Sunny Jim gulped. The sharp agony in his shoulder, where Hoppy Uniatz's powerful leverage was exerting itself, made the other unpleasant possibilities which the Saint had hinted at seem frightfully close at hand; but he could not find a shadow of pity or remorse in the clear blue eyes that were studying him with the dispassionate curiosity of an entomologist watching the wriggling of a captured insect.
"Do you want me to be murdered?" he sobbed.
"I shouldn't weep at your funeral," Simon confessed coldbloodedly. "But I shouldn't look at things so pessimistically, if I were you. We could probably look after you for a bit, if you told us anything worth knowing-we might even get you out of the country and send you away for a holiday in the South of France until the excitement's all over. But you've got to spill what you know first, and I'm waiting for it to dawn on you that you'll either talk voluntarily or else we'll put you through the mangle and wring it out of you."
His voice was casual and almost kindly; but there was something so tireless and inflexible behind it that Sunny Jim shivered. He was no hot-house flower himself, but in the circles where he moved there were stories about the Saint, brought in by men who had met that amazing buccaneer to their misfortune-legends that told of a slim bantering outlaw whose smile was more deadly than any other man's anger, who faced death with a jest and sent men into eternity with his flippant farewell ringing in their ears. . . . The pain in his shoulder sharpened under Hoppy's impatient hands, and he saw that the Saint's dark lawless face was quite impassive, with the trace of an old smile lingering absent-mindedly on the reckless lips. . . .
"Damn you!" he whimpered. "I'll talk. . . . But you've got to let me go."
"Tell me something first."
Fasson's breath came in a grating sigh.
"The Kosy Korner-in Holborn"
Simon blew a couple of smoke-rings, and nodded to Mr. Uniatz.
"Okay, Hoppy," he said. "Give him a rest."
Hoppy Uniatz released his grip, and wiped his palms down his trousers. In so far as his gargoyle features were capable of expressing such an emotion, he looked shocked. As one who had himself kept an iron jaw under everything that could be handed to him in the back rooms of more than one station house in his own country, the spectacle of a guy who came apart under a mere preliminary treatment filled him with the same half-incredulous disgust that an English gentleman feels on meeting a cad who is not interested in cricket.
"I guess dese Limeys can't take it, boss," he said, groping through genuine puzzlement to the only possible conclusion.
Sunny Jim glared at him in vengeful silence. His face was white with pain, and his shoulder really felt as if it had been dislocated. He rubbed it tenderly, while Simon recovered his beer and sat on the edge of the table.
"Well?" Simon prompted him gently.
"I don't know anything much. I've told you- "Have you traded with the High Fence before?"
"Yes." Sunny Jim sat hunched in his chair, shrugging his shoulders gingerly in an occasional effort to reassure himself that the joints were still articulating. The words dragged reluctantly through his mouth. "That's how I know. I wanted to know who the High Fence was. I sent him some stuff once, and waited outside the address to see who picked it up. I saw who took it. I started to tail him, but then I got picked up by a split, and I lost him while we were talking."
"But?"
"I saw him again the next day, by accident. In this restaurant."
"The Kosy Korner?"
Fasson nodded, and licked his lips.
"Can I have a drink?" he asked hoarsely.
The Saint made a sign to Hoppy, who abandoned his futile attempt to drain non-existent dregs out of the bottle from which Simon had refilled his glass and left the room. The Saint's cool blue eyes did not leave Sunny Jim's face.
"And what happened there?"
Fasson got out of his chair and limped around the table, rubbing his head dazedly.
"This fellow shoved the packet in the pocket of an over coat that was hanging on the rail"
At that moment he was beside the empty bottle which Mr. Uniatz had put down; and for once Simon Templar's understanding was a fraction of a second slow. He did not clearly comprehend what was happening until the neck of the bottle was clutched in Sunny Jim's fist, swinging up and spinning away from the hand with vicious speed.
With an instinct that was swifter than any reasoned understanding, he ducked his head and felt the cold graze of the glass stroking past his ear before it splintered on the wall behind him with an explosive smash; but that automatic movement of self-preservation lost him a vital second of time. He rolled off the table and leapt for the door, only to have it slammed in his face; and when he had wrenched it open again Sunny Jim's footsteps were clattering wildly down the second flight of stairs.
Sunny Jim Fasson tore out into the narrow street and started to run down towards the bright lights of the main thoroughfare. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but he knew that his one broad object was to remove himself as quickly as possible from the city where so many deadly things had begun to happen in one evening. Chance had given him one infinitesimal spark of knowledge that he should not have possessed, normal psychology had tempted him to use it in the purchase of his freedom when Chief Inspector Teal had called; but he had not thought of the retribution. Of what had happened since that brain-dulling bullet graze across his head he preferred not to think; but he had a foggy idea that whichever way he turned in that perilous tangle would lead him into new dangers. He had had one warning that day. To be killed for squealing, to be tortured and perhaps killed for not squealing-he saw nothing but trouble in every prospect that was offered to him. except the one primitive remedy of frantic flight. He stumbled into the King's Road with his chest heaving, and hesitated on the corner in a moment's ghastly indecision. ... A motor-cycle with a particularly noisy exhaust had started up behind him, but he did not think to look round. It seemed to back-fire twice in quick succession; and a tearing shattering agony beside which Hoppy Uniatz's third degree was a fleabite crashed into his back and sent him sprawling blindly forward into the gutter. . . .
Simon Templar stood in the half-open doorway and saw the motor-cycle whip round the corner and vanish with its engine roaring. He was aware that Hoppy Uniatz was breathing heavily down his neck, making strange grunting noises in an ecstasy of impatience to get past him.
"Lemme go after him an' give him de woiks, boss," he was pleading. "I'll get him, sure."
The Saint's fingers were still curled over the butt of his own gun, which he had not had time to draw.
"You're too late, Hoppy," he said quietly. "He's got the works."
He stepped back into the hall and moved aside to let Mr. Uniatz look out. A small crowd was gathering round the spread-eagled shape on the corner, and the wail of a police whistle drifted faintly over the rumble of untroubled traffic. Simon closed the door again.
"So ya had him on de spot," said Mr. Uniatz, with proper admiration. "Chees, boss, you got it all on de top storey. Howja know he was gonna take a powder?"
"I didn't," said the Saint evenly, and went back up the stairs to Patricia.
He knew of nobody who would mourn the passing of Sunny Jim for long, and his own regret for the untimely accident was as sincere as anyone's.
"We'll be moving, kid," he said. "Sunny Jim has clocked out."
"Did you shoot him?"
He shook his head.
"That was the mistake Hoppy made. But I hadn't any reason to. There was a bloke waiting outside on a motor-bike, and he got him-it may have been the High Fence himself. I thought this address was our own secret, but somebody else seems to have got on to it. So we'll move on." He lighted another cigarette and trickled an airy feather of smoke through his lips, while Hoppy came plodding up to join them; and she saw that his blue eyes were as bright and cold as steel. "We've lost our insurance policy, old dear. But there may be something better than an insurance policy at the Kosy Korner; and I'm going to find out what it is if I eat there till I'm poisoned!"