The Saint in Action Read Free Page B

afflicted him in recent years could be directly traced to the exploits of that incredible outlaw who had danced so long and so derisively just beyond Mr Teal’s legal reach— who had mocked him, baffled him, cheated him, eluded him, brought down upon him the not entirely justified censure of his superiors and set him more insoluble problems than any other man alive. Perhaps it was some of these acid memories that welled up into the detective’s weary brain and stimulated that spontaneous outburst of feeling. For wherever the Saint went there was trouble, and trouble of a kind with which Mr Teal had grown miserably familiar.
    “Claud!” said the Saint reprovingly. “Is that nice? Is it kind? Is that the way your dear old mother would like to hear you speak?”
    “Never mind my mother–-“
    “How could I, Claud? I never met her. How’s she getting on?”
    Mr Teal swallowed and turned towards the policeman who had brought Simon in.
    “What did you let him in for?” he demanded in a voice of fearful menace.
    The policeman swayed slightly before the blast.
    “Richards brought him up, sir. I understood you were expecting him–-“
    “And so you are, Claud,” said the Saint. “Why be so bashful about it?”
    Teal stared at him malevolently.
    “Why should I be expecting you?”
    “Because you always are. It’s a habit. Whenever anybody does anything you come and unbosom yourself to me. Whenever any crime’s been committed I did it. So just for once I thought I’d come and see you and save you the trouble of coming to see me. Pretty decent of me, I call it.”
    “How did you know a crime had been committed?”
    “It was deduction,” said the Saint. “You see, I happened to be ambling along by here when I saw a policeman at the door and a small crowd outside and your intellectual features leering out of the door to say something to the said cop; so I went into a teashop and had a small cup of cocoa while I thought it over. I admit that the first idea that crossed my mind was that you’d been thrown out—I mean that you’d retired from the force and gone in for art, and that you were holding an exhibition of your works, and that the crowd outside was waiting for the doors to open, and that you were telling the cop to keep them in order for a bit because you couldn’t find your false beard. It was only after some remarkable brain work that I avoided falling into this error. Gradually the real solution dawned on me–-“
    “Now you mention it,” Teal said ominously, “why did you happen to be ambling along here?”
    “Why shouldn’t I, Claud? I have to amble somewhere, and they say this is a free country. There are several thousands of other people ambling around Chelsea, but do you rush out into the streets and grab them and ask them why?”
    Mr Teal’s pudgy fists clenched inside his pockets. Tt was happening again—the same as it always had. He set out to be a detective, and some evil spirit turned him into a clown. It wasn’t his fault. It was the fault of that debonair, mocking, lazily smiling Mephistopheles who was misnamed the Saint, who seemed to have been born with the uncanny gift of paralyzing the detective’s trained and native caution and luring him into howling gaucheries that made Mr Teal go hot and cold when he thought about them. And the more often it happened, the more easily it happened next time. There was an awful fatefulness about it that made Mr Teal want to burst into tears.
    He took hold of himself doggedly, glowering up at the Saint with a concentrated uncharitableness that would have made a lion think twice before biting him.
    “Well,” he said with a restraint that made the veins stand out on his forehead, “what do you want here?”
    “I just thought I’d drop in and see how you were getting on with your detecting. Quite a jolly little murder it looks, too, if I may say so.”
    For the first time since the casual glance he had taken round the room when he came in