Read Online Follow the Saint by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online Page B

of
Miracle Tea into Chief Inspector Teal’s
unwitting paws, and tumbled it from his pocket into Simon Templar’s car.
    The one
vast and monumental question mark that was left was wrapped all the way round
the mystery of what was the motive focus of the whole machinery.
    A highly
organized and up-to-date gang of thieves, directed by a Master
Mind and operating with the efficiency of a big business ?
The answer seemed trite but possible. And yet …
    All the
goods he could see round him were probably as genuine as patent slimming salts and mouth
washes can be— any special packages would certainly be kept aside. And there was nothing noticeably out of place at that time.
He examined the cash register. It contained nothing but a small amount of money, which he transferred to a
hospital collect ing box on the
counter. The ancient notes and invoices and prescriptions speared on to hook
files in the dispensing compartment
were obviously innocuous—nothing incrimi nating was likely to be left lying about there.
    The first brisk spell of trade
seemed to have fallen off, and no one else
had entered the shop since the visit of Weasel Face. Simon went back upstairs,
and investigated the room into which
he had dodged when he followed the shifty-eyed youth up the stairs. He remembered it as having had the air of a
storeroom of some kind, and he was right. It contained various large jars, packing cases, and cardboard
cartons labelled with assorted names and cryptic signs, some of them prosaically familiar, stacked about in not
particularly metho dical piles. But
the whole rear half of the room, in contrasting orderliness, was stacked
from floor to ceiling with mounds of small
yellow packages that he could recognize at a glance.
    He looked
around again, and on one wall he found in a cheap frame the
official certificate which announced to all whom it might concern
that Mr Henry Osbett had dutifully complied with the Law and registered
the fact that he was trading under the business name of The Miracle
Tea Com pany.
    “Well,
well, well!” said the Saint dreamily. “What a small world it
is after all… .”
    He fished
out his cigarette case and smoked part of the way through a
cigarette while he stood gazing abstractedly over the unilluminating contents
of the room, and his brain was a whirlpool of new and startling
questions.
    Then he
pulled himself together and went back to the office.
    The three
men he had left there were all awake again by then and squirming ineffectually. Simon
shook his head at them.
    “Relax,
boys,” he said soothingly. “You’re only wearing yourselves
out. And think what a mess you’re making of your clothes.”
    Their swollen eyes glared at
him mutely with three indivi dual renderings
of hate and malevolence intensified by different
degrees of fear; but if the Saint had been susceptible to the cremating power of the human eye he would
have been a walking cinder many years ago.
    Calmly he proceeded to empty
their pockets and examine every scrap of
paper he found on them; but except for a driving licence which gave him Mr Nancock’s name and address in Croydon he was no wiser when he had
finished.
    After that
he turned his attention to the filing cabinet; but as far as a lengthy
search could tell it contained nothing but a conventional
collection of correspondence on harmless matters concerned with
the legitimate business of the shop and the marketing of Miracle Tea. He
sat down in Mr Osbett’s swivel chair and went systematically through
the drawers of the desk, but they also provided him with no enlightenment.
The net result of his labours was a magnifi cent and
symmetrically rounded zero.
    The
Saint’s face showed no hint of his disappointment. He sat for a few
seconds longer, tilting himself gently back and forth; and then he stood up.
    “It’s
a pity you don’t keep more money on the premises, Henry,” he remarked.
“You could have saved yourself a stamp.”
    He picked
up a paperknife from the