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takes my trade-mark in vain; and the lesson'll do you some good as well. And
then you're going to come crawling to me on your great fat belly------"
In a kind of hysteria, Teal squirmed away from the sinewy brown forefinger
which stabbed at his proudest possession.
"Don't do it!" he blared.
" and apologize," said the Saint; and in spite of himself, in spite of every
obdurately logical belief he held, Chief Inspector Teal thought for a moment
that he would not have liked to stand in the shoes of the man who ventured to
impersonate the owner of that quiet satirical voice.
III
MARCH HOUSE, from one of the large-scale ordnance maps of which Simon Templar
kept a complete and up-to-date library, appeared to be an estate of some
thirty acres lying between the village of Betfield and the sea. Part of the
southern boundary was formed by the cliffs themselves, and a secondary road
from Betfield to the main Folkestone highway skirted it on the northwest. The
Saint sat over his maps with a glass of sherry for half an hour before dinner
the following evening, memorizing the topography he had always been a firm
believer in direct action, and, wanting to know more about a man, nothing
appealed to him with such seductive simplicity as the obvious course of going
to his house and taking an optimistic gander at the scenery.
"But whatever makes you think Renway had anything to do with it?" asked
Patricia Holm.
"The top hat and spats," Simon told her gravely. He smiled. "I'm afraid I
haven't got the childlike faith of a policeman, lass, and that's all there is
to it. Claud Eustace would take the costume as a badge of respectability, but
to my sad and worldly mind it's just the reverse. From what I could gather,
Hugo wasn't actually sporting the top hat at the time, but he seems to have
been that kind of man. And the picture they found on the bodywas rather
squiggly as it might have been if a bloke had drawn it in a car, traveling
along. ... I know it's only one chance in a hundred, but it's a chance. And we
haven't any other clue in the whole wide world."
Hoppy Uniatz had no natural gift of subtlety, but he did understand direct
action. Out of the entire panorama of human endeavour, it was about the only
thing which really penetrated through all the layers of bullet-proof ivory
which protected his brain. Detaching his mouth momentarily from a tumbler of
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gin nominally diluted with ginger ale, he said: "I'll come wit' ya, boss."
"Is it in your line?" asked the Saint.
"I dunno," Hoppy confessed frankly. "I ain't never done no boiglary. Whadda
we have to wear dis costume for?"
Patricia looked at him blankly.
"What costume?"
"De top hat an' spats," said Hoppy Uniatz.
The Saint covered his eyes.
Six hours later, braking the Hirondel to a smooth standstill under an
overarching elm where the road touched the northwest boundary of March House,
Simon felt more practically cautious about accepting Hoppy's offer of
assistance. On such an expedition as he had undertaken, a sportive elephant
would certainly have been less use; but not much less. All the same, he" had
no wish to offend Mr. Uniatz, whose proud spirit was perhaps unduly sensitive
on such points. He swung himself out into the road, detached the spare wheel,
and opened up the tool kit, while Hoppy stared at him puzzledly.
"This is where you come in," the Saint told him flatteringly. "You're going
to be an unfortunate motorist with a puncture, toiling over the wheel."
Mr. Uniatz blinked at him dimly.
"Is dat part of de boiglary?" he asked.
"Of course it is," said the Saint unscrupulously. "It's probably the most
important part. You never know when some village slop may come paddling around
these parts, and if he saw a car standing by the road with nobody in it he'd
naturally be suspicious."
Hoppy reached round for his hip flask and nodded.
"Okay, boss," he said. "I get it. If de cop comes while you're gone, I give
him de woiks."
"You don't do anything of the sort," said the Saint wearily. "They don't
allow you to kill policemen in this country. What you do is to give your very
best imitation of a guy fixing a flat. You might possibly get into
conversation with him. Talk sentimentally about the little woman at home,
waiting for her man. Make him feel homesick and encourage him to push on. But
you don't give him de woiks."
"Okay, boss," repeated Hoppy accommodatingly. "I'll fix it."
"God help you if you don't," said the Saint har-rowingly and left him to it.
The frontier of the March House estate at that point consisted of a strong
board fence about eight feet high topped with three lines of barbed wire
carried on spiked iron brackets beetling outwards at an angle: the arrangement
was effective enough to have checked any less experienced and determined
trespasser than the Saint, and even Simon might have wasted some time over it
if it had not been for the overhanging elm under which he had thoughtfully
stopped his car. But by balancing himself precariously on theside of the
tonneau and leaping upwards, he was able to get a fingerhold on one of the
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lower branches; and he swung himself up onto it as if Tarzan had been his
grandfather.
Finding his way through the tree, in the dark, was not quite so easy; but he
managed it more or less silently, and dropped from another branch onto a mat
of short undergrowth on the inside of the fence.
From there, while the muffled mutterings of Hoppy Uniatz wrestling with a
wheel drifted faintly to his ears, he surveyed the lay of the land ahead of
him. He was in a spinney of young trees and brushwood; barred here and there
with the boles of older trees similar to the one by,which he had made his
entrance; a half-moon, peeping fitfully between squadrons of cirrus cloud,
gave his night-hunter's eyes enough light to make out that broad impression
and at the same time suggested an open space some distance farther on beyond
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