When he saw the London Air Park below him he shut offthe engine and came down in a perfect vertical descent which set him down outside the Cierva hangars. Simon climbed out and button-holed one of the company's test pilots.
"Would you like to come on a short hop with me?" he asked. "I want to show you something."
As they walked back towards the Newdick helicopter the pilot studied it with a puzzled frown.
"Is that one of our machines?" he said.
"More or less," Simon told him.
"It looks as if it had been put together wrong," said the pilot worriedly. "Have you been having trouble with it?"
The Saint shook his head.
"I think you'll find," he answered, "that it's been put together right."
He demonstrated what he meant, and when they returned the test pilot took the machine up again himself and tried it a second time. Other test pilots tried it. Engineers scratched their heads over it and tried it. Telephone calls were made to London. A whole two hours passed before Simon Templar dropped the machine beside Mr. Newdick's sheds and relieved the inventor of the agonies of anxiety which had been racking him.
"I was afraid you'd killed yourself," said Mr. Newdick with emotion; and indeed the thought that his miraculous benefactor might have passed away before being separated from his money had brought Mr. Newdick out in several cold sweats.