Saint on Guard Read Free Page B

none of its fundamental bellicosity. It was only quieter, and perhaps more calculating.
    “Oh, did you?” he said.
    The Saint fingertipped a cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket. For his part, the approach was all ploughed up anyhow. He had given Titania Ourley little enough script to work with, and now that she had gone defensively back into simple facts it was no use worrying about what other lines might have been developed. Simon resigned himself to some hopeful adlibbing, and smiled at Mr Ourley without the slightest indication of uncer-tainty in his genial nonchalance.
    “You see?” he murmured. “Tiny has brains as well as beauty.”
    Ourley’s red face deepened into purple again.
    “You leave my wife out of this!” he bellowed. “And as for you, you can get out of here this minute, Mister Templar. When you’ve got any authority to come barging into other people’s affairs–-“
    “You heard the name,” Simon replied softly. “Did you ever hear of the Saint asking for any authority?”
    ” ‘And seem a saint when most I play the devil’,” said another voice, a deep cultured voice from somewhere else in the hall.
    Simon looked around for it.
    He saw, in one of the doorways, a tall spare man whose dinner clothes seemed to have been poured over his figure, smiling and twirling a Martini glass in one manicured hand. Gray at the temples, his face was hard and almost unlined, cut in the aquiline fleshless pattern of a traditional Indian chief.
    “I don’t want to break anything up,” he said, “but all the excitement seemed to be out here.” Ignoring Ourley, he sauntered towards the Saint with his free hand outstretched. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr Templar. My name’s Allen Uttershaw. I’m supposed to run that Uttershaw Mining Company. I heard somebody talking about iridium. Are you going to get that stolen shipment back for us?”
    “I don’t know,” said the Saint. “I’m afraid I only heard about you a few days ago.”
    ” ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen’,” Uttershaw said tolerantly, his smile widening.
    Ourley made a gesture of frightful frustration with his cigar.
    “What is all this?” he barked. “Who said that?”
    “John Kieran,” said Uttershaw gravely; and Simon looked at him with new interest. It began to seem as if Mr Allen Uttershaw might be quite a fellow.
    Mr Ourley didn’t have the same pure intellectual detachment. He repeated his outraged gesture with italics in smoke.
    “Dabbity dab dab dab!” he roared. “Has everybody gone nuts? First I find my wife has brought this meddler into my home to spy on me, and then you keep on quoting poetry. Or maybe it’s me that’s crazy.”
    “Milton!” said Mrs Ourley sternly.
    Uttershaw took Simon by the arm and started to lead him easily into the living room from which he had emerged.
    “Milton, I’m ashamed of you,” he said. “What will Mr Templar think of your hospitality?”
    “I don’t give a dab dab what he thinks,” fumed Ourley, pattering helplessly after them. “My hospitality doesn’t include welcoming crooks and spies with open arms.”
    “Now, after all—surely Mr Templar is at least entitled to the chance of saying something for himself.” Uttershaw turned to a tray on which a shaker and a row of glasses were set out. “How about a drink, Mr Templar?”
    “Thanks,” said the Saint, with equal urbanity.
    He took the glass that Uttershaw handed him, gazed into it for a moment, and then swept his cool blue eyes again over the faces of the other two men.
    “I didn’t exactly come here to spy,” he said frankly. “I didn’t actually come here with any plans at all. But after what Mrs Ourley told me, I was certainly anxious to talk to”—he inclined his head—“Mr Ourley. I thought I might possibly get you to talk to me. You know that I’m interested in the iridium situation, and it seems that you’ve had some dealings with the black market. You might like