Saint on Guard Read Online Free PDF Page B

satellites.
    “Have you searched him?”
    “Yes sir. No weapons.”
    “Go out and phone for a homicide detail—better not use any of the phones in here. Al, you go upstairs and look over the other rooms, but don’t touch anything.”
    The two men left, and Simon straightened his clothes to restore his natural elegance from the disorder which the rough search of his person had produced. He copld never have looked more at case and debonair, as if it had never occurred to him that the most diaphanous cloud of suspicion could ever cast a shadow on his unspotted probity.
    “Quite a neat little job, isn’t it?” he remarked affably.
    Fernack stared up at him, and his gaze was curiously sad.
    “If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said. “Simon, what in God’s name did you do it for?”
    The Saint’s brows rose in balanced arcs of shocked incredulity.
    “Henry—you couldn’t possibly have some doddering notion in your dear gray head that I really did blow Gabriel’s horn?”
    “Off the record,” Fernack said, relentless, “I was hoping against hope that the tip was a phony. But 1 might have known it would be like this one of these days.”
    “You’ve known people to try to frame me before.”
    “I’ve never seen such a cold case as this against you before.”
    Simon flipped ashes from the shortening end of his cigarette.
    “There was a tip-off, of course,” he said languidly. “How did you get it?”
    “On the telephone.”
    “Man or woman?”
    “A man.”
    “Name and address?”
    Fernack took a breath.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Did you talk to him yourself?”
    “Yes. He asked for me.”
    “Why?”
    “People do sometimes. Besides, it’s been published quite a bit that I’m the man who’s supposed to do something about you.”
    “Fame is a wonderful thing,” said the Saint admiringly. “And what did this anonymous fan of yours have to report?”
    “He said: ‘I was passing Mr Linnet’s house on East Sixtythird Street, and I saw a man who looked as if he was breaking in. He looked just like the pictures of that fellow the Saint. I didn’t get it at first, and then when I did I walked back and there were noises | in the house as if there was a fight going on.’ “
    Simon nodded a number of times with the gravest respect.
    “I can see that I shouldn’t have underestimated your public,” he drawled. “They come from a very talented class. They know’ just whose house they’re passing on any street in town. With their catlike eyes, they can recognise characters like me in dark corners in a dimout. They can tell at a glance whether I’m trying to break in, or whether I’m just looking for the bell or the right key. And of course they know that you’re the only officer in New York to call out on a case like that. They wouldn’t dream of losing face by just mentioning it to the first cop they met on his beat.”
    The detective eased his collar with one powerfully controlled forefinger.
    “That’s all very clever,” he said stubbornly. “But I came here. And Linnet has been murdered. And you’re still here.”
    “Naturally I’m here,” said the Saint blandly. “I wanted to see him.”
    “What for?”
    “Because he manufactures electrical gadgets, and he needs iridium, and I heard he’d been buying from the black market. I thought I might persuade him to tell me a thing or two.”
    “And he wouldn’t talk, so you strangled him.”
    “Yes,” said the Saint tiredly. “I tied a string around his larynx to ease his vocal cords.”
    “And you left your mark on his door.”
    Simon glanced critically across the hall at the ungainly pattern of chalk lines that Fernack referred to.
    “Henry,” he said reasonably, “I’m not a hell of an artist, but you’ve seen some of my early original work. Would you honestly say that that was a typical job of mine? It looks kind of shaky and spavined to me.”
    The detective glowered at the drawing, and