He exploded out of the hall into the study, and went on into the secret room, leaving her staring after him a trifle dazedly.
He was bubbling with blissful idiocy, but his mind was cool. He had already diagnosed the effects of the Uniatz treatment so completely that his visit was really only intended to reassure himself that it had actually worked. He studied Verdean coldbloodedly. The bank manager's eyes were vacant and unrecognizing: he rolled his head monotonously from side to side and kept up a delirious mumble from which the main points of the summary that Hoppy Uniatz had made were absurdly easy to pick out. Over and over again he reiterated the story — how Mr Hogsbotham had asked him as a neighbour to keep an eye on the house during some of his absences, how he had been entrusted with a key which he had never remembered to return, and how when he was wondering what to do with the stolen money he had remembered the key and used it to find what should have been an unsuspectable hiding place for his booty. He went on talking about it…
"He is like dis ever since he wakes up," Hoppy explained, edging proudly in behind him.
The Saint nodded. He did not feel any pity. Robert Verdean was just another man who had strayed unsuccessfully into the paths of common crime; and even though he he had been deliberately led astray, the mess that he was in now was directly traceable to nothing but his own weakness and cupidity. In such matters, Simon Templar saved his sympathy for more promising cases.
"Put his clothes back on him," he said. "We'll take him along too. Your operation was miraculous, Hoppy, but the patient is somewhat liable to die; and we don't want to be stuck with his body."
Patricia was sitting on the study desk when he emerged again, and she looked at him with sober consideration.
"I don't want to bore you with the subject," she said, "but are you still sure you haven't gone off your rocker?"
"Perfectly sure," he said. "I was never rocking so smoothly in my life."
"Well, do you happen to remember anyone by the name of Teal?"
He took her arm and chuckled.
"No I haven't forgotten. But I don't think he'll be ready for this. He may have ideas about keeping an eye on me, but he won't be watching for Verdean, Not here, anyway. Hell, he's just searched the house from top to bottom and convinced himself that we haven't got Verdean here, however much he may be wondering what else we've done with him. And it's getting dark already. By the time we're ready to go, it'll be easy. There may be a patrol car or a motor cycle cop waiting down the road to get on our tail if we go out, but that'll be all. We'll drive around the country a bit first and lose them. And then we will go into this matter of our old age pensions."
She might have been going to say some more. But she didn't. Her mouth closed again, and a little hopeless grimace that was almost a smile at the same time passed over her lips. Her blue eyes summed up a story that it has already taken all the volumes of the Saint Saga to tell in words. And she kissed him.
"All right, skipper," she said quietly. "I must be as crazy as you are, or I shouldn't be here. We'll do that."
He shook his head, holding her.
"So we shall. But not you."
"But—"
"I'm sorry, darling. I was talking about two other guys. You're going to stay out of it, because we're going to need you on the outside. Now, in a few minutes I'm going to call Peter, and then I'm going to try and locate Claud Eustace; and if I can get hold of both of them in time the campaign will proceed as follows…"
He told it in quick cleancut detail, so easily and lucidly that it seemed to be put together with no more effort than it took to understand and remember it. But that was only one of the tricks that sometimes made the Saint's triumphs seem deceptively facile. Behind that apparently random improvisation there was the instant decision and almost supernatural foresightedness of a strategic genius which in another age might have conquered empires as debonairly as in this twentieth century it had conquered its own amazing empire among thieves. And Patricia Holm was a listener to whom very few explanations had to be made more than once.
Hoppy Uniatz was a less gifted audience. The primitive machinery of conditioned reflexes which served him for some of the simpler functions of a brain had never been designed for one-shot lubrication. Simon had to go over the same ground with him at least three times before the scowl of agony smoothed itself out of Mr Uniatz's rough-hewn façade, indicating that the torture of concentration was over and the idea had finally taken root inside his skull, where at least it could be relied upon to remain with the solidity of an amalgam filling in a well-excavated molar.
The evening papers arrived before they left, after the hectic preliminaries of organization were completed, when the Saint was relaxing briefly over a parting glass of sherry, and Mr Uniatz was placidly sluicing his arid tonsils with a fresh bottle of Scotch. Patricia glanced through the Evening Standard and giggled.
"Your friend Hogsbotham is still in the news," she said. "He's leading a deputation from the National Society for the Preservation of Public Morals to demonstrate outside the London Casino this evening before the dinnertime show. So it looks as if the coast will be clear for you at Chertsey."
"Probably he heard that Simon was thinking of paying him another call, and hustled himself out of the way like a sensible peaceloving citizen," said Peter Quentin, who had arrived shortly before that. "If I'd known what I was going to be dragged into before I answered the telephone, I'd have gone off and led a demonstration somewhere myself."
The Saint grinned.
"We must really do something about Hogsbotham, one of these days," he said.
It was curious that that adventure had begun with Mr Hogsbotham, and had just led back to Mr Hogsbotham; and yet he still did not dream how importantly Mr Hogsbotham was still to be concerned.
IX
The Hirondel's headlights played briefly over the swinging sign of the Three Horseshoes, in Laleham, and swung off to the left on a road that turned towards the river. In a few seconds they were lighting up the smooth grey water and striking dull reflections from a few cars parked dose to the bank; and then they blinked out as Simon pulled the car close to the grass verge and set the handbrake.
"Get him out, darling," he said over his shoulder.
He stepped briskly out from behind the wheel; and Hoppy Uniatz, who had been sitting beside him, slid into his place. The Saint waited a moment to assure himself that Angela Lindsay was having go trouble with the fourth member of the party; and then he leaned over the side and spoke close to Hoppy's ear.
"Well," he said, "do you remember it all?"
"Sure, I remember it," said Mr Uniatz confidently. He paused to refresh himself from the bottle he was still carrying, and replaced the cork with an air of reluctance. "It's in de bag," he said, with the pride of knowing what he was talking about.
"Mind you don't miss the turning, like we did last night, and for God's sake try not to have any kind of noise. You'll have to manage without headlights, too — someone might notice them… Once you've got the Beef Trust there, Pat'll take care of keeping them busy. I don't want you to pay any attention to anything except watching for the ungodly and passing the tip to her."
"Okay, boss."
The Saint looked round again. Verdean was out of the car.
"On your way, then."