Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Pursuit

Actually the Saint scarcely heard them. He was too preoccupied with the sudden new spine-tingling awareness that he was no longer a free-roving agent circling the perimeter of a situation and leisurely debating his own possible points of entry. Someone even farther outside and still beyond his ken was watching him.

“I hope you won’t think I’m rude,” Vicky Kinian said. “It sounds ridiculous to turn down an invitation to a night club on my first night in Portugal, but I’m absolutely bushed. I feel as if I hadn’t slept in a week.”

Curt Jaeger was as sympathetic as ever.

“I don’t blame you,” he said as he escorted her across the lobby of the Tagus. “And from the sound of what you told me at dinner you have an even more exhausting time ahead of you.”

Vicky nodded and wearily started up the stairs.

“I’m getting worn out just arguing with my conscience about the whole thing.”

“If I were you,” Jaeger told her, “I would go on and find this treasure while I was arguing with my conscience. It might be an amusing adventure, and if in the end you decide not to keep it, you should at least be entitled to a finder’s reward.”

His reasoning appealed to Vicky, since it allowed her to do what she wanted to do while telling herself that she was really not doing it.

“I’ll think about it,” she said when they had come to the door of her room. “Anyway, I’ll be going on as soon as I can arrange it.”

“Going on?” he asked.

“ I might as well tell you, it’s such a coincidence and you’ve been so nice. I have to go to Switzerland next. I can’t see any harm in telling you that.”

Jaeger almost laughed.

“You do lead a merry chase,” he said. “But the fates seem to be conspiring to keep us together. Of course I too will be going to Switzerland, to my head office, when my business is finished here — which it almost is.”

“Well, I’m glad the fates brought us together here,” Vicky said. “The dinner and the champagne were delicious. And you were very kind to listen to my troubles.”

“Not troubles — opportunities,” he said. “And in case you should worry, let me assure you again that as a point of honour I am as anxious as you that no one else will ever learn what you have told me.”

They shook hands then and said goodnight. Jaeger went back down the stairs to his own room, while Vicky, faint with tiredness, unlocked her door and pushed on the light switch just inside.

For an instant she thought that the strain of the past few days was making her see things, for lounging perfectly relaxed in an armchair half-facing the door was the tall devastatingly magnetic man she had noticed downstairs in the lobby that afternoon.

She froze, stared, and her next thought was that she had walked into the wrong room.

“I’m so sorry...” she began, but before she could even start to retreat she collected her wits enough to notice a pair of her own shoes on the floor near the bed, and her cosmetics on the dressing table.

By now the visitor had risen unhurriedly to his feet.

“You needn’t be sorry,” he said in a soothing tone. “Please come in.”

Vicky’s impulse was to turn back and call for help, but the man’s manner and the almost supernatural holding-power of his blue eyes — as clear and bright as a tropical sea even in the yellowish illumination of the hotel room-kept her where she was, poised on the threshold.

“This is my room,” she said unnecessarily. “What are you doing here?”

The man seemed to resist the temptation to make some lighthearted joke.

“I’ll be glad to answer that question, Vicky, but it’ll take a little while,” he told her. “If you’ll please come in and sit down I’ll tell you. Right now you look like a doe ready to bolt for her life.”

“I am ready to bolt,” Vicky assured him. “You tell me what you want, and I’ve got plenty of wide open spaces behind me in case I don’t like what I hear.”

He shrugged.

“At least you’re willing to listen,” he said. “We’re making progress.”

“I think I’ll get the manager,” the girl said uncertainly.

The lean, towering man looked around innocently.

“If you need help, I’ll be glad to oblige. What’s the problem?”

She did not return his glimmer of a smile, but she was no longer quite so tensed for flight.

“All right,” she said. “So you’ve given me a chance to scream or make a run for it, and if you’d wanted to hurt me you could have hidden somewhere and grabbed me after I closed the door. But that still doesn’t mean we’re old buddies. Who are you?”

“My name is Simon Templar, sometimes called the Saint, and I’m not dangerous if taken as directed. Why don’t you shut the door and let me start convincing you that I’m on your side?”

She had reacted sharply to the sound of his name, and now she studied his face with heightened interest.

“The Saint?” she repeated incredulously. “Why should I believe that?”

“Would a passport convince you?”

She was already convinced enough to risk leaving the doorway and coming forward far enough to take the booklet he held out to her. Still keeping a safe distance, she looked at the photograph and the pages crowded with visa stamps. She half-smiled as she handed the passport back at full arm’s length.

“So a celebrity broke into my room,” she said whimsically. “That makes it all right, I guess. What did you do-pick the lock?”

“I was afraid it might compromise your reputation if I asked the room clerk to let me in. So I did what any gentleman cracksman would have done.”

“Well, that certainly needs explaining, even if you are the Saint,” she retorted indignantly.

“It was quite easy, really. I’ll show you the trick if you’re interested.”

“I mean, why should you want to get into my room?”

He took a step towards the open door, and she moved back so that he could not cut off her escape route.

“Wouldn’t it have been out of character if I hadn’t?” he answered unassumingly. “I mean, think what a disappointment it would be if the Saint showed up politely ringing your doorbell with his hat in his hand.”

“And that’s the only reason?” she asked sarcastically.

“I’ll be glad to discuss this if you’ll close the door,” he replied. “Just in case there are any bog ears flapping down the hall.”

“Mighty thoughtful of you,” she conceded. “Okay, I’ll take a chance — but if you do anything funny I’ll scream my head off. You stay over there by the sofa and I’ll stay over here.”

Simon agreed with an amused shrug, and settled his rangy frame on the sofa cushions. Vicky Kinian shut the door, and perched uneasily on the arm of a chair not far from it.

“Now,” she said, “please tell me what’s going on.”

“I will; but bear in mind that I agree in advance that I’m completely unscrupulous — so you can spare me any outbursts of righteous indignation.” He crossed his long legs and swung one arm along the back of the sofa. “I broke in here the first time when you went out to dinner. I was looking for a certain letter...”

Her dark eyes flashed angrily, and she glanced towards the top of the wardrobe.

“Well, I never heard of such—”

“Gall,” Simon supplied helpfully. “And if I hadn’t found the letter at the time that reflex of yours would have given away where it was hidden.”

She was on her feet.

“Well, you can just give it back to me right now!”

The Saint’s face showed genuine regret.