The last time Simon Templar had seen the man who lay on the morgue slab was in the parlour of Sammy the Leg. Junior’s rat face was as unattractive in death as in life — less so, in view of the small blue-rimmed hole that marred his forehead. As the Saint looked at it, he was conscious of a curious urgency to dematerialise himself, drift like smoke towards the house near Wheaton, and ask Sammy questions.
Lieutenant Alvin Kearney was a very tall, very thin man with protruding brown eyes and a bobbing Adam’s apple. He seemed to be mainly fascinated by the body, in a sort of dull, desperate way.
“Know him?” he asked.
“What makes you think I would?” Simon countered cautiously.
“Ever seen him before?” Kearney insisted.
The Saint said plaintively, “I very seldom meet people with bullet-holes in their foreheads. They’re so taciturn they bore me.”
Kearney closed his mouth and juggled his Adam’s apple. His cheeks darkened a trifle.
“You’re funny as a crutch,” he said. “I want a straight answer.”
Simon’s innocent blue gaze met Kearney’s squarely.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help you. I can’t even tell you the man’s name. Who is he?”
“Dunno,” Kearney said. “Unidentified so far.”
“Oh. Did he have a note in his hand directing that his remains be sent to me?”
“Not quite,” Kearney said. “There was a sort of tie-up, though. We found him in a house just north of Wheaton. Ever been there?”
The Saint took out a cigarette and turned it between his fingers, correcting minute flaws in its roundness. His face wore no more reaction than a slight, thoughtful frown, but a prescient vacuum had suddenly created itself just below his ribs. It had always been obvious that Kearney hadn’t called him out of sheer civic hospitality. Now the showing of cards, led up to with almost Oriental obliquity, was starting to uncork a Sunday punch. But it was starting from such a fantastic direction that the Saint’s footwork felt stiff and stumbling.
He said, “Wait a minute, Lieutenant. You found this man in the house, you say?”
“Not me personally. But he was in a basement room there, yes.”
“Does the local patrolman’s beat include the inside of houses?”
Kearney said, “I get it. No, there was a phone call. An anonymous tip. The usual thing. We gave it a routine check-up, and there was this house with this guy in it.”
“No clues?” Simon said.
“Clues!” Kearney chewed the word. “Well — maybe one. We checked up to see who the house belongs to.”
He was staring at the Saint. Simon merely nodded and looked brightly interested.
Kearney said, “It belonged to an ex-con called Sammy the Leg, up to yesterday. Then a deed of gift was filed. Now it belongs to Mr Simon Templar.”
So that was it... The hollow space under the Saint’s wishbone filled up abruptly with fast-setting cement.
It was nightmarish, absurd, impossible; it was something that not only shouldn’t but happily couldn’t happen to a dog. He could only theoretically sympathise with the emotions of this hypothetical hound upon watching some rival pooch dig up a treasured bone miles away from its established burial-ground — and upon discerning that the bone had also been booby-trapped in transit.
Somehow he managed to strike a match and set it to his cigarette without a quiver.
“Somebody should have told me,” he murmured. “I always wanted to be a real-estate tycoon.”
“You didn’t know about it, huh?” Kearney said. “I kind of thought you didn’t. You ever meet Sammy the Leg?”
The Saint shook his head.
“Of course not. I didn’t sign any deed of gift either.”
“Uh-huh. We’re checking. We got plenty of records on Sammy.” Kearney produced a pad and pen. “Mind signing this? I want to compare a few signatures.”
Simon obligingly scribbled his name.
“If you’d show the deed to me, I could tell you right away if it was a forgery. In fact, I can tell you that now.”
“Can’t take your word for it,” Kearney said flatly. “I admit it looks like a frame, and a lousy one. On the other hand, we’ve got to be sure. You got a certain reputation, Saint.”
“So they tell me,” Simon said. “I’m surprised you don’t lock me up.”
Kearney suddenly grinned.
“We thought of it. But the Commissioner said no. You must have done him a favour some time.”
Which happened to be true. But Simon didn’t answer the implied question. He was staring thoughtfully at Junior’s corpse.
“That house at Wheaton — isn’t anyone living there?”
“Nobody’s shown up there since we got the call.”
“With this housing shortage, too,” Simon drawled. “You’d think they’d have been around it like ants as soon as a dead body was taken out... Well, it seems as if someone’s adopted me for an heir. I’m only sorry I can’t help you. If I do run across anything, I’ll let you know, though. All right?”
Kearney said, “Sure, that’s all right. Of course, if this is a frame, it might mean you’re mixed up in something. It might mean somebody’s gunning for you. You wouldn’t know about that, would you?”
Simon’s attitude changed. He leaned forward confidentially.
“Well,” he said, “if you’ll consider this just between ourselves, and not for publication. I can tell you that I am engaged in a small crusade just at present.”
Kearney’s eyes opened.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Simon said, and brought his mouth close to the detective’s ear. “Don’t breathe a word of it, but I’ve decided to kill everyone in Chicago.”
He went back to the hotel and told Hoppy the story, and Mr Uniatz’s jaw sagged lower and lower as it proceeded.
“I don’t get it,” Mr Uniatz said finally, making a great confession.
“Neither do I, to put it mildly,” said the Saint. “And fortunately, neither does Kearney. But he’s no fool. I didn’t want him to start asking me the wrong questions. He was on the right track, you know.”
“Yeah?” Hoppy said.
“He knows I’m mixed up in something. And I can’t let the police in on this yet. If I did, the King would simply go underground. As long as I keep His Majesty thinking there’s only one man on his track, he won’t be frightened into a strategic retreat. Ever try to scrape a sea anemone off a rock?”
“What would I wanna do a t’ing like dat for?” Hoppy inquired aggrievedly.
The Saint considered the question solemnly.
“Let’s say the anemone had murdered a great-aunt of yours, if you must have a motive. The aunt’s name was Abigail. She used to eke out a precarious living by blackmailing anemones. Got that straight?”
“Sure,” said Hoppy, satisfied.
“If you scoop fast, you can scrape up the anemone. But if you aren’t quite fast enough, it’ll retract and fold up into such a tight knot that you can’t pry it loose. I don’t want the King to retract.”
Hoppy said, “Sure.”
“The King doesn’t know I’m the blind beggar — I hope. That’s something. And I don’t think his murder frame has a chance to stick.” Simon frowned. “Or... perhaps he’s smarter than I thought. We’ll have to wait and see. At worst, you can get an anemone to reopen by feeding it.”
“Hey,” Hoppy said suddenly. “What’s an anemone?”
Simon decided it would be more discreet to leave this alone.
“What we want to know,” he said grimly, “is how this all happened. Who did what to who? Did Junior dig through a wall and escape? Then who bumped him off and called the cops? Is something wrong about that stooge — what was his name? — Fingers Schultz. Who talked too much to who — and brought my name into it? And how much too much has been said? Most important of all, what made Sammy run?”
“It couldn’t of been Sammy,” Hoppy said miserably. “I’d trust Sammy wit’ my right eye. If he signs a receipt, dat is.”
“We didn’t get a receipt,” Simon pointed out.