Leslie Charteris - Call for the Saint

“Sins of commission,” said Simon Templar darkly, “are very bad for the victim. But sins of omission are usually worse for the criminal.”

The only perceptible response was a faint ping as a BB shot ricochetted from an imitation Sèvres vase which had been thoughtfully placed in a corner. Hoppy Uniatz shrugged shoulders that would not have disgraced a gorilla, popped another BB in his mouth, and expelled it in the wake of its predecessor, with better aim. This time the ping was followed by a faint rattle.

“Bull’s-eye,” he announced proudly. “I’m getting better.”

“That,” said the Saint, “depends on what field of endeavour you’re talking about.”

Mr Uniatz felt no offence. His speed and accuracy on the draw might be highly regarded in some circles, but he had never claimed to compete in tournaments of subtlety. Anything the Saint said was okay with him.

He had not yet even wondered why they had stayed in Chicago for three days without any disclosed objective. In the dim abyss of what must perfunctorily be called Hoppy’s mind was some vague idea that they were hiding out, though he could not quite understand why. Murder, arson, and burglary had not figured in the Saint’s recent activities, which in itself was an unusual circumstance.

However, Mr Uniatz had spent some time in Chicago before, and he still found it difficult to walk along State Street without instinctively ducking whenever he saw brass buttons. If Simon Templar chose to remain in this hotel suite, there were probably reasons. Hoppy’s only objection was that he would have liked to kill time at the burlesque show three blocks south, but since this didn’t seem to be in the cards, he had bought himself a bagful of BB shot and was taking a simple childlike pleasure in practising oral marksmanship.

Meanwhile the Saint sat by the window with a pair of high-powered binoculars in his hand, staring from time to time through the lenses at the street below. Mr Uniatz did not understand this either, but he had no wish to seem uncooperative on that account.

“Boss,” he said, “maybe I should take a toin wit’ de peepers.”

Simon lowered the glasses again.

“And just what would you look for?” he inquired interestedly.

“I dunno, boss,” confessed Mr Uniatz. “But I could look.”

“You’re such a help to me,” said the Saint.

Strange emotions chased themselves across Hoppy’s unprepossessing face, not unlike those of a man who has been butted in the midriff by an invisible goat. His mouth hung open, and his small eyes had a stricken expression.

The Saint had a momentary qualm of conscience. Perhaps his sarcasm had been unduly harsh. He hastened to soften the affront to an unprecedented sensitivity.

“No kidding,” he said. “I’m going to have plenty for you to do, soon enough.”

“Boss,” Mr Uniatz said anxiously, “I think I swallered a BB.”

Simon sighed.

“I don’t think it’ll hurt you. Anyone who’s eaten as much canned heat as you have shouldn’t worry about the ingestion of a tiny globule of lead.”

“Yeah,” Hoppy said blankly. “Well, watch me make another bull’s-eye.”

Reassured, he popped another BB in his mouth and expelled it at the vase.

Simon picked up the binoculars again. Outside, the traffic hummed past dimly, ten stories below. From the distance came the muted roar of the Elevated. For several seconds he focused on the street intently.

Then he said, “You might as well keep up with the play. We were talking about sins of omission, and have you noticed that woman across the street, near the alley?”

“De witch? Chees, what a bag,” Mr Uniatz said. “Sure I seen her. I drop a coin in her cup every time I go by.” He grimaced. “When I get dat old, I hope I drop dead foist.”

“So she’s a professional beggar. But she’s only been there two days. There was a blind man on that corner before. What do you think happened to him?”

“Maybe he ain’t so blind, at dat. He gets a load of her and beats it.”

The Saint shook his head.

“She’s been committing sins, Hoppy.”

“At her age?”

“Sins of omission. She’s never on her corner at night. And she wasn’t there Saturday afternoon.”

“Okay. Maybe she gets tired.”

“Beggars don’t get tired at the most profitable homes,” Simon said. “It’s the theatre crowds that pay off. I’m wondering why she’s never around when she’d have a chance to get some real moola.”

Hoppy had a flash of perspicacity.

“Is dat why we been hanging around her?”

“I’ve been waiting for something. I don’t know what, but... I think this is it!”

The Saint was suddenly standing up, dropping the binoculars into a chair which seemed to have ejected him with a spontaneous convulsion of its springs. He was out of the apartment before Hoppy could decide what to do with the BB in his mouth.

This problem, proved far too difficult for snap judgment. Hoppy was still rolling the shot on his tongue when he joined the Saint at the elevator.

“This is the first time I’ve regretted being ten stories up,” Simon said, leaning heavily on the button. His eyes were no longer lazy; they were blue flames. “Hoppy, I’m going to walk down. You take the elevator. If you win the race, find out why that beggar woman just went up the alley with a man who looked exactly as if he had a gun in her back.”

“But—” Mr Uniatz began, and closed his mouth as the Saint whipped out of sight through a door marked “STAIRWAY.” He made sure that his Betsy was with him, in Betsy’s comfortable leather nest under his coat. But he still kept the last BB on his tongue. A guy never knew when he might need ammunition.

Simon Templar turned into the alley and was instantly alone in improbable isolation. Two blocks away, on Michigan Boulevard, sleek cars were tooling along their traffic lanes, and people were strolling on the sidewalks, safe and secure, because dozens of casual eyes were flicking past them. But as he turned the corner that world dropped into another dimension, forcing remembrance of itself only by the roar of traffic coming in from behind him and before him, yet at the same time made even more remote by the knowledge that the sound of a shot would probably go unheard in Chicago’s noisy morning song. And in the backwater where he had landed there was nothing but the old woman, the gunman, and himself.

The man was backed up against a wall, rubbing his eyes furiously with his left hand, while his right waved a heavy automatic jerkily before him. The beggar woman was holding a gun, too, but her finger was not on the trigger. She seemed to be trying to get close enough to grab the automatic from the man’s grip. Her rags flapped grotesquely as she jigged about with surprising agility for a woman who had previously seemed to be crippled by a combination of rheumatism, arthritis, and senility.

A whiff of something sharp and acrid stung the Saint’s nostrils. He recognised ammonia, and instantly realised why the gunman was scrubbing so frantically at his eyes. But the advantage of an ammonia gun is to disarm the enemy through surprise. The cursing gentleman with the automatic was not yet disarmed, and at any moment he was just as likely to start shooting at random.

The Saint stopped running, side-stepped silently, and came on again on his toes. He took two quick steps forward and brought the edge of his hand down sharply on the gunman’s wrist, and the automatic clattered to the ground. The Saint’s swooping movement was almost continuous, and when he straightened he had the butt of the automatic cuddled into his palm. He listened for a moment.