They walked back to the house and went up the broad stone steps and rang the bell. After a while the door opened a few inches. Simon leaned on it and opened it the rest of the way. It pushed back a long lean beanpole of a man with a sad horse face and dangling arms whose wrists stuck out nakedly from the cuffs of his sweater. And as he saw him, a gleam of recognition shot through the Saint’s memory.
The tall man’s recognition was a shade slower, perhaps because his faculties were slightly dulled by the surprise of feeling the door move into his chest. He exhaled abruptly, and staggered back, his long arms flying loosely as though dangling on strings. As he recovered his balance he took in Hoppy’s monstrous bulk, and then the slim supple figure of the Saint closing the door after him and leaning on it with the poised relaxation of a watchful cat, the gun in his hand held almost negligently... Slowly, the long bony wrists lifted in surrender.
The young pawnbroker’s description repeated itself in the Saint’s memory. Also he recalled Mike Grady’s office and a tall thin character among the loiterers in the reception. This was the same individual. The odyssey of the gun was beginning to show connections.
“Who are you, chum?” Simon asked, moving slightly towards him.
“I know him, boss,” Hoppy put in. “De name is Slim Mancini. He useta be a hot car hustler.”
“I work here,” the beanpole said in a whining nasal tenor that had a distinct equine quality about it. He sounded, the Saint thought, just like a horse. A sick horse. “I’m the butler,” Mancini added. He glanced back at a door down the hall and opened his mouth a fraction of a second before the Saint stepped behind him and clamped a hand over it.
“No announcements, please,” the Saint said, his other arm curving about Mancini’s neck like a band of flexible steel. “This is strictly formal. You understand, don’t you?”
The man nodded and gasped a lungful of air as the Saint removed the pressure on his throat.
“Slim Mancini — buttlin’!” Hoppy sneered hoarsely. “Dat’s a laugh.” He grunted suddenly as Simon jabbed a warning elbow into his stomach.
The muffled voices in the room down the hall had gone silent. “Walk ahead of us to that door,” the Saint whispered to Spangler’s cadaverous lackey, “and open it and go in. Don’t say anything. We’ll be right behind you. Go on.”