Leslie Charteris - Saint Errant

She laughed quietly, and left him as a man’s voice called her testily from indoors. Simon took another draught of the cool beer and stretched out his long legs contentedly.

He was in the state of happy vagueness in which an artist may find himself when confronted with a virgin canvas: for a modern privateer who modestly rated himself a supreme technician in the art of living, the situation was almost identical. Anything might take shape — dragons, murder, green hippopotami, bank robbers, damsels in distress, blue moons, or an absconding company promoter. Straight ahead of him as he sat there, if he cared to take that direction, he might come at last to Denver. He could turn east and follow the coast round to New Orleans and Miami. Or, in the fullness of time, he could wake up to the excitements of Chicago, New York, or San Francisco. Or he could stay right where he was with his beer in this forgotten border town of Saddlebag, and as a matter of fact, he was just preparing to discard the last alternative when he was privileged to witness the arrival of Mr Amadeo Urselli.

Urselli came on the bus, which went rattling past in a cloud of dust while Simon sat on over his refreshment. The same cloud of dust, halting to poise itself aridly over the roofs of the houses below, indicated that the bus had stopped somewhere in the village, and a few minutes later Mr Urselli himself came into view, toiling up the road toward the hotel with three or four inquisitive urchins following in his wake and apparently offering comment and counsel. Simon immediately admitted that there was some excuse for them — in his own early youth he would probably have been their ringleader. For Mr Urselli — whose name the Saint had yet to learn — was indeed a remarkable and resplendent sight in that setting.

His gray check suit fitted him so tightly, particularly around the waist, that he would probably have found it necessary to take his coat off in order to tie his shoelaces. His pearly hued felt hat looked as if it had come straight from a shop window; his tie had the gorgeous flamboyance of a tropical sunset; the pigskin suitcase which he carried in his right hand shone with a costly luster. The gesticulations which he made with his left hand in the attempt to rid himself of his juvenile escort flashed iridescent gleams of jewelry on his fingers.

He crested the slope leading up to the veranda and dumped his bag with a sigh. The escort gathered round him in an admiring circle while he mopped his brow with a large silk handkerchief.

“Say, will you sons of bandmasters scram?” he rasped — not, Simon gathered, for anything like the first time.

“Give them their fun, brother,” murmured the Saint. “They don’t get many chances to see the world.”

The newcomer turned toward him, and his sallow face slowly lightened to the gregarious gleam with which the exile in foreign climes recognizes another who speaks the same language.

“This is a helluva place,” he said emotionally.

It may be acknowledged at once that Simon Templar did not like the face, which was thin and pointed like a weasel’s, with flat brown eyes that shifted restlessly in their orbits, but Simon nodded amiably, and the traveler sank into a chair beside him.

“My name’s Urselli,” he volunteered. “I came out here to look at the neck of the woods where I was born. Ain’t there anyone around in this jernt?”

Simon glanced casually round, and was answered by the reappearance of the girl in the doorway. Mr Urselli stood up.

“Where’s Mr Intuccio?”

The girl turned and called, “Papa!” into the dark room behind her, and presently the innkeeper clumped out — a big black-bearded man in grimy shirt sleeves. Urselli held out a white manicured hand.

“You may not remember me, Salvatore,” he said in halting Italian. “I am Amadeo.”

The innkeeper’s sunken eyes surveyed him impassively, and held the hand with a callused paw.

“I remember. You will drink something?”

“Thank you,” said Mr Urselli.

He flopped back in his chair as the other left them after dispersing the enraptured audience with a hoarse “Git outside!” and a menacing lift of his arm which sent the urchins scampering. The girl followed the old man in.

“What I call a royal welcome,” observed Mr Urselli, when they were alone. He winked, craning his neck, “But the girl ain’t so bad, at that. It mightn’t be so dull here. If she calls him Papa she must be some kinda cousin of mine — Intuccio is. Since I’m here I guess I better like it.”

“Are you on a pleasure trip?” asked the Saint, turning his glass reflectively.

“You might call it that. Yes, I thought I might come back and take a rest in the old home town. I haven’t seen it for twenty years, and I guess it ain’t changed at all.” Urselli studied his expensive-looking hands. “I’m in the joolry trade. Look at that piece of ice.”

He slipped a ring from one of his fingers and passed it over. “Very nice,” Simon remarked casually, examining it.

“I’ll say it’s nice,” affirmed Mr Urselli. “There ain’t a flaw in it, and it was a cheap buy at five grand. You gotta know your business with diamonds.”

Simon handed the ring back, and Mr Urselli replaced it on his finger. There was a tinge of mockery in the depths of the Saint’s sea-blue eyes, unperceived by Mr Urselli. It seemed a fantastic place for any practitioner of that ancient spiel to come with his diamonds, and Simon Templar’s curiosity never slept. He debated within himself, lazily interested, whether he should offer some ingenuous lead which would help the sales talk into its next phase, or whether he should leave the whole onus of its development on Mr Urselli’s doubtless capable shoulders, but at that moment the black-bearded innkeeper returned with a bottle and two glasses.

He poured out two drinks in silence, and sat down. Every movement he made was heavy and stolid, as his greeting had been. He raised his glass with a perfunctory mutter, and drank. His daughter came and leaned in the frame of the door. “What brings you home, Amadeo?”

The voice was dull and apathetic, and Urselli seemed to make an effort to retain his full expansiveness of geniality.

“I felt I needed a holiday. After all, there’s no place like home. And what’s home without a woman?” Urselli jerked his thumb slyly towards the girl. “I didn’t know you had a family.”

“There is only Lucia. Her mother died when she was born.”

“Pretty girl,” said Urselli approvingly.

Intuccio drank again, moving only his arm. “This is a long way from Chicago,” he said. “Where do you go now?”

“I thought I’d stay here for a while,” said Urselli comfortably. “It looks restful. Can you find room for me?” He looked at the girl as he spoke.

“There is always room,” she said.

Intuccio raised his deep-set eyes to her face, and lowered them again.

“What we have is yours,” he said formally.

“Then that’s settled,” said Urselli jovially. “It’ll be great to sit around and do nothing, and talk over old times.” He unbuttoned his coat and fanned himself energetically. “Jeez, is it always as hot as this? I’ll have to copy your costume if I’m making myself at home.”

Intuccio shrugged, watching him dispassionately, and Urselli took off his tight-waisted coat and hung it over the back of his chair. Something clunked solidly against the wood as he did so, and the Saint’s eyes turned absently towards the sound. One pocket was gaping under an unusual weight, and Simon looked into it and saw the gleaming metal of a gun butt.

Mr Urselli remembered him as his glass was refilled.

“Are you stayin’ here too?” he asked.

“I think I will,” said the Saint.