“I don’t get it, boss,” he said automatically.
“It works backwards,” Simon explained. “First an unidentified body is found, and the only connection between it and me was a deed of gift. Now some people have recognised the body and say that I’ve been seen foregathering with Junior, hereinafter referred to as the unlamented Mr Cleve Friend, a grifter from Frisco. It’s significant that some of these witnesses are beggars. Later, perhaps, a witness to the murder will pop up. By sheer accident, he happened to be passing when I bumped off Friend.”
“But ya didn’t bump him off,” Hoppy said. “Did ya?”
“No, Hoppy, I didn’t.”
“Den it’s okay, ain’t it?”
The Saint lighted a cigarette and leaned back.
“I wish I could be sure of that.” He blew a procession of three reflective smoke-rings towards the ceiling. “Do you happen to know anything about scopolamine?”
“I never hoid of him. Is he in de same mob with dat Gordian?”
“It’s a drug, Hoppy. It makes people tell the truth. And it seems that somebody gave it to Friend before he was bumped off. They wanted to know how much he’d spilled, and he must have told them. We can also be sure that they asked him all he knew about us... So we can take it the blind-beggar act is dead and has been for some time.”
A scowl of dutiful concentration formed like a sluggish cloud below Mr Uniatz’s hairline as he worked this out and tried to reconcile its components. His mental travail appeared to deepen through successive minutes to a painful degree, and at last he brought forth the root of it.