The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

There was no report-only a sharp liquid hiss. A shining jet of ammonia leapt from the muzzle of the gun like a pencil of polished glass, and struck Ted Orping accurately on the bridge of his nose. It sprayed out over his face from the point of impact, burning his eyeballs with its agonizing sting and filling his lungs with pungent choking vapours. Orping fell back with a gasp; and Simon Templar opened the door.

He stepped out onto the pavement, and his gun still covered the two men. Clem Enright cringed away.

"So long, Clem," said the Saint genially.

He ran down to the other car. The engine was ticking smoothly over as he reached it, and he swung himself nimbly in beside the girl who sat waiting at the wheel. The car swung out and skimmed neatly past the front wheels of the motionless bandit wagon ahead; and the Saint turned to wave a farewell to the two helpless men as they went by.

Then he sank back with a laugh and lighted a ciga­rette.

"Haven't you ever noticed that the simplest ideas are usually the best?" he remarked. "That old water-pistol gag, for instance: could anything be more ele­mentary, and yet more bright and beautiful? I see that our technique is not yet perfect, Pat-all we need is to discover some trick with the smell of the Ark still wafting fruitily about it, and we could clean up the world."

Patricia Holm steered the huge Hirondel round another corner, and the wind caught her fair hair as she turned to smile at him.

"Simon," she said dispassionately, "you have no conscience."

"None," said Simon Templar.

He was wearing a dinner jacket under his leather coat, and Joe Corrigan's cap went into a pocket in the car. Half an hour later they were strolling into the Breakfast Club for a celebratory plate of bacon and eggs and a final turn round the minute dance floor. And to any casual observer who saw the Saint drifting debonairly through the throng of elegant idlers, ex­changing words with an acquaintance here and there, straightening the head waiter's tie, and at last demolish­ing a large dish of the club's world-famous specialty, it would have been difficult to believe that the police and the underworld alike reckoned him the most dangerous man in England-or that a matter of mere minutes earlier he had been giving a convincing demonstration that his hand had lost none of its cunning.

It amused Simon Templar to be taken for one of those elegant idlers, just as it amused him to be known for something totally different in other and no less exclusive circles. He was due to derive a great deal of amusement from the fact that a certain gentleman from St. Louis counted him the most serious obstacle to a well-planned campaign that was just coming to ma­turity.

CHAPTER II THE city of St. Louis was not particularly proud of Tex Goldman. It knew him as a man who had successfully "beaten the rap" on five notorious occasions, who was no less at home with typewriters and pineapples than he was with the common heater, who had a choice selection of judges and police captains eating out of his hand, and who secured whatever subscriptions to the funds of "protection" he set out to collect. He ranked third on the city's roll of public enemies, and he made no secret of his aspirations to an even higher position; but nearly nine months ago an unfortunate incident had dictated a lengthy holiday. Tex Goldman had taken on the task of reducing a recalcitrant section of the Chinese laundry proprietors to a proper sense of their responsibilities, and in the process one of his bullets had found its mark in the heart of the leader of a powerful tong. Before nightfall the war gongs were beating for him; and Tex Goldman, who was no coward, took the advice of his friends and left St. Louis for his health.

He headed for New York, and felt homesick. He was used to being recognized as a big shot, but he found that Manhattan Island scored him as a smalltown hoodlum. When it formed any other estimate of him, the result was a warning to watch his step and pipe down. The Great Wet Way had its own emperors, who were not disposed to encourage competition. If he had been a smaller man he could probably have found a billet for his heater in one of the Broadway czars' bodyguards; if he had been bigger he might have negotiated for a little kingdom of his own; but Tex Goldman in those days came just between the useful extremes, and he wasn't wanted. Also he had a tip that the tong's hatchet men were close behind him. There was plenty of jack in his pocket, and for reasons known only to himself his thoughts wandered to a holiday in the Old World.

He came to England, looked around, and thought of business.