The Saint in the Sun Read Free Page A

said that she’d never needed anything safer than the bottom of a wardrobe under a pile of dirty laundry. As if professional thieves didn’t already know all the hiding places that anyone could think of. Some people almost deserve to be robbed.”
    “Not me, dear,” said Bertha Noversham smugly. “You know where I keep everything I’m not wearing, and nobody could get at that even in my sleep without me raising Cain, unless I was knocked out first, and that kind of thief never goes in for rough stuff. He wants to sneak in and sneak away without anyone having a chance to see him.”
    “But there are stick-up men, too,” Simon mentioned.
    “I hope I meet one some day-I’ll have a surprise for him,” said Mrs Noversham darkly. “Where are you having dinner?”
    She continued to anticipate and accept unuttered invitations with an aplomb that was paralyzing, and never stopped dominating the conversation with the bland assumption that they had only been waiting for her to relieve their boredom.
    Before the meal was over, she had blithely devastated a dozen other characters or reputations, some of them belonging to people whom Simon did not even know by name, always in a way that obliquely underlined the impeccability of her own status as a social arbiter. She had a trick of flattering her listeners by taking it for granted that they would sneer at the same things she sneered at, while at the same time implying ominously that they would be wise to make positive efforts to continue in her good graces.
    She accompanied them from dinner to the Palm-Beach Casino, and only left them to themselves again when she spotted a famous Hollywood producer and his richly panoplied wife, to whom she was sure she had passed the sugar at tea in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.
    “I’m dreadfully sorry,” Natalie said. “She’s quite awful, isn’t she? But I was so desperately glad to know anyone at all when I first got here, as I told you, that I didn’t realize how overpowering she was.”
    “She has a fabulous technique,” Simon admitted mildly. “I can see how anyone with the least insecurity would be a sitting duck for her. Before she’s through, that popcorn potentate will be terrified of sticking the wrong fork in his caviar, in case Bertha changes her mind about introducing his wife to the Duchess of Camford, which he would never hear the last of.”
    “The point is, what are we going to do? If-well, if you’re interested.”
    The Saint grinned.
    “Tell her who I am. I don’t think it really penetrated, when you introduced me. Rub it in. I think that’ll scare her off. Of course, she’ll try to scare you off too, but I’m counting on you to resist that.”
    “I don’t think I’d be too shocked if you did steal her jewels. Somebody ought to stop her being so superior about everyone else.”
    “Where does she keep them, by the way?”
    “She has a specially-made sort of apron with zipper pockets that she wears all the time; but with her figure, when she’s dressed, it doesn’t show because it hangs under the bulge, if you know what I mean.”
    “You couldn’t be more discreetly graphic.”
    Natalie’s lovely eyes dilated slightly with belated comprehension.
    “I told you, didn’t I? Just what you’d want to know, if you were a jewel thief. She was right-some people almost deserve to be robbed.”
    “I thought you were the one who said that, darling.”
    “Well, it was right anyway. Don’t start to get me confused and frightened, Simon. We’ve had such a lot of fun, these few days. And I haven’t bothered you with any silly questions, have I? Don’t let me start now. But you were telling the truth, weren’t you, when you told me you were strictly here on vacation?”
    “Most strictly,” he smiled. “As long as nobody makes the path too strait and narrow for my tottering tootsies. Talking of which, why don’t we see if they can still keep time with this team of paranoiac Paraguayans, who are