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."He had no very definite plan in mind; but the penultimate revelation of thelate Mr.Papulos was impressed deeply on his memory.He thought it overthrough the afternoon, till the day faded and New York donned her electricjewels and came to life.The only decision he came to was that if anything was go-ing to happen duringthe next twenty-four hours it would be likely to happen at night; and it waswell after dark when he set out in the long underslung roadster that Valcrosshad provided.After the day had gone, and the worker had re-turned to hisfireside, Broadway came into its own: the under-world and its allies, to whomthe sunset was the dawn, and who had a very lukewarm appreciation offiresides, came forth from their hiding places to play and plot new ventures;and if Mr.Ezekiel Inselheim and his seed were still the target, they would belikely to waste no time.It was, as a matter of fact, one of those soft and balmy nights on which afireside has a purely symbolical appeal.Overhead, a full moon tossed herbeams extravagantly over an unapprecia-tive city.A cool breeze swept acrossthe Hudson, whipping the heat from the granite of the mighty metropolis.Overin Brooklyn, a certain Mr.Theodore Bungstatter was so moved by the magic ofthe night that he proposed marriage to his cook, and swooned when he wasaccepted; and the Saint sent his car roaring through the twinkling canyons ofNew York with a sublime faith that this evening could not be less produc-tiveof entertainment than any which had gone before.As a matter of fact, the expedition was not embarked on quite so blindly as itmight have appeared.The information supplied by the late Mr.Papulos hadstarted a train of thought, and the more Simon followed it the more he becameconvinced that it ought dutifully to lead somewhere.Any such racket asPapulos had described depended for its effec-tiveness almost entirely uponfear an almost superstitious fear of the omnipotence and infallibility of themenacing party.By the failure of the previous night's kidnapping thatatmosphere had suffered a distinct setback, and only a prompt and decisivecounter-attack would restore the damage.On an expert and comprehensiveestimate, the odds seemed about two hundred to one that the tribulations ofMr.Insel-heim were only just beginning; but it must be confessed that SimonPage 51ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlTemplar was not expecting quite such a rapid vindica-tion of his arithmetic ashe received.As he turned into Sutton Place he saw an expensive lim-ousine standing outsidethe building where Mr.Inselheim's apartment was.He marked it downmechanically, along with the burly lounger who was energetically idling in thevicinity.Simon flicked his gear lever into neutral and coasted slowly along,contemplating the geography of the locale and weigh-ing up strategic sites forhis own encampment; and he had scarcely settled on a spot when a dark plumpfigure emerged from the building and paused for a moment beside the burlylounger on the sidewalk.The roadster stopped abruptly, and the Saint's keen eyes strained through thenight.He saw that the dark plump figure carried a bulky brown-paper packageunder its arm; and as the brief conversation with the lounger concluded, thefigure turned towards the limousine and the rays of a street lamp fell fullacross the pronounced and unforgettable fea-tures of Mr.Ezekiel Inselheim.Simon raised his eyebrows and regarded himself solemnly in the driving mirror."Oho," he remarked to his reflection."Likewise aha.As Mr.Templar arrives,Mr.Inselheim departs.We seem to have arrived in the nick of time."At any rate, the reason for the burly lounger's presence was disposed of, andit was not what the Saint had thought at first.He realized immediately thatafter the stirring events of the last twenty-four hours the police, with theirinspired efficiency in locking the stable door after the horse was stolen,would have naturally posted a guard at the Inselheim residence; and thelarge-booted idler was acquitted of any sinister in-tentions.The guilelessness of Mr.Inselheim was less clearly estab-lished, and Simonwas frowning thoughtfully as he slipped the roadster back into gear andwatched Inselheim entering the limousine.For a few moments, while thelimousine's en-gine was warming up, he debated whether it might not have beena more astute tactical move to remain on the spot where Mr.Inselheim'soffspring might provide a centre of more urgent disturbances.And then, as thelimousine pulled out from the curb, he flicked an imaginary coin in his mind,and it came down on the memory of a peculiar brown-paper pack-age.With aslight shrug he pulled out a cigarette case and juggled it deftly with onehand as he stepped on the gas."The hell with it," said the Saint to his attractive reflection."Ezekiel isfollowing his nose, and there may be worse land-marks."The limousine's taillight was receding northwards, and Simon closed up untilhe was less than twenty yards behind, trailing after it through the traffic assteadily as if the two cars had been linked by invisible ropes.* * *After a while the dense buildings of the city thinned out to the quieter,evenly spaced dwellings of the suburbs.There the moon seemed to shine evenmore brightly; the stars were chips of ice from which a cool radiance camedown to freshen the summer evening; and the Saint sighed gently.In him was acertain strain of the same temperament which blessed our Mr.TheodoreBungstatter of Brooklyn: a night like that filled him with a sense of peaceand tranquillity that was utterly alien to his ordinary self.He decided thatin a really well-organized world there would have been much bet-ter things forhim to do on such an evening than to go trailing after a bloke who boasted thename of Inselheim and looked like it.It would have been a very differentmatter if the mys-terious and beautiful Fay Edwards, who had twice passed withsuch surprising effect across the horizons of that New York venture, had beendriving the limousine ahead.He thrust a second cigarette between his lips and struck a match.The lightrevealed his face for one flashing instant, striking a rather cold blue lightfrom thoughtfully reckless eyes  a glimpse of character that might haveinterested Dutch Kuhlmann not a little if that sentimentally ruthless Teutonhad been there to see it.The Saint had his romantic regrets, but theysubtracted nothing from the concentration with which he was following the jobin hand.Page 52ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHis hand waved the match to extinction, and in his next movement he reachedforward and switched out all the lights in the car.In the closer traffic ofthe city there was no reason why he should not legitimately be following onthe same route as the limousine, but out on the less populated thoroughfareshis leech-like devotion might cause a nervous man some inquisitive agitationwhich Simon Templar had no wish to arouse.His left arm swung languidly overthe side as the roadster ripped round a turn in the road at an even sixty androared on to the northwest.The road was a level strip of concrete laid out like a silver tape under thesinking moon.He steered on in the wake of the limousine's headlight, soothinghis ears with the even purr of tires swishing over the macadam, his nervesrelaxed and resting.Above the hum of the engines rose a faint and notunmelodious sound.Simon Templar was serenading the stars.The song ended abruptly.Something flashed in the corner of his eye something jerky and illuminatinglike an electric torch.It flashed three times, with the precision of alighthouse; and then the dark-ness settled down again [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]