Mike Grady sat slumped in a corner of the sofa in Doc Spangler’s study moodily chewing an unlit cigar. Spangler, his elbows on the desk, pressed his fingertips together with injured reproach pointedly visible behind a film of charlatan good humour.
“My dear Mike,” he argued, “every successful man in this game is the natural target of vile rumour and malicious gossip. I’m hurt that you, with all your experience with that sort of thing, should give even hesitant credence to this thing you’ve mentioned.”
“I didn’t say I believed it,” Grady said heavily. “I just want to get your side of it, that’s all.”
“If Karl attacked Templar, it was entirely on his own volition, Mike, I assure you. After all, the Saint gave him sufficient reason, don’t you think?”
“Okay,” Grady said. “Maybe so. But what about the thing that happened this morning? I picked up this paper on my way down here. It’s on the front page — look.” He picked up the early afternoon edition from his lap and tossed it on to Spangler’s desk. “According to that, it was an accident. But was it? Did Templar tell me the truth? Did Mancini try to run him down?”
Spangler shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly.
“Now how would I know? Certainly Slim had as much reason as Karl had to attempt a, shall we say, retributive act? That is, if it wasn’t an accident, which it may well have been.” He sighed. “After all, the manhandling that both of them have suffered from Templar and that gorilla of his would be enough to tax the forbearance of far less... uh... angelic creatures than Karl and Slim, poor fellow. After all, Mike, I’m no nursemaid. Nor do I keep any of my employees on a leash.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike agreed restlessly, removing the cigar from his mouth. “But that isn’t all. There’s talk. About that last fight. Torpedo Smith’s death is still being — well, talked about. There are rumours—”
“Rumours, rumours...” The fat man shook his head ruefully. “And you listen? Where do you suppose they originate? From Steve Nelson’s camp, of course. Trying to discredit me, to smear the Angel. Nelson knows very well he hasn’t a chance against my man, so he’s preparing his alibi in advance. Can’t you see that? You know and I know that the real reason the Angel wins is because of the psycho-hypnotic technique I use in my training methods. It gives that great hulk of a fellow power and speed many times greater than any man is normally capable of.”
“Maybe so.” Grady stuck his cigar back between his teeth and wagged a warning forefinger at Spangler. “But I tell you right here and now, Doc, if that man Smith was killed because of anything... shady...”
The good humour vanished completely from Spangler’s meaty face.
“My dear Mike!” he protested aggrievedly. “Trust my intelligence if nothing else!” He spread his hands widely. “What possible reason could I have to wish him harm?”
“A very good reason indeed, Doctor,” drawled the Saint.
Both men’s eyes jerked to the open doorway.
Simon Templar stood there, the automatic in his hand held with deceptive negligence.
“The Saint!” Spangler got out.
An unhealthy flush suffused his florid face and his hands dropped to his lap behind the desk.
“Yes, gentlemen,” Simon Templar smiled. “However, you’ll notice this little gadget I’m holding is not a harp. Hands on the desk, please, Doc.”
Spangler obeyed slowly, the habitual good humour on his face distorted into a parody of itself.
Grady found his voice.
“What’s this?” he rasped cholerically. “Are you following me around?”
“Rather fortunately for you, I am,” said the Saint. “I overheard just enough of your conversation to settle a lot of early doubts about your honesty. Which only leaves your intelligence more in doubt than ever.”
Spangler suddenly yelled, “Karl! Help!”
Simon shook his head regretfully.
“Don’t strain your larynx, Doctor. It won’t do you any good. We met Brother Mancini’s successor at the door. My friend Mr Uniatz is watching over him in the hall to see that no one disturbs his slumber.” The Saint glanced at the knuckles of his left hand affectionately. “If this happens much more often I’m afraid the Butler’s Union will put you on the black list.”
Grady climbed to his feet, an angry glint in his eye.
“Now look here—” he began.
There was a sudden scurry of footfalls in the hall, and the outer door slammed open just ahead of a wrathful howl from Hoppy.
The Saint sighed, “I guess Karl is on his way to report to you now. I was hoping he’d sleep longer than that.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Grady spluttered.
“Yes,” Spangler said, all pretence at good humour blotted out by the venomous hatred that simmered behind the onyx sheen of his eyes, “what do you want?”
“Your signature,” said the Saint easily. He walked up to Spangler’s desk, fishing two cheques from his pocket. He laid them before Spangler. “You’ll notice that both of these are for the same amount. The amount, you can verify, is the total of the winner’s shares of all the purses that your masked moron has won through practices that are extremely illegal.”
Spangler looked up at him sharply, his hands slipping off the desk.
“You’re stark raving crazy!” he blared.
“Do keep your hands on top of the desk, Doctor,” Simon reminded him pleasantly. “That’s better... Both of these cheques, you’ll observe, are payable to the Simon Templar Foundation for the Relief of Distressed Pugilists.”
“What?” Spangler squealed incredulously.
“What kind of racket is this?” Grady demanded.
A ghost of a smile touched the Saint’s face. He stepped to one side and glanced at the door as Hoppy’s heavy footsteps pounded back through the outer door, into the hallway, and clomped to a halt in the doorway of the room.
Mr Uniatz stood there a moment, catching his breath.
“He got away,” he announced with dark disgust. “When I wasn’t lookin’.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Simon said. “We’ll put an ad in the paper.” He turned to Spangler, who had risen to his feet behind the desk as the massive frame of Mr Uniatz filled the doorway. “As you see, Doc, I’ve already signed one of those cheques. Now you are going to sign the other.”
Spangler turned sharply to Grady.
“You’re a witness, Mike. It’s blackmail, extortion!”
“Hardly that,” Simon corrected him. “Those are simply the stakes in our bet, Doctor. I’m betting that Barrelhouse Bilinski is knocked out tomorrow night.”
For a long narrow-lidded moment Doc Spangler gaped at the Saint. And then a slow glistening grin began to spread over his face.
“And that,” he queried softly, “is what you want me to sign?”
The Saint nodded amiably.
“Exactly. If you don’t I’m afraid our friend Inspector Fernack will have to drop in and ask you some awkward questions...”
A deep chuckle seemed to boil up deeply from within the fat man’s rotund belly. The chuckle broke into a laugh that shook his chins.
“My dear Mr Templar!” he said deprecatingly, waving a pudgy hand. “Put away that gun.” He wiped his eyes with his cuff as though overcome by some secret joke, and looked down at his desk, still chuckling. “Where’s my pen?” He found it and pulled the cheque toward him, leaning over the desk. He looked up. “Mike Grady will hold these cheques, of course?”
“That’s okay with me.”
“Now wait.” Grady frowned, plagued by a vague troubled puzzlement. “I don’t want no part—”
“Of course you do,” the Saint insisted persuasively. “I assure you this is on the up-and-up, Mike.”
“At least,” Spangler agreed genially, “I know I can trust you.”
He bent over and signed the other cheque with a flourish and held them both out to Grady. “If you please, Mike.”
Grady took them reluctantly.
“Nothing would please me more,” Spangler gurgled, “than to have your cheque bounce, Mr Templar. I should enjoy sending you to jail for something like that. It would certainly look well in the newspapers.” He licked his lips as if already tasting the Saint’s ignominy. “ ‘Famous Adventurer Sentenced to a Year and a Day in County Hoosegow!’ ”
“That wouldn’t be nearly so embarrassing,” the Saint said imperturbably, “as twenty years in Sing Sing for second-degree murder. I don’t think you really wanted to kill Torpedo Smith. But nevertheless he died on account of you.”
Spangler’s jaw fell open. He started to speak.
“Now look here,” Grady tried again. “I don’t like this a bit, Saint. I just don’t want to be mixed up in any—”
“Just the same, you’re going to hold those bets,” said the Saint. “And you want me to drive you back to your office — now. Come along.”
“I warn you,” Spangler said bleakly, “that I shall hold both of you to the exact terms of that bet. If you try to welsh on it, the Betting Commissioner—”
“Your fadder’s moustache!” Mr Uniatz quoted delicately.
He spread a large horny hand over Spangler’s beefy face, and pushed with the force of a locomotive piston. Doc Spangler crashed backwards against his chair and toppled thunderously to the floor, chair and all. He was still lying there as Simon and Hoppy conducted Grady firmly out of the room and out of the house.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am,” the Saint said as they drove northward up Fifth Avenue, “to know that you’re not in cahoots with Spangler, Mike. That was the thing that bothered me most of all.”
“Thanks for the bill of health,” Grady responded caustically. “It’s that relieved I am.” He scowled. “But I can’t say I go for the high-handed way you have of ordering me about at the point of a gun!”
“Forgive me,” the Saint apologised, “but I couldn’t take any chances of being deprived of your company for lunch.”
“I got too many things to do, Saint. No time for lunch. Just get me back to the Arena as quick as you can.”
“It won’t take much time,” Simon smiled dreamily. “I’ve got a table at the Brevoort...”
Grady frowned. “Well — I’ll see if I can make it.”
They parked in front of the Arena and Simon accompanied Grady inside to his office.
The girl at the switchboard called out as they entered Mike’s office, “There’s been several calls from your daughter, Mr Grady, and from Mr Mullins...”
“Okay,” Grady grunted, and picked up the stack of letters and messages piled upon his desk. “Wonder what Whitey Mullins wants,” he muttered, thumbing through the sheaf. “According to this pile of call notes, he’s phoned about six times.”
The telephone rang. Grady lifted the receiver.
“Who?... Okay, put him on... Hello, Whitey?...” Mike Grady suddenly stiffened as he listened. He paled visibly and for a few seconds listened in silence. Presently he asked, “In the Saint’s apartment? What was he doing there?... Yes, of course. I’ll be down as soon as I possibly can.”
He hung up and turned to the Saint.
“Steve Nelson has been shot,” he said. “In your apartment.”
The Saint’s whole being seemed to stand still in the same timeless stasis that affected the expansion of his ribs.
“Karl,” he said slowly and bitterly. “Waiting for me in my apartment...”
Grady looked stupidly at him.
“No... At least Whitey says the police don’t think it was anyone layin’ for you at your place. Whoever did it they think was waitin’ for you on the roof of the apartment house across the street. There’s a bullet hole in the window of the room where Connie found him.”
“Connie?” the Saint repeated, knowing even as he said it how it must have happened.
“She was waiting for him in the car while he went up to your place to leave his things. He was going to stay with you, wasn’t he?”
Simon nodded.
“Where is he?”
“Bellevue. They got the bullet out of him. Whitey says they think he’s got a fifty-fifty chance.” Grady’s face furrowed with pain. “The poor kid... He’s a helluva fine boy, Saint. I’ve just been a damn fool, and that’s a fact!”
He glared at Simon defensively.
“Listen, Mike.” The Saint gripped his arm. “Whoever did it must’ve thought it was me. It could only have been one of Spangler’s men. It was my fault that this happened.”
“But why should Spangler want to do you in?”
“He’s afraid that I’ll find out what he’s been up to. I started the whole thing by butting in after the Torpedo Smith fight. Now I’ve got to finish it. Listen — I’ve to take Steve’s place tomorrow night.”
Grady’s eyes bulged.
“What?”
“You heard me! You’ve got to put me in against the Angel!”
The Saint’s steely fingers tightened about Grady’s arm. “You’ve got to, Mike!”
“Bu... but...”
Grady stopped short and looked at him for a long moment. He stepped backwards and eyed him up and down critically. He said finally, “Well, you look big enough. And hard enough, I guess. I’ve heard how you can hit...”
“I’ve been working with Steve,” said the Saint. “I’m in as good condition as a man ever was, Mike. And I can take Bilinski, believe me!”
“But it’s ridiculous!” Grady exploded. “There’s never been such a fight—”
Simon said swiftly, “Make an announcement in the ring. Tell them about my bet with Spangler. If they want their money back, they can have it. If they just want to see a fight — even if it’s only the Saint—”
“ Only the Saint!” Grady’s eyes took fire. A luminous inspired glow spread over his round, freckled face. “Holy mackerel! Maybe it won’t be a championship fight as advertised, but with you in it—”
“Come on, then.” Simon pulled him towards the door. “Let’s go — I’ve got to get hold of Whitey right away!”