The Saint in Action Read Free

know,” said the Saint.
    He locked the hand brake as the car pulled in to the curb, and turned to look back at the corner they had just taken. The movement was automatic, although he knew that he couldn’t see the entrance of the house from where they had stopped; but in his memory he could see it as clearly as if the angle of the building which hid it from his eyes had been made of glass—the whole little tableau that had blazed those high-voltage danger signals into his brain.
    Not that there had been anything sensational about it, anything that would have had that instantaneous and dynamic effect on the average man’s reactions. Just seven or eight assorted citizens of various but quite ordinary and unexciting shapes and sizes, loafing and gaping inanely about the pavement, with the door of the house which Simon had been making for as a kind of vague focus linking them roughly together. A constable in uniform standing beside the door, and a rotund, pink-faced man in a bowler hat who had emerged from the hall to speak to him at the very moment when the Saint’s eye was grasping the general outlines of the scene. Nothing startling or prodigious; but it was enough to keep the Saint sitting there with his eyes keen and intent while he went over the details in his mind. Perhaps it was the memory of that round man with a face like a slightly apoplectic cherub, who had come out to speak to the policeman… .
    Graham was staring at him perplexedly.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    The Saint looked at him almost without seeing him, and a faint aimless smile touched his lips.
    “Nothing,” he said. “Can you drive a car?”
    “Fairly well.”
    “Drive this one. She’s a bit of a handful, so you’d better take it easy. Don’t put your foot down too quickly, or you’ll find yourself a mile or two ahead of yourself.”
    “But–-“
    “Go back to my place. You’ll find a girl there—name of Patricia Holm. I’ll phone her and tell her you’re on your way. She’ll give you a drink and prattle to you till I get back. I’d like to pay this call alone.”
    “But–-“
    Simon swung his legs over the side and pushed himself off onto the pavement.
    “That seems to be quite a favourite word of yours,” he remarked. “On your way, brother. You can tell me all about it presently.”
    He stood and watched the Hirondel take a leap forward like a goosed antelope and then crawl on up the road with a very mystified young man clinging grimly to the steering wheel; and then he turned into a convenient tobacconist’s and put a call through to Patricia.
    “I’m sending my Boy Scout material back for you to look after,” he said. “Feed him some ginger ale and keep him happy till I get back. I wouldn’t flirt with him too much, because I think he’s a rather earnest soul. And if there should be any inquiries tell Orace to hide him in the oven and don’t let anybody know we’ve got him.”
    “Does this mean you’re getting into trouble again?” she demanded ominously. “Because if you are–-“
    “Darling, I am about to have a conference with the vicar about the patterns for the next sewing bee,” said the Saint and hung up the receiver.
    He lighted a cigarette as he sauntered down to the corner and across the street towards the house which he had been meaning to visit. The scene was still more or less the same, one or two new idle citizens having joined the small accumulation of inquisitive loafers, and one or two of the old congregation having grown tired of gaping at nothing and moved off. The policeman still stood majestically by the door, although the man in the bowler hat no longer obstructed the opening. The policeman moved a little to do some obstructing of his own as the Saint ambled up the steps.
    “Do you live here, sir?”
    “No,” said the Saint amiably. “Do you?”
    The constable gazed at him woodenly.
    “Who do you want to see?”
    “I should like to see Chief Inspector Teal,” Simon