The Saint in Trouble Read Free

cognac.
    “I’ve been here three days and I’m three thousand francs up at the casino, but of villains I have seen neither hide nor hair.”
    Emma frowned.
    “Then you think I was overreacting?”
    “I didn’t say that. I haven’t found anything because I don’t know what I’m looking for. There are thousands of people in Cannes, and any of them could be a prospective kidnapper or assassin. It’s harder than looking for a needle in a haystack because at least you know what a needle looks like before you start.”
    Emma’s face brightened.
    “You’re not giving up, then?”
    Simon looked shocked.
    “Certainly not. I’ve no intention of wasting the time I’ve spent on this jaunt so far. But if I can’t go to the ungodly because I don’t know who they are, then they will have to come to me because they do know who I am, or think they do … This must be your father now.”
    Emma turned her head to watch as a taxi stopped outside the Palais and her father emerged. To the casual observer the Saint would have appeared to be looking directly at his companion but he had carefully placed his chair so that he could see without being seen to be watching. It was the first time he had viewed the professor except from photographs, and he liked what he saw.
    Maclett stood a head above the tallest of the welcoming committee, and looked as if he had been hewn from a Highland hillside. His shoulders strained against the confines of a check tweed sports jacket, a mop of reddish hair that hadn’t seen a brush since breakfast framed a strong, confident face that should have belonged to a trawler skipper or an oil prospector rather than to a physicist. The Saint could picture him wearing a kilt and wielding a claymore, and instantly believed his daughter’s account of his temper.
    The introductions over, the party was mounting the steps.
    “Who is he?” asked the Saint, indicating the little goateed man who led the way.
    “Dr. Francis Riguard. He’s the president of the institute and the chairman of the conference.”
    As the group disappeared inside the building, Emma turned back to the table to see the Saint vigorously tousling his hair.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I am engaged in practising the art of disguise, or rather creating a personality. It is a common myth that to change your appearance you have to hide behind a hedge of false hair, puff the cheeks out with rubber pads, and apply a coating of plaster calculated to result in you looking like a make-up artist’s conception of the Thing From The Pit. In fact, all that is necessary is to adopt an identity. In this case, the angry young scientist.”
    As he spoke, the Saint placed a row of cheap pens in the breast pocket of his jacket; a crumpled tie was knotted loosely around the unbuttoned collar of his shirts and a pair of heavy black-rimmed spectacles rested earnestly on the bridge of his nose. Finally he went down and retrieved a bulging manila folder from beneath the table.
    In less time than it took him to explain his activities, the elegant tourist who would have had the doors of any casino on the coast immediately opened for him was replaced by a harassed understrapper who would have gone unnoticed in any important office.
    The girl watched the transformation, wondering if the man she had entrusted with her father’s protection had been affected by his luncheon lubricants.
    “And the file?” she asked at last, because she felt she had to say something.
    “Ah, that’s the piece de resistance! It is my belief that you can walk into any official building anywhere in the world so long as you carry a file and look as if you know where you’re going. A clipboard is better, but I couldn’t get hold of one. A man carrying a briefcase will be searched, but there is something inherently innocent about a man with a folder of papers. This one contains a copy of Paris-Match, yesterday’s Figaro, and half a ream of hotel notepaper.”
    The Saint spread folding