The Saint in the Sun by Leslie Charteris Page B

riverside footpath to the railroad track.
    He stood hidden at the edge of the thicket for a while, studying the hut. This time there was no smoke coming from the chimney and no other sign of occupancy, but the only way to make finally sure of that was to go close enough to expose himself. He took a diagonal course that would lead him past it by at least fifteen yards, and studiously avoided any appearance of interest in it. Then when he was near enough he flashed a sidelong glance at the door without turning his head, and saw that there was a padlock in place which could not possibly have been fixed from inside.
    He turned and went directly to it. The lock was a good one, but like many such installations it was betrayed by the hasp which it secured, which was fastened to the woodwork merely with four screws which offered no resistance to the screwdriver blade of the Saint’s Swiss army pocket-knife. He put the screws in his pocket for future replacement, opened the door, and went in.
    The interior, dimly lighted by the one grimy window, was stuffy with the mingled stalenesses of beer, smoke, and sweat. Gardening tools stood in three corners, and some soiled articles of clothing hung on hooks. A battered kettle and a dirty saucepan sat on the small black stove. There was a dresser with a stained and scarred top on which stood an enamel basin, a chipped cup and saucer, a couple of plates, some cheap flatware, and a can of beans. The only other furniture was an ancient armchair with the stuffing leaking through rents in the upholstery, and an iron bedstead with drab blankets carelessly heaped on a bare gray mattress.
    If what he was looking for was there at all, there were not many places where it could be hidden. The dresser drawers yielded only a disorderly hodge-podge of clothing, canned food, old magazines, patent medicines, pieces of string and wire, and an empty gin bottle. Through the larger splits in the chair his probing fingers touched only springs and cotton batting. The mattress seams showed no signs of having been recently re-sewn. That left only the floor, which he checked board by board, until under the bed, when he moved it away from the wall, he found one that was loose and which came up easily.
    From the hollow underneath he pulled out a stout canvas bag tied with a cord threaded through a row of grommets around the neck. Stencilled on one side were the words:
PETRIPLAST LTD.
    SLOUGH.
    The bag bulged with a load that was half-hard but springy. He loosened the cord, plunged a hand in, and brought it out with a mass of paper money, most of it fives.
    A change in the intensity of light, rather than anything positively seen, made him turn and look up sharply.
    Tom Gull stood in the doorway. It could have been no one else, in a suit that looked as if it had been slept in, but with a garish necktie knotted under a clean but threadbare collar. Tom Gull, dressed to go to the races, or to tell Penelope he was going, but already returned home instead. The untidy gray hair and ruddy face matched the impression that Simon had had from a distance, but at closer quarters it could be observed that the tint of cheeks and nose had not been produced by wind and sun without the assistance of internally administered colorants. The bear-like posture was the same, too, but not the speed with which he snatched up a pitchfork that leaned against the nearest wall.
    “Hold it!” the Saint’s voice crackled. “We mustn’t get blood on it!”
    For an instant the man was thrown off his mental stride, and that was sufficient to check him physically. But the fork was still levelled at the Saint’s chest, the tines gleaming wickedly sharp, poised on the whim of the gardener’s powerful arm like an arrow on the string of a drawn bow.
    “Wot you think you’re doing ‘ere?”
    “I know all about this,” Simon said urgently, trying to keep his precarious hold on the other’s attention. He threw the bag down on the bed so that the