Saint's Getaway Read Free Page B

force was derived from an enormous roll
of blotting paper, which was fed into the water by clockwork from the bows
of the ship. The blotting paper soaked up the water, and the water
soaked up the blot ting paper, thereby towing the contraption through the
briny, the project was taken up by the Czecho-Slovakian Navy, but was
later abandoned in favour of tandem teams of trained herrings.”
    Patricia laughed and tucked her hand through
his arm.
    In such a mood as that it was. impossible to
argue with the Saint—impossible even to cast the minutest drop of dampness on his
exuberant delight. And if she had not known that it was impossible,
perhaps she would not have said a word. But the puckish mischief
that she loved danced in his eyes, and she knew that he would always be the same.
    “Where do we make for now?” she inquired calmly.
    “The old pub,” said the Saint.
“And that is where we probe further into the private life of Stanislaus.”
He grinned boy ishly. “My God, Pat-—when I think of what life might
have been if we’d left Stanislaus behind, it makes my blood bubble. He’s the
brightest ray of sunshine I’ve seen in weeks. I wouldn’t lose him for
worlds.”
    The girl smiled helplessly. After she had
taken a good look at the circumstances, it seemed the only thing to do.
When you are walking brazenly through the streets of a foreign city
arm-in-arm with a man who is carrying over his shoulder the abducted body of a
perfect stranger whom for want of better information he has
christened Stanislaus—a man, moreover, who is incapable of showing any symptoms
of guilt or agita tion over this procedure—the respectable reactions which
your Auntie Ethel would expect of you are liable to an attack of the dumb
staggers.
    Patricia Holm sighed.
    Vaguely, she wondered if there were any power
on earth that could shake the Saint’s faith in his guardian angels;
but the question never seemed to occur to the Saint himself. Dur ing the
whole of that walk back to “the old pub”—in actual fact it took only
a few minutes, but to her it felt like a few hours—she would have
sworn that not one hair of the Saint’s dark head was turned
a millimetre out of its place by the slightest glimmer of anxiety. He was
happy. He was looking ahead into his adventure. If he had thought at
all about the risks of their route to the old pub, he would have done so
with the same dazzlingly childlike simplicity as he followed for his guiding
star in all such difficulties. He was taking Stanislaus home; and if anybody
tried to raise any objections to that ma noeuvre—well, Simon Templar’s own floral
offering would cer tainly provide the
nucleus of a swell funeral… .
    But no such objection was made. The streets of
Innsbruck maintained their unruffled silence, and stayed
benevolently bare: even the distant yipping of the patrolman’s whistle
had stopped. And Simon was standing under the shadow of the wall that
had been his unarguable destination, glancing keenly up and down the
deserted thoroughfare which it bordered.
    “This is indubitably the reward of
virtue,” he remarked.
    Stanislaus went to the top of the wall with
one quick heave, and the Saint stooped again. Patricia felt his hands grip
round her knees, and she was lifted into the air as if she had been a feather:
she had scarcely settled herself on the wall when the Saint was up beside
her and down again on the other side like a great grey cat. She
saw him dimly in the darkness below as she swung her legs over,
and glimpsed the flash of his white teeth; irresistibly she was reminded of
another time when he had sent her over a wall, in the first
adventure she had shared with him—one lean, strong hand had been stretched up
to her exactly as it was stretched up now, only then it was stretched upwards in
a flourish of debonair farewell—and a deep and abiding contentment
surged through her as she jumped for him to catch her in his arms. He eased
her to the ground as lightly