The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

"It ain't bad," said Tex Goldman. "It just wanted one thing, and she's here now."

She sat in the settee. He sat on the arm, looking down at her.

"Gee, baby," he said, "if you told me a week ago I could do this, I'd 've burst myself laughin'. Must be old age, I reckon."

"I don't care what it is."

Goldman took out a bulky leather case. With the unconsciousness of habit, he nipped the end off a cigar and stuck it between his teeth.

"I guess you know all about me," he said.

"I don't mind."

"It ain't much to think about. All my life I been a hood. That's the way I was raised. I came out of the gutter-but I came out. Back in St. Louis they call me tough. I killed plenty men, but that don't seem to mean a thing. It's the way you work in the racket-bump a guy before he bumps you. But I never double-crossed a pal, and I never carried a gun for vice. I ain't pullin' any reformation act. I guess I'll go on the same way- till I get mine."

She took a scented cigarette from a lacquer case and stared straight ahead.

"I'm not such a schoolgirl myself," she said quietly. "I've been around. I don't like killing-any of those things you do. I don't like knowing I'll have to sit around and wait till someone does the same thing to you. I didn't think I could ever face it. Now it seems different, somehow. I've got no choice. I just want you to be good to me."

"I'm on the level, kid. I never been mushy in my life, so I can't say any of those pretty things you'd like to hear. But I'll play square with you."

"Always?"

"Say, if I ever give you the runaround, you can put me on the spot with my own gun."

It was at that moment that Tex Goldman's head was hit.

The blow didn't stun him. It wasn't intended to. But he felt the sickening sharp crash of a gun butt at the base of his hair, and it seemed to rock the brain inside his skull so that for a second or two his sight was blotted out in a dizzy sea of blackness filled with whirling red sparks. He pitched forward, throwing out his hands, and saved himself on the table. He heard the girl beside him cry out, and then a hand snatched at his hip pocket before his wits could struggle back to coherent functioning. When his own hand reached the pocket his gun was gone.

He turned slowly and saw the weapon being juggled gently round the forefinger of a tall man in grey.

"Hullo, Tex."

Goldman drew himself up rockily under the rake of the tall man's smile.

"What the hell --"

"No bad language, Tex," said the Saint. "I'm sorry I had to dot you a small one, but I thought it'd be safer. You're the kind of guy who wouldn't be stuck up very easily, and if you tried to shoot it out with me the birds in the other apartments might have heart failure."

Goldman's eyes creased up till only the pupils showed, gleaming like frozen chips of jet.

"Mr. Simon Templar?"

"Yeah. And breaking up your racket. This country can get along without your kind of crime. Maybe Amer­ica can show us lots of things, but you've come over with one kind of thing we don't want to be shown. It upsets all the dear old ladies who make our laws." The Saint was not smiling. "Too many men have been killed since you set up shop. I came here to kill you, Tex."

The girl clutched at Tex Goldman's hand, staring at the Saint with wide pitiful eyes.

"You can't!" she sobbed. "You can't! We were only married to-day --"

Not a muscle of the Saint's face moved.

"I'm taking the girl, too," he said. "For another reason. You get it together."

She shrank against Tex Goldman's shoulder, with horror added to the tragedy of her eyes.

"Why d'you want to kill me?" she whispered. "I've done nothing. I've never killed anyone. . . . But I don't care. I don't care! I love him! Go on, you coward"

"Never mind that." Tex Goldman's voice cut very quietly and tremorlessly through hers. "Never mind what you think she's done, Templar. I guess you're wrong about her. She's on the level. You can't burn down a woman. You got me all right. Give me what's coming to me. But let the kid get the hell out of here first. I can take it for both of us."

He looked at the Saint without flinching. That was the racket. You took it when your turn came, without whining. You didn't show yellow.

And then he saw that the Saint was smiling.

"Thanks, Tex," said the Saint. "You've got the guts. I guess that lets you out."

CHAPTER VIII GOLDMAN didn't understand.