Saint in New York by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780930330972
Publisher: Magna Large Print Books
Published: 1935-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

How Simon Templar Interviewed Mr. Inselheim, and Dutch Kuhlmann Wept

It seems scarcely necessary to explain that Mr. Ezekiel Inselheim was a Jew. He was a stoutish man with black hair surrounding a shiny bald pate, pleasant brown eyes, and a rather attractive smile; but his nose would have driven Hitler into frenzies of belligerent Aryanism. Confronted by that shamelessly Semitic proboscis, no well-trained Nazi could ever have been induced to believe that he was a kindly and honest man, shrewd without duplicity, self-made without arrogance, wealthy without offensive ostentation. It has always been difficult for such wild possibilities to percolate into the atrophied brain cells of second-rate crusaders, and a thousand years of self-styled civilization have made no more improvements in the Nordic crank than they have in any other type of malignant half-wit.

He sat slumping wearily before the table in his library. The white light of his desk lamp made his sallow face appear even paler than it was naturally; his hands were resting on the blotter in front of him, clenched into impotent fists, and he was staring at them, with a dull, almost childish hurt creasing deep grooves into the flesh on either side of his mouth.

Upstairs, his daughter slept peacefully, resting again in her own bed with the careless confidence of childhood; and for that privilege he had been compelled to pay the price. In spite of the fact that that strange Robin Hood of the twentieth century who was called the Saint had brought her back to him without a fee, Inselheim knew that the future safety of the girl still depended solely on his own ability to meet the payments demanded of him. He knew that his daughter had been kidnapped as a warning rather than for actual ransom, knew that there were worse weapons than kidnapping which the Terror would not hesitate to employ at the next sign of rebellion; if he had ever had any doubts on that score, they had been swept away by the cold guttural voice which had spoken to him over the telephone that morning; and it was the knowledge of those things that clenched his unpractised fists at the same time as that dull bitter pain of helplessness darkened his eyes.

Ezekiel Inselheim was wondering, as others no less rich and famous had wondered before him, why it was that in the most materially civilized country in the world an honoured and peaceful citizen had still to pay toll to a clique of organized bandits, like medieval peasants meeting the extortions of a feudal barony. He was wondering, with a grim intensity of revolt, why the police, who were so impressively adept at handing out summonses for traffic violations, and delivering perjured testimony against unfortunate women, were so plaintively incapable of holding the racketeers in check. And he knew the answers only too well.

He knew, as all America knew, that with upright legislators, with incorruptible police and judiciary, the gangster would long ago have vanished like the Western bad man.

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