Featuring the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page A

thrrree-eight thrrree-four?” she asked sweetly.
    The answer came in a decorated affirmative. “You’re wanted from Berlin.”
    She clicked the receiver hook; and then the Saint took over the instrument.
    “Dot vos you Lemuel, no? … You vould like to hear about it der business, aind’t it? … Ja! I hof seddled it altogether der business. Der man yill not more trrouble gif, andt der samples I hof also received it, yes… .”
    A couple of lines of brisk dialogue, this time in German, between the Saint and an excellent impersonator of the Berlin exchange, cut short the conversation with the Saint hurriedly concluding: “Ja! I to you der particulars to-morrow vill wrrrite. …”
    “It’s detail that does it,” murmured Simon complacently, as he replaced the receiver.
    Stella Domford was regarding him with a certain awe. “I’m beginning to understand some of the things I’ve read about you,” she said; and the Saint grinned. Shortly afterwards he excused himself; and when he returned to the sitting room, which was in a surprisingly short space of time, he had changed out of the characteristically conspicuous suit in which he had travelled, and was wearing a plain and unnoticeable blue serge. The Saint’s phenomenal speed of dressing would have made the fortune of a professional quick-change artist; and he was as pleased with the girl’s unspoken astonishment at his feat as he had been with her first compliment.
    “Where are you going?” she demanded, when she had found her voice.
    “To see you home, first,” he answered briskly. “And then I have a little job of work to do.”
    “But why have you changed?”
    The Saint adjusted a cheap black tie.
    “The job might turn into a funeral,” he said. “I don’t seriously think it will, but I like to be prepared.”
    She was still mystified when he left her at the door of her apartment.
    From there he drove down to Piccadilly, and left his car in St. James’s Street, proceeding afterwards on foot. Here the reason for his change of costume began to appear. Anyone might have remarked the rare spectacle of a truly Saintly figure parading the West End of London at six o’clock in the morning arrayed in one of the most dazzling creations of Savile Row; but no one came forward to describe the soberly dressed and commonplace-looking young man who committed the simplest audacity of the season.
    Nor could he ever afterwards have been identified by the sleepy-eyed porter who answered his ring at a certain bell in Jermyn Street; for, when the door was opened, Simon’s face was masked from eyes to chin by a handkerchief folded three-cornerwise, and his hat brim shaded his eyes. So much the porter saw before the Saint struck once, swiftly, mercifully, and regretfully, with a supple rubber truncheon… .
    The Saint closed the door behind him and unbuttoned his double-breasted coat. There were a dozen turns of light rope wound round his waist belt-fashion, and with these he secured the janitor hand and foot, completing the work with a humane but efficient gag. Then he lifted the unconscious man and carried him to the little cubicle at the back of the hall, where he left him-after taking his keys.
    He raced up the stairs to the door of Lemuel’s apartment, which was on the second floor. It was the work of a moment only to find the right key. Then, if the door were bolted … But apparently Lemuel relied on the security of his Yale lock and the watchfulness of the porter… .
    The Saint passed like a cat down the passage that opened before him, listening at door after door. Presently he heard the sound of rhythmic breathing, and he entered Lemuel’s bedroom without a sound, and stood over the bed like a ghost.
    He was certain that Lemuel must have spent a restless night until the recent telephone call came through to calm his fears.
    There were a bottle, a siphon, a glass, and an ash tray heaped with cigarette ends on a table by the bedside to support this assumption;