In spite of his size, he was caught off balance and the Saint hit him with approximately the effect of a locomotive striking a straw scarecrow. The man who had been a moment before slamming knuckles and shoe-leather into his defenseless victim did not exactly fly apart in several pieces, but he did the next thing to it. He was smashed back against the brick wall of the building forming one side of the alley, and fell away from it with the limp awkward grace of a dropped rag doll.
Simon Templar did not believe that his charge had done more than temporarily decommission the night football player, but he had to turn and meet a new problem. There was a glint of bright metal to his right, where the victim of the beating lay on the pavement. The man who had been holding him was a fat seal-like shape spearheaded with the long blade of a knife. The Saint was poised to receive an attack, but it did not come. The stout man slid through the shadows like a bloated fish through murky waters, always keeping the knife-point straight at the Saint. It became clear that he was more enthusiastic about getting away to the far end of the alley, away from the brightly lit street where Simon’s car was parked, than he was about giving battle.
Simon stalked him, as the fat man backed steadily away from the scene of combat. When the Saint increased his own pace, the other, never turning, quickened his, moving with surprising agility for a man so rotund. Still, Simon would have caught him, or run him down like a lion after a water buffalo, if there had not been a sudden scuff of steps behind the Saint’s back. Before he could turn, an arm locked round his throat like a thick noose. In the same instant, though, while his attacker was still in motion, Simon ducked forward and spun to the side, smashing the man behind him into the wall with an elbow driven back deep into his belly.
The Saint’s instant reactions weakened the big man’s hold enough to allow Simon to slip his head free. Meanwhile his stout comrade seemed to be encumbered by no inner conflicts about teamwork or loyalty. He took off for the other end of the alley without ever looking back. The other, taking advantage of the fact that the Saint had dropped to one knee in escaping the arm-lock on his neck, and having literally lost stomach for continuing the battle on his own, likewise turned and stumbled down the alley in pursuit of his portly pal.
Simon decided that Brad Ryner’s condition was more crucial than chasing down the men who had been beating him. He had a sickening feeling that he might already have been too late to save the policeman. The punishment he had been taking when the Saint arrived at the alley had looked more like a sadistic way of finishing him off permanently than just a rough lesson in the wages of spying.
The detective seemed lifeless when the Saint knelt beside him; his face and clothing were sticky with blood. But Simon could detect breath and a pulse-beat. He would have preferred not to move the man alone, risking worse damage, but he could not leave him there while he went for help. He picked him up in his arms as gently as he could and carried him to the street.
As he came out of the alley onto the sidewalk, stepping slowly and heavily under the weight of his burden, he saw a sight that even under the circumstances struck him as almost comically ironic: Parked in front of his own car in the no-parking zone was a police patrol car, and a uniformed officer was standing in the rain, busily writing out a ticket.
Another patrolman, less engrossed, spotted Simon first, jumped out of the police car, and strode towards him.
“Whaddaya think you’re doing?” he interrogated brilliantly.
Simon, still trudging forward with his bloodstained load, told him: “Carrying coals to Newcastle, maybe. Your department probably knows about this chap. He’s an under-cover agent from California named Brad Ryner. He was getting beaten up in that alley when I came along.”
The policeman looked at the crimson mess that had been Ryner’s face.
“God damn!” he breathed.
“I’m afraid you wouldn’t recognise him right now even if you knew him,” Simon said.
“Who are you?” the other patrolman asked.
“The good Samaritan. Don’t you think we’d better get this man to a hospital before we fill out a report in triplicate?”
The first policeman helped Simon deposit Ryner in the patrol car. The second pointed: “Is that your car?”
“I confess,” Simon replied. “When I saw somebody getting killed in that alley I didn’t take time to hunt up a parking lot.”
The officer ripped up the ticket he had been writing and dropped the fragments in the gutter, under a lamp-post sign warning about the penalties for depositing litter.
“What did you say his name is?!’
“Ryner.” Simon spelled it. “Brad Ryner. I knew him slightly on the Coast, and I spotted him in Sammy’s boozer more than an hour ago.”
“You better come along with us,” the patrolman said, which was no more and no less than the Saint could have expected.
A moment later, siren howling, they were racing through the rain-swept streets.
It was eleven o’clock in the morning before Brad Ryner was able to talk to him. Even before Ryner had regained consciousness, just after daybreak, a tired but conscientious detective lieutenant had been called from his bed to oversee developments at the hospital, while a uniformed guard had been assigned to the door of Ryner’s room. Simon, meanwhile, after being thoroughly identified, had returned to his hotel at about four in the morning, on his own condition that he be phoned as soon as Ryner could talk. The call came at 10:15, and he was at the hospital twenty minutes later.
Brad Ryner was propped up in his bed, half sitting, one eye and half his face covered with bandages, when Simon entered the room.
“I almost hope you don’t remember me,” said the Saint grimly. “I wish I hadn’t remembered you. Calling your name was the stupidest thing I’ve done for a hundred years.”
The exposed half of Ryner’s face was heavily bruised; even so, the corner of his broad mouth managed a trace of a smile.
“Just the breaks of the game,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it came through a wad of cotton. “Don’t blame yourself, Simon.”
“I won’t waste time blaming myself. I’d rather know what I can do to make up for it.”
“You already made up for it,” Ryner said indistinctly. “You saved my life. Another minute or two and those bastards would have killed me.”
“That’s like thanking a man who’s stabbed you for pulling the knife out,” Simon said ruefully.
“You’re exaggerating,” said a new voice, and a tall, slender, prematurely grey-haired man who had been standing by the side of the bed stepped forward to shake Simon’s hand. “I’m Stacey, detective lieutenant. I was responsible for getting Brad here for this job in the first place.”
From there Lieutenant Stacey went on to say how pleased and intrigued he was to meet the famous Saint.
“Apparently nobody’s identity is safe round here,” Simon responded. “But now that you’ve seen an example of my genius in action you’ll understand how I got to be so notorious. The only excuse I can think of for blabbing Brad’s name is that I was under the spell of a beautiful young lady at the time.”
“You’re not kidding,” said Ryner.
“But just mentioning his name shouldn’t have blown the whole thing,” Lieutenant Stacey said. “Those hoods couldn’t know that somebody named Brad Ryner was a police officer out in California, and you didn’t press the point, did you?”
Simon shook his head.
“I hopped away like a flea off a hot griddle.”