THE visitors who came to see the Saint uninvited were not only members of the C.I.D. In several years of spectacular outlawry, Simon Templar had acquired a reputation which was known wherever newspapers were read.
'There must be something about me that excites the storytelling instinct in people,' he complained once to Patricia Holm, who should have known better than anyone how seriously to take his complaint. 'Four out of every five have it, and their best friends won't tell 'em.'
Most of the legends that circulated about him were fabulously garbled, but the fundamental principles were fairly accurate. As a result, he had an ever-growing public which seemed to regard him as something between a benevolent if slightly weak-minded uncle and a miracle-working odd-job man. They ranged from burglars who thought that his skill might be enlisted in their enterprises for a percentage of the proceeds, to majestic dowagers who thought that he might be instrumental in tracing a long-lost Pekinese; from shop girls in search of romance to confidence men in search of a likely buyer of a gold brick. Sometimes they were interesting, sometimes they were pathetic; mostly they were merely tiresome. But on rare occasions they brought the Saint in touch with those queer happenings and dark corners in other people's lives from which many of his adventures began, and for that reason there were very few of them whom he refused to see.
There was one lady in particular whom he always forced himself to remember whenever he was tempted to dodge one of these callers, for she was quite definitely the least probable herald of adventure who ever crossed his path. He was, as a matter of fact, just ready to go out one morning when Sam Outrell telephoned up to announce her.
'Your Jersey 'as come back from the cleaners, sir,' was his cryptic postscript to the information.
Sam Outrell had been raised on a farm, many years before he came to be head porter in the apartment building on Piccadilly where the Saint lived, and incidentally one of Simon's loyalest watch-dogs; and the subterfuges by which he managed to convey a rough description of visitors who were standing at his elbow were often most abstrusely bucolic. Simon could still remember the occasion, when he had been suffering tireless persecution from a stout Society dame who was trying to manufacture divorce evidence against her doddering spouse, on which Sam had told him that 'Your silk purse has turned up, sir,' and had explained later that he meant to convey that 'The old sow's 'ere.'
'I'll have a look at it,' said the Saint, after a brief hesitation.
Viewing Mrs. Florence Ellshaw for the first time, when he opened the door to her, Simon could not deny that Sam Outrell had an excuse for his veiled vulgarity. She was certainly very bovine in build, with stringy mouse- coloured hair and a remarkable torso-the Saint didn't dislike her, but he did not feel that Life would have been incomplete if she had never discovered his address.
'It's about me 'usband, sir,' said Mrs. Ellshaw, putting the matter in what must have looked to her like a nut shell.
'What is about your husband?' asked the Saint politely.
'I seen 'im,' declared Mrs. Ellshaw emphatically. 'I seen 'im last night, plain as I can see you, I did, Mm wot left me a year ago wivout a word, after all I done for 'im, me that never gave 'im a cross word even when 'e came 'ome late an' left all 'is money at the local, as large as life 'e was, an' me workin' me fingers to the bone to feed 'is children, six of 'em wot wouldn't 'ave a rag to their backs if it weren't for me brother Bert as 'as a job in a garridge, with three of his own to look after and his wife an invalid she often cries all night, it's pitiful-Simon perceived that to let Mrs. Ellshaw tell her story in her own way would have required a lifetime's devotion.
'What do you want me to do?' he interrupted.
'Well, sir, I seen 'im last night, after 'im leaving me wivout a word, 'e might 'ave bin dead for all I was to know, after all I done for 'im, as I says to 'im only the day before 'e went, I says 'Ellshaw,' I says. 'I'm the best wife you're ever likely to 'ave, an' I defy you to say anythink else,' I says, an' me workin' me fingers to the bone, with varicose veins as 'urts me somethink terrible sometimes, I 'as to go an' sit down for an hour, this was in Duchess Place'
'What was in Duchess Place?' asked the Saint weakly.
'Why, where I sore 'im,' said Mrs. Ellshaw, ' 'im wot left me wivout a word- 'After all you done for him----'
'An' me doing for gentlemen around 'ere all these months to feed 'is children, wiv me pore legs achin', an' 'e turns an' runs away when 'e sees me as if I 'adn't bin the best wife a man ever 'ad, an' never a cross word between us all these years.'
The Saint had found it hard to believe that Mrs. Ellshaw had reached an intentional full stop, and concluded that she had merely paused for breath. He took a mean advantage of her momentary incapacity.
'Didn't you run after him?' he put in.
'That I did, sir, wiv me pore legs near to bursting after me being on them all day, an' 'e runs into an 'ouse an' slams the door, an' I gets there after 'im an' rings the bell an' nobody answers, though I waits there 'arf an hour if I waited a minnit, ringin' the bell, an' me sufferin' with palpitations wot always come over me if I run, the doctor tole me I mustn't run about, an' nobody answers till I says to meself, 'All right, Ellshaw,' I says, 'I'll be smarter'n you are,' I says, an' I goes back to the 'ouse this morning, not 'arf an hour ago it wasn't, an' rings the bell again like it might be a tradesman delivering somethink, an' 'e opens the door, an' when 'e seen me 'e gets all angry, if I 'adn't bin the best wife ever a man 'ad'
'And never a cross word between you all these years----'
' 'Yer daft cow,' 'e says, 'can't yer see yer spoilin' everythink?' 'Never you mind wot I'm spoiling,' I says, 'even if it is some scarlet 'ussy yer livin' with in that 'ouse, you gigolo,' I says, 'leaving me wivout a word after all I done for you,' I says; and 'e says to me, ' 'Ere's some money, if that's wot yer after, an' you can 'ave some more any time you want it, so now will you be quiet an' get out of 'ere or else you'll lose me me job, that's wot you'll do, if anybody sees you 'ere,' 'e says, an' 'e shoves some money into me 'and an' slams the door again, so I come straight round 'ere to see you, sir.'
'What for?' asked the Saint feebly.
He felt that he was only inviting a fresh cataract of unpunctuated confidences, but he could think of no other question that seemed so entirely apt.
Mrs. Ellshaw, however, did not launch out into another long-distance paragraph. She thrust one of her beefy paws into the fleshy canyon that ran down from her breastbone into the kindly concealment of her clothing, and
