One of these read: "If you ask me why this man Simon Templar was ever allowed to come back to New York, I can't tell you. I don't believe in idealistic crooks any more than I believe in reformed crooks, and the Police Department has got enough work to do without having any more hoodlums of that kind spilled onto us.
But I can tell you this. There have been a lot of changes in the Detective Bureau since Templar was last here, and he won't find it so easy to get away with his racket as he did before."
There was another one: "If this cheap gunman that they call the Saint doesn't believe me, he's only got to start something. I'm taking care of him myself, and if he pulls so much as a traffic violation while he's in the city I'll get him put away where he won't give anyone any more trouble."
Fernack read out these extracts in his most scorching voice, which was a very scorching voice when he put his heart into it.
"I hadn't heard the news about your bein' appointed Police Commissioner," Fernack said heavily, "but I'd like to be the first to congratulate you. Of course a guy with your looks will find it a pretty soft job."
Lieutenant Corrio shrugged his shoulders sullenly. He was a dark and rather flashily good-looking man, who obviously had no illusions about the latter quality, with a wispy moustache and the slimmest figure consistent with the physical requirements of the force.
"I was just having a friendly chat with a guy," he said. "How was I to know he was going to print what I said? I didn't know anything about it until I saw it in the paper myself."
Fernack turned to page eleven and read out from another of his blue-pencilled panels: "Lieutenant Corrio is the exact reverse of the popular conception of a detective. He is a slender, well-dressed man who looks rather like Clark Gable and might easily be mistaken for an idol of the silver screen."
"You didn't know that he'd say that either, did you ?" Fernack inquired in tones of acid that would have seared the skin of a rhinoceros.
Corrio glowered and said nothing; and Fernack passed on to what was to his mind the brightest and juiciest feature of the Daily Mail reporter's story. He read it out:
"After I left Lieutenant Corrio, it occurred to me to find out what Simon Templar thought about the subject.
"I found him without any difficulty in his suite at the Waldorf. The Robin Hood of the modern underworld, who was once the favourite target of gangsters and police alike on account of his ruthless free-lance campaign against the criminals whom the law could not or would not touch, listened with his laziest smile while I read over Lieutenant Corrio's statements to him.
"I asked him if he had any answer to make.
"The Saint uncoiled his six feet two of steel-and-leathery length from the armchair where he had been sitting, and his clear blue eyes twinkled maliciously as he showed me to the door.
" 'I think Lieutenant Corrio will put Clark Gable out of business one of these days,' he said."
If there was anything that could have been guaranteed to increase Inspector Fernack's long-established secret sympathy for the Saint, it was this climax of a quotation. It is true that he would have preferred to have originated it himself, but the other compensations far outweighed this minor disadvantage.
Lieutenant Corrio's face reddened. He was particularly proud of his presidency of the Merrick Maskers, and he had never been able to see anything humorous in his confirmed conviction that his destined home was in Hollywood and that his true vocation was that of the dashing hero of a box-office-shattering series of romantic melodramas.
Having dealt comprehensively with these lighter points Fernack opened his shoulders and proceeded to the meatier business of the conference in a series of well-chosen sentences. He went on to summarize his opinion of Lieutenant Corrio's ancestry, past life, present value, future prospects, looks, clothes, morals, intelligence and assorted shortcomings, taking a point of view which made up in positiveness and vigour for anything which it may have lacked in absolute impartiality.
"An' get this," he concluded. "The Saint hasn't come here to get into any trouble. I know him an' he knows me, an' he knows me too damn well to try to pull anything while I'm still gettin' around on my own feet. An' what's more, if anybody's got to take care of him I can do it. He's a man-sized proposition, an' it takes a man-sized cop to look after him. An' if any statements have to be made to the papers about it, I'll make 'em."
Gorrio waited for the storm to pass its height, which took some time longer.
"I'm sure you know best, sir--especially after the way he helped you on that Valcross case," he said humbly, while Fernack glared at him speechlessly. "But I have a theory about the Saint."
"You have a what?" repeated Fernack as if Corrio had uttered an indecent word.
"A theory, sir. I think the mistake that's been made all along is in trying to get something on the Saint after he's done a job. What we ought to do is pick out a job that he looks likely to do, watch it, and catch him red-handed. After all, his character is so well known that any real detective ought to be able to pick out the things that would interest him with his eyes shut. There's one in that paper on your desk--I noticed it this morning."
"Are you still talking about this?" Fernack demanded unsympathetically. "Because if so----"
Corrio shook his head.
"I mean that man Oppenheim who owns the sweatshops. It says in the paper that he's just bought the Vanderwoude emerald collection for a million and a half dollars to give to his daughter for a wedding present. Knowing how Oppenheim got his money, and knowing the Saint's line, it's my idea that the Saint will make a play for those jewels."
"An' make such a sucker play that even a fairy like you could catch him at it," snarled Fernack discourag-ingly. "Go back and do your detecting at the Merrick Playhouse--I hear there's a bad ham out there they've been trying to find for some time."
If he had been less incensed with his subordinate Fernack might have perceived a germ of sound logic in Corrio's theory, but he was in no mood to appreciate it. Two days later he did not even remember that the suggestion had been made; which was an oversight on his part, for it was at that time that Simon Templar did indeed develop a serious interest in the unpleasant Mr Oppenheim.
This was because Janice Dixon stumbled against him late one night as he was walking home along Forty-eighth Street in the dark and practically deserted block between Sixth and Seventh avenues. He had to catch her to save her from falling.
"I'm sorry," she muttered.
He murmured some absent-minded commonplace and straightened her up, but her weight was still heavy on his hand. When he let her go she swayed towards him and clung onto his arm.
"I'm sorry," she repeated stupidly.
His first thought was that she was drunk, but her breath was innocent of the smell of liquor. Then he thought the accident might be only the excuse for a more mercenary kind of introduction, but he saw that her face was not made up as he would have expected it to be in that case. It was a pretty face, but so pale that it looked ghostly in the semidarkness between the far-spaced street lamps; and he saw that she had dark circles under her eyes and that her mouth was without lipstick.
"Is anything the matter?" he asked.
"No--it's nothing. I'll be all right in a minute. I just want to rest."
"Let's go inside somewhere and sit down."
There was a drugstore on the corner and he look her into it. It seemed to be a great effort for her to walk and another explanation of her unsteadiness flashed into his mind. He sat her down at the counter and ordered two cups of coffee.
"Would you like something to eat with it?"