The Saint in Action by Leslie Charteris, Robert Hilbert;

leave the Saint free once again to organize more tragedies for him. He didn’t know how this one had been organized, but he knew that it had been done, and he knew that his very own watchdogs were the best evidence against him. And Mr Teal knew with the utter deadness of despair that it had always been fated to be the same.
    Part Two
    The Unlicensed Victuallers
    I
    Somewhere among the black hills to the southwest dawned a faint patch of light. It moved and grew, pulsing and brightening, like a palely luminous cloud drifting down from the horizon; and Simon Templar, with his eyes fixed on it, slid his cigarette case gently out of his pocket.
    “Here it comes, Hoppy,” he remarked.
    Beside him Hoppy Uniatz followed his gaze and inhaled deeply from his cigar, illuminating a set of features which would probably have caused any imaginative passer-by, seeing them spring suddenly out of the darkness, to mistake them for the dial of a particularly malevolent banshee.
    “Maybe dey got some liquor on board dis time, boss,” he said hopefully. “I could just do wit’ a drink now.”
    Simon frowned at him in the gloom.
    “You’ve got a drink,” he said severely. “What happened to that bottle I gave you when we came out?”
    Mr Uniatz wriggled uneasily in his seat.
    “I dunno, boss. I just tried it, an’ it was empty. It’s de queerest t’ing …” An idea struck him. “Could it of been leakin’, woujja t’ink, boss?”
    “Either it was, or you will be,” said the Saint resignedly.
    His eyes were still fixed on the distance, where the nimbus of light was growing still brighter. By this time his expectant ears could hear the noise that came with it, a faraway rattle and rumble that was at first hardly more than a vibration in the air, growing steadily louder in the silence of the night.
    He felt for a button on the dashboard, and the momentary whirr of the starter died into the smooth sibilant whisper of a perfectly tuned engine as the great car came to life. They were parked on the heath, just off the edge of the road, in the shadow of a clump of bushes, facing the ghostly aurora that was approaching them from where the hills rose towards the sea. Simon trod on the clutch and pushed the gear lever into first and heard a subdued click beside him as Mr Uniatz released the safety catch of his automatic.
    “Howja know dis is it?” Mr Uniatz said hoarsely, the point having just occurred to him.
    “They’re just on time.” Simon was looking down at the phosphorescent hands of his wrist watch. “Pargo said they’d be leaving at two o’clock. Anyway, we’ll be sure of it when Peter gives us the flash.”
    “Is dat why you send him down de road?”
    “Yes, Hoppy. That was the idea.”
    “To see de truck when it passes him?”
    “Exactly.”
    Mr Uniatz scratched his head, making a noise like wood being sandpapered.
    “How does he know it’s de right truck?” he asked anxiously.
    “By the number plate,” Simon explained. “You know—that bit of tin with figures on it.”
    Mr Uniatz digested this thought for a moment and relaxed audibly.
    “Chees, boss,” he said admiringly. “De way you t’ink of everything!”
    A warm glow of relief emanated from him, an almost tangible radiation of good cheer and fortified faith, rather like the fervour which must exude from a true follower of the Prophet when he arrives in paradise and finds that Allah has indeed placed a number of supremely voluptuous houris at his disposal, exactly as promised in the Quran. It was a feeling which had become perennially new to Mr Uniatz, ever since the day when he had first discovered the sublime infallibility of the Saint and clutched at it like a straw in the turbulent oceans of Thought in which he had been floundering painfully all his life. That Simon Templar, on one of those odd quixotic impulses which were an essential part of his character, should have encouraged the attachment was a miracle that Mr Uniatz had never stopped to