Saint Goes West Read Free

remember that note I showed you?” Reassured by confirmation, Freddie picked up the cocktail shaker again and said: “Well, Simon Templar is going to take care of us. You know who he is, don’t you? The Saint. That’s who he is,” said Freddie, leaving no room for misunderstanding.
    “I thought so,” said Lissa, with her cornflower eyes clinging to the Saint’s face. “I’ve seen pictures of you.” She put her book down and moved her long legs invitingly to make some room on the couch. “What do you think about that note?”
    Simon accepted the invitation. He didn’t think she was any less potentially dangerous than the other two, but she was a little more quiet and subtle about it. Besides, she at least had something else to talk about.
    “Tell me what you think,” he said. “You might have a good point of view.”
    “I thought it sounded rather like something out of a cheap magazine.”
    “There you are!” exclaimed Freddie triumphantly, from the middle distance. “Isn’t that amazing? Eh, Simon? Listen to this, Ginny. That’s what she reads detective stories for. You’ll like this. D’you know what Simon said when I showed him that note? What did you say, Simon?”
    “I said it sounded a bit corny.”
    “There!” said Freddie, personally vindicated. “That’s the very word he used. He said it was corny. That’s what he said as soon as he read it.”
    “That’s what I thought too,” said Esther, “only I didn’t like to say so. Probably it’s just some crackpot trying to be funny.”
    “On the other hand,” Simon mentioned, “a lot of crackpots have killed people, and plenty of real murders have been pretty corny. And whether you’re killed by a crackpot or the most rational person in the world, and whether the performance is corny or not, you end up just as dead.”
    “Don’t a lot of criminals read detective stories?” Lissa asked.
    The Saint nodded.
    “Most of them. And they get good ideas from them, too. Most writers are pretty clever, in spite of the funny way they look, and when they go in for crime they put in a lot of reнsearch and invention that a practising thug doesn’t have the time or the ability to do for himself. But he could pick up a lot of hints from reading the right authors.”
    “He could learn a lot of mistakes not to make, too.”
    “Maybe there’s something in that,” said the Saint. “Perнhaps the stupid criminals you were talking about are only the ones who don’t read books. Maybe the others get to be so clever that they never get caught, and so you never hear about them at all.”
    “Brrr,” said Ginny. “You’re giving me goose-pimples. Why don’t you just call the cops?”
    “Because the Saint’s a lot smarter than the cops,” said Freddie. “That’s what I hired him for. He can run rings round the cops any day. He’s been doing it for years. Lissa knows all about him, because she reads things. You tell them about him, Lissa.”
    He came over with Х clusters of Manhattans in his hands, poured out in goblets that would have been suitable for fruit punch.
    “Let her off,” said the Saint hastily. “If she really knows the whole story of my life she might shock somebody. Let’s do some serious drinking instead.”
    “Okay,” said Freddie amiably. “You’re the boss. You go on being the mystery man. Let’s all get stinking.”
    The fact that they did not all get stinking was certainly no fault of Freddie Pellman’s. It could not be denied that he did his generous best to assist his guests to attain that state of ideal ossification. His failure could only be attributed to the superior discretion of the company, and the remarkably high level of resistance which they seemed to have in comнmon.
    It was quite a classic performance in its way. Freddie concocted two more Manhattans, built on the same scale as milk shakes. There was then a brief breathing spell while they went to their rooms to change. Then they went to the Doll