Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

He lighted another cigarette, and exhaled with judicious patience.

“All I’m interested in,” he said, “is how that gun happened to find its way into my apartment last night.”

Nelson seemed uncertain whether to explain or fight.

“Sure, I... I took the gun away from Grady, but how it got into the hands of a burglar I don’t know. I gave it back to Connie to give back to her father.” He turned to her. “You did return it to him, didn’t you, honey?”

She sat up, drying the teary dampness from her nose, and shook her head in silent negation.

Nelson stared at her.

“You didn’t?”

She stuffed her handkerchief away.

“I didn’t want him to have it!” she said vehemently. “He wasn’t safe with it. After what he did to you—”

“But—”

“I gave it to Whitey to get rid of,” she said. “I told him to drop it in the river!”

“I know Whitey,” said Mr Uniatz. “He’s a good trainer, Champ.”

“He’s my manager too, now,” Nelson said.

Simon stroked the ash-tray with the end of his cigarette, clearing the glowing end.

“Since when?” he inquired.

“We signed the papers yesterday.” Nelson turned back to Connie. “Whitey never said anything about you giving him the gun.”

“Why should he? I just told him to get rid of it and not say anything to anybody.”

“Whitey’s okay,” Mr Uniatz insisted, to make his point absolutely clear. “He can do ya a lotta good.”

“Sure,” Nelson asserted moodily, “and he’s honest — which is a damn sight more than you can say for most of ’em — not that your dad isn’t honest, honey,” he amended quickly. “We never quarrelled over that.”

The Saint drew his trimmed cigarette end to a fresh glow.

“It sounds cosy as hell,” he murmured. “But I’d still like very much to find out what Brother Mullins did with that gun after he got it.”

The girl said, “I don’t know... I don’t know.”

Footfalls sounded on the stairway outside and the doorbell rang.

“That’s probably him now,” Nelson said. “He’s going to the gym with me.”

He opened the door and Whitey Mullins stepped in, as advertised.

“Hiya, Champ,” he greeted, and stopped short as he caught sight of Hoppy heaving to his feet.

“Whitey!” Mr Uniatz welcomed, surging forward and flinging a crane-like arm about Whitey’s shoulders in leviathan camaraderie.

Mullins staggered beneath the shock of its weight; his derby slipped over his forehead and he pushed it back crossly.

“Easy, you big ape!” he snarled.

“We just hear you are de Champ’s new manager,” Hoppy bellowed happily.

“This is the Saint,” Steve Nelson introduced. “You’ve heard of him.”

Whitey Mullins’s pale eyes widened a trifle; his mouth formed a nominal smile.

“You bet I have.”

He thrust out a narrow monkey-like hand. “I seen you at the fights last night, didn’t I?”

The Saint nodded, shaking the hand.

“I was there.”

“Sure you seen us,” Hoppy said. “You’re de foist one tells us de Torpedo is crocked, remember?”

“I never wanna have nuttin’ like that happen to me again,” Mullins said grimly. “It’s awful. I still can’t figure how it coulda happened. The Torpedo was in great condition. The poor guy musta had a weak ticker — or sump’n.” He turned to Simon, a faint gleam coming alive in his pale eyes. “I heard you raised a stink with that louse Spangler after the fight.”

The Saint launched a smoke-ring in the direction of the gun lying on the table and smiled dreamily.

“The stench you mention,” he said, “was already there. Hoppy and I merely went to investigate its source.”

“Yeah,” Hoppy corroborated. “De Angel stinks out loud! Why, dat bum can’t fight.”

“How can you say that,” Connie objected tensely, “when he just killed a man in the ring?”

“That was an accident.” Mullins waved away her fears with an impatient gesture of one thin hairy hand. “That crook Spangler will be eatin’ off’n his social security when we get through with him, huh, Champ? You’ll murder that big beef he stole from me!”

His hatchet face was venomous, as though distorted by an inward vision of vengeance.

“Whitey,” Connie said, “what did you do with that gun?”

Whitey’s rapt stare came back to earth and jerked in her direction.

“Gun?” he said blankly, and followed her glance at the table. “Oh, that .”

He looked quickly at Steve, at Simon, and Hoppy, and back to Connie again.

“Yes, that,” she said. “I told you to get rid of it.”

“I did,” Whitey said. “How did it get here?”

Hoppy grunted, “Some heister crashes de Saint’s flat last night. He leaves de rod.”

“Yeah? Who was it?”

“That,” said the Saint amiably, “is what I’d like to know. If you got rid of this gun, what did you do with it?”

Mullins snapped his fingers as if smitten by recollection.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” He reached into his coat, extracted a wallet, and selected a ten and a five. He offered the two bills to Connie. “Here. It’s your dough.”

“Mine?” She didn’t touch the money. “Why?”

“It’s the dough I got for it at th’ hock shop,” he explained. “Ten bucks on the rod — five bucks for the pawn ducat I sell for chips in a poker session the other night.”

She shook her head quickly.

“No. You keep it. For your trouble.”

Whitey unhesitatingly replaced the money in his wallet.

“Okay, if you say so.”

“Who did you sell the ticket to?” Simon inquired casually.

“Mushky Thompson,” Whitey said. “But it goes through his kick like a dose of salts. Pretty soon it’s movin’ from one pot to another like cash.”

“Yes, but who got it in the end?” Nelson asked.

“I quit at three in th’ morning. Who it winds up with, I couldn’t say.” Whitey glanced at his wrist watch. “’Bout time we was headin’ for the gym, Stevie.”

“Was Karl sitting in on the game?” Simon persisted.

Whitey blinked.

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s an expensive gun, Whitey,” Simon pursued mildly. “Is ten all you could get on it?”

Mullins spread his hands, expressively.

“No papers, no licence. Ten bucks and no questions asked is pretty good these days.”

“I haven’t been following the market lately,” Simon confessed. “Where did you hock it?”

The trainer lifted his derby and thoughtfully massaged the bald spot in his straw-coloured hair with two fingers of the same hand.

“It’s a place off Sixth Avenue, as I recall,” he said finally, dropping his chapeau back on its accustomed perch. “’Neath Forty-Fourth. The Polar Bear Trading and Loan Company.”

The Saint picked up the gun again.

“Thanks. I may need this a bit longer — if nobody minds.” He slipped it into his pocket and glanced at Nelson. He said inconsequentially, “I wouldn’t do any boxing until that hand heals, Steve.”

Whitey’s eyes flashed to the hand Steve Nelson had been carrying palm upwards to conceal the raw gash along its back. He swore softly as he examined it.

“It’s just a scratch,” Nelson scoffed. “I was going to take care of it before we left.”

“The next time our friend Karl visits you,” Simon advised him, “don’t give him a chance to touch you. That finger jewellery he wears is more dangerous than brass knuckles.”

“Karl!” Whitey turned with outraged incredulity. “He was here.”

“He had a little proposition,” Nelson said. “Wanted me to throw the fight for both ends of the gate.”

“The louse!” Mullins exploded. “The dirty no-good louse. I mighta known Spangler’d try sump’n like that. He knows that ham of his ain’t got a chance.”