Leslie Charteris - The Saint Around the World

Tâlib was still stumbling over the last few words when Yûsuf demonstrated his lightning grasp of practical economics by enfolding the Saint in a grateful and embarrassingly affectionate embrace.

He then turned ebulliently towards Mr Usherdown, but concluded the gesture much more perfunctorily, as if a different and disturbing thought had obtruded itself midway in the movement.

Suddenly Mrs Usherdown’s voice cut stridently through the rising babble around.

“I don’t know what you’re taking a bow for, Mortimer Usherdown,” it said scathingly. “After all, you didn’t do anything.”

The interruption was on such a rasping note that Yûsuf turned inquiringly.

Tâlib, whose expression had been getting progressively sourer as the atmosphere of congratulation and camaraderie seemed to be gaining the ascendant, brightened visibly as he translated.

The carnivorous gleam came back into Yûsuf’s stare as he stepped back and contemplated Mr Usherdown with a new and terrifying exultation.

But instead of quailing under that baleful regard, the little man was not even aware of it. Instead of trembling with fear, he was quivering with the stress of what Simon realized was a far more cataclysmal emotion. He straightened up to the last millimeter of his height, inflating all that there was of his chest until the veins stood out on his neck, and sparks flashed from his small watery eyes.

“Why, you nasty creature,” he squeaked indignantly. “I know what you’re trying to do. But you needn’t bother.” He stuck out a straight skinny arm ending in a wrathfully pointing finger. “ I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you. There!”

“Well,” said Mrs Usherdown tartly, “you’re very welcome, I’m sure.”

She turned, with a toss of her head, and strutted away towards the palace, bouncing her ample hips.

Tâlib construed the passage in the tone of voice that he might have used to bring tidings of a major disaster, and this time the hug that the Emir gave Mr Usherdown was unmarred by any reservations.

“Sheik say,” Tâlib droned gloomily, “you ask anything you want, you get it, if not too much.”

“We’ll settle for the price of one small oil well,” said the Saint. “And our tickets on the next plane to Basra,” he added casually, wishing that he knew more about geology, and vowing not to uncross his fingers until whatever freakish artesian source they had tapped had proved that it was capable of keeping the gusher flowing at least until he had taken off.

“Okey-dokey,” Tâlib said. “But tonight, Sheik order big feast and whoopee.”

Mr Usherdown winked at the Saint, slapped the Emir on the back, and poked the outraged Tâlib in the ribs, while a broad beam of ineffable rapture overspread his lumpy little face.

“That’s what I’m waiting for,” he crowed. “Bring on the dancing girls!”

Simon Templar stayed at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore for sentimental reasons. Although more modern and more luxurious caravanserais had been built in the many years since he had last been there, the Raffles was one of the places that was simply synonymous with Singapore to him, as it always will be to the real Far East hands from away back. And as to why that one particular place had won out over two others almost equally traditional, Major Vernon Ascony had a theory.

“I just looked at the name on the front and felt sure you couldn’t have resisted it,” Ascony said.

“Since you couldn’t possibly have been thinking of A. J. Raffles, the immortal Amateur Cracksman of fiction,” said the Saint, “I wonder what there can be about me that reminds you of Sir Stamford Raffles, the illustrious pioneer and Empire builder, whose name is commemorated on so many landmarks of this romantic city.”

Major Ascony permitted the vestige of a smile to stir under the shadow of his closely clipped mustache.

“Nothing, old chap. Positively not one single thing.”

“And why were you trying to find me anyway?” Simon inquired.

“I’m with the Police,” Ascony said, and modestly refrained from specifying that he was an Assistant Commissioner.

The Saint sighed.

“One day I’m going to have this printed on a card,” he said. “But if you’ll accept it verbally, I can save you a lot of time. No, I am not here to stir up any trouble. No, I am not looking for any crime or criminals. Yes, I am just an ordinary tourist. Of course, if something irresistibly intriguing happens under my nose, I can’t promise not to get involved in it. But I don’t intend to start anything.”

“What made you decide to come here? This is a bit off your beat, isn’t it?”

“It wasn’t always. As a matter of fact, one of my first big adventures started not far from here, though it came to a head in England. But that was an awful long time ago. And the other day, out of the blue, I had a sudden crazy belt of nostalgia: I just had to come back and see how much the place had changed. I hadn’t anything else in mind for a couple of weeks, and BOAC flies here awful fast. I remember the first time — it took me six weeks on a freighter from Lima.”

Ascony proffered his cigarette case, and Simon accepted one.

“How about a drink?”

“I’d like it,” Simon said.

They sat down at a table on the terrace overlooking the bustling Esplanade, and a soft-footed “boy” came quickly to dust it off.

“A Stengah , or something fancier?”

“Peter Dawson will be fine.”

“Dua,” ordered the Major. He rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ve already noticed a lot of difference?”

“Quite a bit,” Simon grinned. “The plumbing, especially. And air conditioning, yet. And no more rickshaws.”

“Yes, there’ve been a few improvements. But a lot of things are worse, too.”

“I’ve heard about that. You’re pretty high on the Russian list of places to make trouble in.”

“It’s not too bad right here. We’ve had a few nasty riots, but nothing so far that we couldn’t handle. But it’s a bit rugged for the blokes up-country sometimes.”

“You’ve still got those Red guerrillas? I thought a namesake of mine cleaned ’em out.”

“General Templer? Only he spelt it with an ‘E.’ You know, when he was sent here, one of the London papers ran a headline about ‘The Saint Goes to Malaya.’ And people used to ask him if he was any relation of yours. I never found out whether it really amused him or not.”

“I thought the manager gave me an odd look when I registered.”

Ascony nodded.

“Templer — Sir Gerald, I mean — did a darn good job. But there are still a few too many of those lads at large, with guns hidden away that we dropped to ’em during the occupation, and others that they captured when the Japs gave up. Every now and again they go on a rampage and shoot up a mine or a plantation, so the chaps up there still have to keep armed guards and barricade themselves in at night.”

“Sort of like Africa with the Mau Mau?”

“Sort of. Or like America with the Redskins, judging from what I’ve seen in the pictures.”

The boy returned and served them their highballs.

“Well, cheers,” Ascony said.

“Cheerio,” said the Saint accommodatingly.

Ascony drank, put down his glass, and lighted another cigarette.

“I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in seeing that sort of thing,” he remarked.

His tone was impeccably casual, so that it would have seemed embarrassingly hypersensitive to attempt to read into it a challenge or a sneer. Yet something deep inside the Saint prickled involuntarily.

“I hate to miss it,” he replied. “But I don’t suppose the Chamber of Commerce is featuring it as part of a guided tour.”