Charteris, Leslie - 22 by The Saint In Miami

Author:The Saint In Miami
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-08-29T12:44:48+00:00

VI

How Hoppy Uniatz Rode on

His Brain Wave, and Gallipolis

Introduced Another Vehicle

What in the absence of a better phrase we must loosely refer to as the thinking processes of Hoppy Uniatz were blissfully uncluttered by teleological complications such as any worry about consequences. His mind, if we must use the word, was a one-way street through which infrequent ideas rolled with the remorseless grandeur of cold molasses towards an unalterable destination. Once it was started, any idea that got caught in this treacly rolling stream was stuck there until it had been through everything that the works had to offer, like a fly in a drop of glue on a Ford production belt

What Simon Templar sometimes remembered too late, as he had done in this instance, was that the traffic in Mr Uniatz's constricted mental thoroughfares moved at such a different rate from that of everybody else that one was apt to overlook the fact that it really did keep moving. In which error one did Mr Uniatz a grave injustice. It was true that an all-foreseeing Providence, designing his skull principally to resist the impact of blackjacks and beer bottles, had been left with little space to spare for grey matter; but nevertheless some room had been found for a substance in which a planted thought could take root and grow with the ageless inevitability of a forming stalagmite. The only trouble with this adagio germination was that the planting of the seed was liable to have been forgotten by the time the resultant blossom coyly showed its head.

It had been like that in this case; and to Hoppy Uniatz it was all so straightforward that he would have been dumbfounded to learn that the Saint had lost touch with the scenario even for a moment.

Hoppy had only a minor difficulty over transportation. He guessed that the Saint might not like to be left without a car, and so he passed up the Cadillac and selected instead a flaming red Lincoln which caught his eye further down the line. There were no keys in it, but that was an elementary problem, which was quickly solved by tearing the wires loose from the ignition lock and making some experimental connections. A beam of pleasure that would have made a baby scream for its mother spread over his homely face as the engine fired, and in a glow of happy innocence he swung the Lincoln out in a spurt of sand and headed off like Parsifal on the spoor of his Grail.

He had few doubts of his ability to finally find his way to the barge—having been there once, that was another relatively minor problem to a man who in his day had safely shepherded trucks of beer and such other valuable cargo over back roads to other equally well-hidden harbours. He turned unerringly on 63rd Street, sped south on Pinetree Drive, and took Dade Boulevard to the Venetian Way. And before he reached the Tamiami Trial he was warmed with another heart-swelling realisation which he had worked out white he drove.

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