Señor Saint Read Free Page B

hung on hooks in the walls, between an assortment of innocuous lithographs pinned up according to some unguessable system of selection.
    “Ned,” Consuelo said very clearly, “I have brought the americano you sent for.”
    The man sat in the one big chair in the room. It was an overstuffed chair of old-fashioned shape, with a heavily patched slip cover, but he looked comfortable in it, as if he had used it a lot. He had untidy blond hair and a powerful frame, but the flesh on his big bones was soft and shrunken and unhealthy, although his skin had a good tan; and his clean cotton shut and trousers hung loosely on him. His face had the cragginess of a skull, an impression which was accentuated by the shadows of the dark glasses he wore even though the only light was an oil lamp turned down so low that it gave no more illumination than a candle. He turned only his head.
    “I was afraid no one was ever coming,” he said.
    “My name is Templar,” said the Saint. “I was sent by- the party you wrote to.”
    “My wife,” the man said. “You don’t have to be tactful. Consuelo knows about her.”
    “Your ex-wife,” said the Saint.
    Ned Yarn sat still, and the dark lenses over his eyes were a mask.
    “I guess I’d sort of expected that. How did she get it? Desertion, I suppose.”
    “Yes.”
    “Is she …?”
    “She was married again, to a man named Ormond.”
    “I don’t know him.”
    “They’re divorced now.”
    “I see.” Yarn’s bony fingers moved nervously. “And you?”
    “Just an acquaintance. Nothing more. What with changing her name, and changing her address several times, apparently your letter took a long time to find her. And then she didn’t want to come here alone, and couldn’t decide who else to trust. Now I seem to be it.”
    “Sit down,” Ned Yarn said.
    Simon sat on a plain wooden chair by the oilcloth-covered table. Yarn looked around and said: “Do we have anything to drink, Consuelo?”
    “Some tequila.”
    She brought a half-empty bottle and three small jelly glasses, and poured a little for each of them. She put one of the glasses on the edge of the table nearest to Yarn. Yarn stretched out his hand, touched the edge of the table, and slid his fingers along it until they closed on the glass.
    “You must excuse me seeming so helpless,” he said harshly. “But you see, I’m blind.”
    4.
    The Saint lighted a cigarette, and put his lighter away very quietly. He glanced at Consuelo for a moment as she sat down slowly on the other wooden chair at the table, and then he looked at Ned Yarn again.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “How long ago did that happen?”
    “Almost as soon as I got here.” The other gave a kind of short two-toned grunt that might have been meant for a laugh. “How much did she tell you about all this?”
    “As much as she knows, I think.”
    “I can figure what else she thinks. And what everybody else thinks. But you know as much now as I knew when I came down here with Tiltman. That’s the truth, so help me.”
    “I hope you’ll tell me the rest.”
    Yarn sipped his drink, and put it down without a grimace, as if he was completely inured to the vile taste.
    “We flew down here from Tijuana, and I thought it was all on the level. A chance to make some big money legitimately-that is, if we weren’t bothered about bribing a few Mexicans not to watch us too closely. I’m just a sucker, I guess, but I fell for it like all the others. I was even carrying the money myself. We checked in at a hotel, the Perla.”
    “And yet the American vice-consul and the police couldn’t find any trace of you. That seems like an obvious place for them to have started asking.”
    “Tiltman registered for us both-only he didn’t use our names. If you want to check up on me, ask if they’ve got a record of Thompson and Young. He told me that later.”
    “How long did he play it straight?”
    “We had dinner. Tiltman was supposed to have arranged for a boat before we