The copy on the back cover of this book is so exhaustive it reads more like a synopsis than a blurb! The Saint vs Scotland Yard is comprised of three loosely-connected novellas, in which Simon Templar foils the villains and the law, and escapes with the loot. And his "girl assistant"? Actually it's made clear that she is his live-in lover, an arrangement that is common today, but must have raised a few eyebrows back when this was written.THE SAINT VERSUS SCOTLAND YARD (originally entitled The Holy Terror), tells how Simon Templar relieves crooks of their ill-gotten gains and, while thus helping Chief Inspector Teal of Scotland Yard, at the same time receives a fair proportion for himself and his girl assistant Patricia Holm. Part I tells how he settles accounts with a professional blackmailer and murderer called the Scorpion and is thereby enabled to pay his income-tax. In Part II he foils a giant currency swindle, but incidentally leaves a dead man and other casualties to be explained by the exasperated Teal. In Part III he confronts two diamond-smuggling gangsters after a murder in a train ; Inspector Teal butts in and is fooled, while the Saint takes one of the gangsters on a wild car-ride ; Teal is finally checkmated on the great liner Berengaria and is left to open a strangely filled trunk labelled with his name.
No wonder "The Saint" series became so popular. The character must have been so much fun for respectable and law-abiding citizens to identify with!