He bounced down from the stage and hurried up the aisle. Frankie tried to ignore everything, but the Saint was as irresistible as a radio interviewer. His hand appeared to stroke lightly over Frankie’s arm and pause there. Only those in the immediate vicinity heard Frankie’s yelp of pain, immediately smothered by the Saint’s laughter.
“The man’s got muscle!” he announced jovially. “You’ll give me a fight, won’t you, my friend? Come on, don’t disappoint the audience.”
He practically yanked Frankie out of his chair and caught him in a hold that left the man completely helpless, his legs in the air and his neck imprisoned under the Saint’s arm.
“Just like that,” Simon proclaimed. “Let’s go up on the stage where the audience can enjoy it. We’ll try it again more slowly.”
He retraced his steps as resiliently as though he were not burdened with a tight-lipped, glaring assistant.
Lieutenant Kearney moved to get a better view. His face was a study in perplexed suspicion. Common sense told him that there was more in this than met the eye, but he couldn’t guess what it was; and Simon hoped the detective’s mind would continue, for a little while, to move slowly. He had his hands full with Frankie Weiss, who was struggling like a bear-cat and growling unprintable inarticulacies which were fortunately smothered in the Saint’s coat.
Laura Wingate gazed up in a glow of girlish eagerness, twisting her hands together in her overflowing lap. Stephen Elliott clung to a benign if somewhat nervous smile. The rest of the audience was divided between those who merely sensed a welcome variation in the schedule of innocent entertainment, those who derived personal gratification from the choice of the victim, and a smaller group of hard-featured hombres who seemed to be sweating out a purely private anguish of frustrated indecision.
“Let’s do it again,” Simon lectured, releasing his victim. “More slowly now. Watch!”
Frankie showed his teeth. He ducked away from the Saint, felt a long arm snake around his waist, and, turning swiftly, drove a vicious punch at Simon’s groin. The Saint evaded it easily.
“Fine!” he exclaimed. “That’s right. Fight me — make it look realistic. Now I’ll do it slowly.”