Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

And on this occasion, for instance, he would have been right.

Jeers swept in derisive breakers over the two Ferdinands in the ring without in the least disturbing the equilibrium of their mitt minuet. The massed feet of the cash customers began to stamp in metronomic disapproval, and Simon’s chair jumped as the box-car brogans on his left added their pile-driving weight to the crashing cantata. Their owner’s klaxon voice lifted in a laryngismal obligate, a brassy, belly-searching ululation with overtones reminiscent of the retching bellow of a poisoned water buffalo. This, the Saint recognised, was merely Hoppy Uniatz’s rendition of a disgusted groan.

“Boss,” Hoppy heaved, “dis is moider!” The narrow strip of wrinkles that passed for Hoppy’s forehead were deep with scorn. “I oughta go up dere and t’row ’em outta de ring.”

Hoppy’s impulses were beautiful in their straightforward simplicity and homicidal honesty. The small globule of protoplasm that lurked within his rock-bound skull, serving the nominal function of a brain, piloted his anthropoidal body exclusively along paths of action, primitive and direct, unencumbered by any subtleties of thought or teleological considerations. The torture of cerebration he left entirely to the man to whose lucky star he hitched his wagon. For, to Hoppy, the Saint was not of this ordinary world; he was a Merlin who brought strange wonders to pass with godlike nonchalance, whose staggering schemes were engineered with supernatural ease to inevitable success through miracles of intellect which Hoppy followed in blind but contented obedience.

The Saint smiled at him tenderly.

“Relax, chum. This isn’t the fight we came to see, anyway.”

The dream with the spun-gold hair on Simon’s right smiled.

“Never,” admonished Patricia Holm, “look gift horses in the mouth.”

“To coin a phrase,” the Saint observed dryly.

“Huh?” Hoppy stared at the Saint’s lady in open-mouthed perplexity. “Horses?” His face, which bore a strong family resemblance to those seen on totem poles designed to frighten evil spirits, was a study in loose-lipped wonder. “What horses?”

“After all,” Pat said, “we’re here as guests and—”

The clanking of the bell terminated both the fight and the need for further explanation. The sound pulled the trigger on a thunderclap of boos as the unfatigued gladiators were waved to their respective corners to wait the decision. It came swiftly. A well-booed draw.

“What a clambake,” Hoppy muttered.

“No hits, no runs, no fight,” Simon murmured sardonically.

“They had a lot of respect for each other, hadn’t they?” Pat observed innocently.

“Respect!” Hoppy exploded. “Dem bums was dogging it. I could beat bot’ deir brains out togedder wit’ bot’ hands tied behind me.” He simmered with righteous outrage. “I only hope de Masked Angel don’t knock out Torpedo Smith too quick. We oughta let him stay for at least a coupla rounds so maybe we’ll see some fightin’.”

“If there’s any fighting to be seen,” Simon said absently, “at least we’re in a good position to see it.”

The chiselled leanness of cheekbone and jaw were picked out vividly as he lighted a cigarette. Pat, glancing at the flame momentarily reflected in those mocking blue eyes, felt a familiar surge of yearning and pride. For he was a very reincarnation of those privateers who once knew the Spanish Main, a modern buccaneer consecrated to the gods of gay and perilous adventure, a cavalier as variable as a chameleon, who would always be at once the surest and the most elusive thing in her life.

“Yeah,” Hoppy agreed grudgingly. “Dey ain’t nut’n wrong wit’ de seats. Ya must have some drag with de promoter, boss.”

“I’ve never even met him.”

Simon wasn’t listening really. His eyes were angled to his left, gazing through a meditative plume of smoke to where Steve Nelson was rising about a dozen seats away and climbing into the ring to be introduced as the champion who would defend his title against the winner of tonight’s bout. However, it wasn’t Nelson whom Simon was watching. It was the girl in the seat beside Nelson — a girl with curly raven hair, big green eyes, and a nose whose snub pertness was an infinitely lovelier reproduction of her Irish sire’s well-publicised proboscis.

“I suppose he just thought this would be a nice way to introduce himself,” Patricia mocked. “Three little ringside tickets, that’s all. Sent by special messenger, no less. Compliments of Mike Grady and the Manhattan Arena!”

The girl with the raven hair had turned and, for a brief instant, met Simon’s gaze. He spoke without taking his eyes off her.

“Pat, darling, you’re taking too much for granted. It wasn’t Mike who sent them.”

“No?”

“No. It was his daughter Connie. Third from the aisle in the front row.”

She followed his gaze.

There was no hint of coquetry in the eyes of the raven-haired girl. There was something in them quite different — a swift glow of gratitude tempered by an anxiety that shadowed her clear elfin beauty. Then she turned away.

Pat smiled with feline sweetness.

“I see. How nice of her to think you might need some excitement!”

Hoppy’s porcine eyes blinked.

“Boss, ain’t she de Champ’s girl friend?”

“So I’ve heard.” Simon smiled and blew a large smoke-ring that rose lethargically over the seat in front of him and settled about the bald pate of its occupant like a pale blue halo.

A scattered burst of cheering greeted Torpedo Smith’s entrance into the ring.

“Shouldn’t you be more careful about picking your leading ladies?” Pat inquired with saccharine concern.

“I have to face the hazards of my profession,” Simon explained, with a glint of scapegrace mockery in his blue eyes. “But there may be some excitement at that — although I don’t mean what you’re thinking, darling.”

The memory of Connie’s visit, her confused plea for him to see the fight, lingered in his mind like the memory of strange music, a siren measure awakening an old familiar chill, prescient and instinctive, warning of danger that was no less perilous because it was as yet unknown.

The crowd broke into a thunderous roar.

“It’s de Angel!” Hoppy proclaimed. “He’s climbin’ in de ring!”

The current sensation of the leather-pushing profession was indeed mounting the punch podium. He squeezed his hogshead torso between the ropes, and as he straightened up the Saint saw that the mask was really nothing more than a black bean-bag that fitted over his small potato head with apertures for eyes, nose, and mouth, and fastened by a drawstring between chin and shoulder at the place where a normal person’s neck would ordinarily be, but which in the Angel was no more than an imaginary line of demarcation. He shambled to his corner like a hairless gorilla and clasped his bandaged hands over his head in a salute to the enraptured mob.

Patricia shuddered.

“Simon, is it — is it human?”

The Saint grinned.

“He’ll never win any contests for the body beautiful, but of course we haven’t seen his face yet. He may be quite handsome.”

“Dere ain’t nobody seen his face,” Hoppy confided. “Dese wrestlers what pull dis gag wit’ de mask on de face, dey don’t care who knows who dey really are, but Doc Spangler, he don’t let nobody see who his boy is. May be it’s for luck. De Masked Angel ain’t lost a fight yet!”

“Doc Spangler?”

Hoppy’s head bobbed affirmatively. He pointed to a well-dressed portly gentleman who looked more like a bank president out for an evening’s entertainment than a fighter’s manager, who was standing in smiling conversation with one of the Angel’s seconds.