The Saint Bids Diamonds Read Free Page A

and it started no end of trouble. You see, it turned out that the harmless-looking little bird was carrying a bag full of stolen jewels, and the three ferocious-looking thugs were perfectly respectable detectives trying to arrest him. It only shows you how careful you have to be with this knight-errant business. — Is anything the matter?”
    Her face had gone as white as milk, and she was leaning back against the side of the lift, staring at him.
    “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just-all these other things.”
    “I know.”
    The lift stopped at his floor, and he opened the doors for her and followed her out.
    “I’ve got a bottle of vintage lemonade that’ll have you turning cartwheels again in no time,” he remarked as they walked round the passage. “That is, if Hoppy hasn’t drunk it all to try and revive the invalid.”
    “I hope you’ll turn him inside out if he has,” she answered; and he was amazed by the sudden change in her voice.
    She was still pale, pale as death, but the terror had gone far from her eyes as if a mask had been drawn over them. She smiled up at him-it was the first time he had seen her smile, and he couldn’t help noticing that he had been right about her mouth. It was turned up to him in a way that at any other time would have put irresistible ideas into his head, and she slipped a hand through his arm as they came to the door of his room. Her small fingers moved over his biceps.
    “You must be terrifically strong,” she said; and the Saint shrugged.
    “I can usually manage to get a glass to my mouth.”
    A queer ghostly tingle touched the base of his spine as he opened the door and let her into the room. It wasn’t anything she had said: coming from most women, her last remark would have made him wince, but she had a fresh young voice that made it seem perfectly natural. It wasn’t even the new personality which she had started to take on, for that fitted her so perfectly that it was hard to imagine her with any other. The feeling was almost subconscious, a stirring of uncompleted intuition that gave him an odd sensation of walking blindfold along the edge of a precipice; and again he knew, beyond all doubt, that he was nowhere near the end of the consequences of that night’s work.
    The old man lay motionless on the bed, exactly as Mr Uniatz must have dumped him. Hoppy himself, as the Saint had feared, had started the work of resuscitation on himself, and half the contents had disappeared from a bottle of Haig that had been unopened when Simon left it on the table. He arrived just in time, for Mr Uniatz had the bottle in his hand when Simon opened the door and he was on the point of repeating his previous experiments. Simon took it away from him and replaced the cork.
    “Thank God for non-refillable bottles,” he said fervently. “They pour so slowly. If this had been the ordinary kind there wouldn’t have been a drop left by now.”
    He went to the bed and unbuttoned the old man’s coat and shirt. His pulse was all right, making due allowances for his age, and there were no bones broken: but his body was terribly bruised and his face scratched and swollen. Whether he had internal injuries, and what the effects of shock might be, would have to be decided when he recovered consciousness. He was breathing stertorously, with his mouth hanging open, and for the moment he seemed to be in no imminent danger of death.
    Simon went to the bathroom and soaked a towel in cold water. He began to bathe the old man’s face and clean it up as well as he could, but the girl stopped him.
    “Let me do it. Will he be all right?”
    “I’ll lay you odds on it,” said the Saint convincingly.
    He left her with the towel and went back to the table to pour out some of the whiskey which he had rescued. She held up the old man’s head while he forced some of it between the puffed and bleeding lips. The old man groaned and stirred weakly.
    “That ought to help him,” murmured Simon.