brimmed felt hat tipped challengingly over his right eye, he was knocking at the door of the adjoining apartment.
'Come along, Hoppy,' he said. 'We've left it late enough already--and I can't afford to miss this date.'
Mr. Uniatz put down a bottle of whisky regretfully and took up his hat. They left the building by the entrance in Stratton Street; and as they came out onto the pavement a shabby and ancient touring car pulled away from the curb and went past. Simon felt as if a gust of wind plucked at his swashbuckling headgear and carried it spinning: the crack that went with the gust of wind might have been only one of the many backfires that a big city hears every hour.
VI
Simon collected his hat and dusted it thoughtfully. The bullet hole made a neat puncture in the centre of the crown--the only mistake in the aim had been the elevation. The attack surprised him seriously. He had allowed himself to believe that during his possession of Her Wedding Secret his life at least was safer than it had ever been--that while the opposition would go to any lengths to obtain that classic work, they would be extraordinarily solicitous about his own bodily health. He turned to Mr. Uniatz, and had a sudden spasm of alarm when he saw that enterprising warrior standing out on the edge of the sidewalk with an automatic waving towards the retreating car. Simon made a grab at the gun and whipped it under his coat.
'You everlasting fathead 1' he said. 'Where the blazes d'you think you are?'
Mr. Uniatz scratched his head and looked around him.
'I t'ink we're in Stratton Street, boss,' he said anxiously. 'Ain't dat right? I can't seem to find my way around dis town. Why ja grab de Betsy off of me? I could of plugged dat guy easy.'
The Saint sighed. By some miracle the street had been practically deserted, and no one appeared to have noticed the brief flourish of gangland armaments.
'Because if you'd plugged that guy you'd have had us both in the hoosegow before you knew what had happened, you poor sap,' he said tersely and slipped the lethal weapon cautiously back into its owner's pocket. 'Now keep that Betsy of yous buttoned up until I tell you to let it out--and try to remember which side of the Atlantic you're on, will you?'
They walked round to the garage where Simon kept his car, with Mr. Uniatz preserving a silence of injured perplexity. The ways of the Old World were strange to him; and his brain had never been geared to lightning adaptability. If one guy could lake a shot at another guy and get away with it, but the other guy couldn't take a shot back at the first guy without being clapped in the hoosegow, what the hell sort of a country was this England, lor God's sake? There was just no percentage in trying to hold down a racket in those parts, reflected Hoppy Uniatz, and laboured over the subtleties of this sociological observation for twenty minutes, while Simon Templar whisked the huge purring Hirondel through the traffic to the southwest.
Simon had a difficult problem to ponder, and he was inclined to share it.
'Tell me, Hoppy,' he said. 'Suppose a bloke had some papers that he was blackmailing you with--papers that would be the end of you if they ever came out. Suppose he'd got your signed confession to a murder, or something like that. What would you do about it?'
Mr. Uniatz rubbed his nose.
'Dat's easy, boss. I'd bump de guy off, sure.'
'I'm afraid you would,' said the Saint. 'But suppose you did bump him off--those papers would still be around somewhere, and you wouldn't know who was going to get hold of them next.'
This had not occurred to Mr. Uniatz. He frowned gloomily for a while; and then he brightened again as the solution struck him like a ray of sunshine.
'Why, boss,' he said, 'I know what I'd do. After I'd bumped him off, I'd look for de papers.'
'And where would you look for them?' asked the Saint.
'In de guy's pocket,' said Mr. Uniatz promptly.
'And suppose they weren't there?' Hoppy sighed. The corrugations of worried thought returned to his brow. Thinking had never been his greatest talent--it was one of the very f ew things that were capable of hurting his head.
Simon shot the Hirondel between a lorry and an omnibus with the breadth of a finger to spare, on either side and tried to assist.
'I mean, Hoppy,' he said, 'you might have thought: 'Suppose I bump this guy off. Suppose he isn't carrying the papers in his pocket. Well, when a guy's bumped off, one of the first things; the cops want to know is who did it. And one of the ways of finding that out is to find out who might have had a reason to do it. And one of the ways of finding that out is to go through his letters and everything else like that that you can get hold of.' So if you'd thought all that out, Hoppy, you might have decided that if you bumped him off, the cops might get hold of the papers, and
