To Tom Ferris for all the fun of Miami Beach, for the Algonquin Alligator, and especially for some of the more improbable parts of this book, which we happen to know are strictly true.
I
The black market
1
The headline in the New York World Telegram said:
SAINT TO SMASH IRIDIUM BLACK MARKET
The story itself was relatively slight for so much black type, but it was adequately padded with a fairly accurate resume of the Saint's career and exploits, or as much of them as had ever become a matter of record; for while the Saint himself was not naturally a modest man, there are certain feats which the dull legislatures of this century do not allow a person to publicise without fear of landing behind iron bars, and Simon Templar preferred bars with bottles to the less convivial kind.
However, the mere fact that the Saint was involved made the item meaty enough from a journalistic standpoint to justify the expenditure of ink, and it is probable that hardly any of the readers felt that the space could have been more stimulatingly and entertainingly employed.
Inspector John Henry Fernack was one very solid exception. He may have been stimulated, in an adrenal way, but he was certainly not entertained. He was, in fact, a rather solemnly angry man. But he had been conditioned by too many previous encounters with Simon Templar's unique brand of modern buccaneering to view the threat of a fresh outbreak without feeling a premonitory ache somewhere in his sadly wise gray head.
He came all the way uptown from Centre Street to the Saint's suite at the Algonquin, and thrust the paper under Simon's nose, and said grimly: "Would you mind telling me just what this means?"