The Saint and the People Importers by Leslie Charteris

They make me look impertinent even when I’m not, so I always used to get the blame for everything no matter what I did, so I reckoned if I were going to be accused of being impertinent anyway I might as well be impertinent.”
    “And pugnacious,” the Saint insisted.
    “Right.” She gave him a silent tigerish snarl. “Now tell me what you’re doing here before I gobble you up.”
    “Fine,” said Simon. “Much to my subsequent regret I got interested in this immigration mess, read your article, and got involved. I came over here to see if you could help me. That’s it.”
    “Just like that?” she asked sceptically. “Why are you interested? What got you involved? I thought you never got yourself into messes unless you were sure you could come out with a profit.”
    “The rewards of virtue have a way of not guaranteeing themselves until after you’ve committed yourself. I’m a speculator, you see, as well as a friend of the downtrodden. Now let’s make this a two-way interview: since you obviously couldn’t have known I was coming for a little tete-a-tete, how come you were hiding behind the door with the welcome mat ready to toss over my head?”
    The girl glanced at the blessedly silent television screen, where an almost perfectly cubical blackbearded man was bouncing a rubber boned African to and fro across the ring. Then she sat down.
    “If you did read my article today you know the gang that killed that Pakistani last night threatened to cut me up if I said too much.” She shrugged. “I thought you might be one of them.”
    “Now that you know different, how about telling me all about the rest of your singlehanded campaign against these thugs? I assume it’s singlehanded.”
    “It is,” she replied, “but I don’t see why I should tell you anything. This is my living, friend, and even if you are the Saint how do I know you’re not working for somebody who’s not on my side?”
    “As you grow to know and love me I’m sure you’ll realise just how ludicrous that suggestion is. For one thing, why should anybody with my ill-gotten riches want to become an undercover agent for anybody-especially some tight-fisted scandal sheet?”
    She shrugged uneasily.
    “Why should anybody with the loot you’re supposed to have stashed away want to do anything-except spend it?”
    “Because life is action,” Simon said. “Is that good enough for you?”
    “No.”
    “You’re hard to please.”
    “You’re right. If I wasn’t I’d still be juggling paper clips in some back office-and I wouldn’t be single at the ripe old age of twenty-six.”
    “Getting worried about that?” Simon asked with a grin.
    “No,” she said with determined carelessness. “I didn’t say I couldn’t please, I said I was hard to please.”
    “Granted. Now, how about some kind of a deal between the two of us? You tell me what you know, I give you exclusive publishing rights to anything we find out, and I’ll even undertake to keep you alive until the story’s finished.”
    She was seriously considering his words now.
    “It sounds like you get most of the benefits,” she said after a few seconds. “I can keep myself alive and I’ve already got exclusive publishing rights on anything I find out.”
    “That’s rather debatable,” the Saint opined. “I wouldn’t bet one moulting Bombay duck on your chances of being alive this time next week if you keep on the way you’re going-and if I have to go into this thing without you I might have to ally myself with some rival of yours who’s just as interested in a hot scoop as you are.”
    She sat up stiffly and stared at him in appalled outrage.
    “Why, you… . you …”
    “Cad?” suggested Simon.
    “Crook!” said the girl.
    “Businessman,” Simon amended. “Why fight it? We both stand to benefit.”
    She decided not to blast off, and settled into her chair cushions again.
    “All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “With one more condition: if we’re