“Open the door and find out,” Simon told him.
Mr Uniatz slipped a meaty hand into his gun-pocket and strode out into the foyer to the doorway.
The Saint heard the door open fractionally; he grinned slowly as he recognised the impatient imperative voice that answered Hoppy’s gruff inquiry. The door opened all the way... The determined clomp of hard-heeled brogans entered the foyer, heading for the living-room door.
“Boss,” Hoppy trumpeted in warning, “it’s—”
“Don’t tell me,” the Saint broke in cheerfully. “Give me one guess — Inspector Fernack!”
Chapter four
Devoted students of our hagiography who have been following these chronicles for the past several years may be a little tired of reading the exposition of Inspector John Henry Fernack’s emotional state, which usually punctuates the narrative at moments like this. Your favourite author, to be perfectly candid, is a little tired of writing it. Perhaps this is one occasion when he might be excused. To compress into a few sentences the long epic of failures, disappointments, and frustrations which made up the history of Inspector Fernack’s endless pursuit of the Saint is a task before which the staunchest scribe might quail. And it is almost ludicrous to attempt to describe in mere words the quality of incandescent ire that seethed up in him like a roiled volcano as the Saint’s welcoming smile flashed in the chiselled bronze of that piratical face.
“Of course,” Simon murmured. “I knew it.”
The detective glowered at him.
“How did you know?”