“He had a little proposition,” Nelson said. “Wanted me to throw the fight for both ends of the gate.”
“The louse!” Mullins exploded. “The dirty no-good louse. I mighta known Spangler’d try sump’n like that. He knows that ham of his ain’t got a chance.”
Simon crushed out his cigarette in the ash-tray.
“I’d feel even more sure of that if I could drop in and watch you train, Steve,” he said. “In fact, I’d rather like to work out with you myself.”
“Any time,” Nelson said.
“Tomorrow morning,” said the Saint. “Come on, Hoppy — let’s keep on the trail of the roving roscoe.”
Chapter nine
The only connection that the Polar Bear Trading and Loan Company might possibly have had with the animal for which it was named, Simon decided as he entered the premises, was the arctic quality of its proprietor’s stare. This personality, however, was a far cry from the conventional bearded skull-capped shylock that was once practically a cliché in the public mind. He was, in fact, a pale, smooth-shaven young man with curly black hair, elegantly attired in a sports jacket and striped flannels, who scanned the Saint as he entered with eyes of a peculiar ebony hardness. He barely lifted a brow in recognition as he caught sight of Hoppy on Simon’s heels.
“Hi, Ruby,” Hoppy said. “I have a idea I remember dis jernt from way back. Long time no see, huh?”
To the Saint’s unsentimental blue eyes, Ruby slipped into a familiar niche like a nickel into a slot. Just as a jungle dweller knows at a glance the vulture from the eagle, the ruminant from the carnivore, so the Saint knew that in the stone jungles of the city this specimen was of a scavenger breed — with a touch of reptile, perhaps. And the fact that Mr Uniatz knew the place of old was almost enough to confirm the discredit of its agate-eyed proprietor.