Leslie Charteris - Saint Errant

They adopted into their design for living a third party, one Tod Kermein, a photographer who had fallen upon evil days on account of certain exposures to which the United States Post Office adopted a rather puritanical attitude, and Matt Joyson proceeded to develop for the troupe a cameo drama which played to extremely limited houses, but with more profit to the performers than any production in which they had previously appeared. It was still necessary to travel from time to time, but the runs in any given town were usually longer than the engagements to which they had been accustomed, and by mutual co-operation and keeping a watchful eye on each other’s sleight of hand in the division of the spoils they had achieved a very pleasant and profitable way of life by the time they reached Los Angeles and the purview of Simon Templar.

The Saint (as he was known to his friends, most of whom were still alive, and just as well to his enemies, many of whom were not so lucky) was not looking for trouble at the time. He was, as a matter of fact, looking for something a lot harder to find.

“I’m sorry, Mr Templar,” said the assistant manager at the Hollywood Plaza, “but we daren’t make any exceptions. Your five days are up tomorrow, and we must have your room.”

“Who are you going to give it to?” Simon protested.

“Probably to somebody who’s just being thrown out of the Roosevelt,” answered the manager philosophically, and added hastily, “but I don’t think it would help you to rush over there. They’ve certainly got somebody waiting who’s just being thrown out of the Ambassador.”

Patricia Holm, with her shining golden head at the Saint’s shoulder, brought her blue eyes into play.

“Isn’t there anything you could do,” she pleaded, “to let a couple of nice people into this private game of musical chambers?”

The man swooned but was helpless.

“If I could solve that one,” he said, “I wouldn’t have to work here.”

The Saint took her arm.

“Leave us drink some lunch,” he said, “and brood about life in this nation of nomads.”

The adjoining restaurant was cool and surprisingly quiet. They sat in a booth and ordered drinks. The Saint lighted cigarettes for them both.

“Well, old darling,” he said, “I suppose we could always get several reservations on the night train to San Francisco, and a lot more reservations on the train back. We could spend every second day there and every other day here, and live in a compartment. After a month, it’d be the same as spending two weeks in each place.”

“We could plant a potato in a pot,” said the girl wistfully, “and in six months we’d have vines trained over the window.”

The Saint sighed.

It was, he thought, an unjustly humiliating complication in the life of any self-respecting buccaneer. There had been other times when it had been difficult for him to stay in sundry towns, but those repulses had always been sponsored either by the police, who disapproved of him on principle, or by certain citizens who preferred to have only the police to contend with. Here he had done no harm and planned none — so far... He gazed moodily about the room, and it was at that moment, although neither of them thought anything of it at the time, that he made his first contact with the life of Luella Joyson.

She happened to be sitting at an adjoining table with an Air Force top sergeant, whose voice carried clearly to Simons ears.

“These real-estate prices have lost their altimeters,” the sergeant was saying. “But what’s a guy gonna do? This climate agrees with my kid, and my wife’s nuts about it. I’ve gotta give ’em a roof if it takes all my mustering-out and accrued pay.”

His companion smiled, and the Saint’s eyes focused on her. Her smile was one of Luella’s most valuable assets. It was fashioned with wide, fun lips exquisitely accented in a shade of shocking pink which matched the hue of her Adrian suit. The smile crinkled bewitchingly in the corners of long dark eyes. Between the red lips gleamed small even teeth, and a man instinctively wondered how it would feel to be bitten by them — lightly and without passion. This pleasing prospect was framed in shining black hair rippling to sleek square shoulders, and topped by an attractive but unnecessary scrap of hat.

When she spoke, the lazy promise in her voice brought the Saint to full attention.

“I know the spot you’re in, Sergeant — er, Bill — I can call you Bill, can’t I? The price is too high. I didn’t set it; I can’t do anything about that. But I’ll tell you what I can do. For you, Bill. I’ll knock my commission off the price.”

She laid a small white hand over the sergeant’s muscular brown paw for one brief instant, in a gesture compounded charmingly of propitiation and appeal.

A frown dwelt momentarily on the sergeant’s rugged young features. Then his gray eyes softened, and a corner of his straight-across mouth twisted upward.

“That’s pretty damned sweet of you, Miss, uh, Luella—”

“Just plain Luella, Bill.”

“Okay, Luella. It’s swell of you, but I can’t let you do it. You’ve got to make a living.”

“Let me worry about that, Bill. I’ll just add it on to my next sale, to somebody who made his pile while you were out there on a Fortress.”

“If you put it like that — you’re sweet to do it, though.”

“It’s a pleasure — Bill.” Abruptly she became businesslike. “Finished? Then let’s go on up to my place and get the forms made out and signed.”

The Saint watched them go, not failing to note that Luella’s legs tapered to slim ankles which would have wrung a whistle from a real timber wolf.

“That’s quite a gal,” he observed, in a fatherly way.

“I noticed you taking in her personality,” retorted his lady. “Beautiful, weren’t they?”

Simon tossed her a sad sweet smile.

“It’s the artist in me. I see pretty women simply as interesting masses of light, shadow, and line.”

“Curved lines, of course.”

“Of course. Did you notice, darling Pat, that there was a certain note in that conversation, on which we so shamelessly eavesdropped, which didn’t quite belong?”

Patricia frowned.

“Well... I... she was flirting with the sergeant — a little. But who wouldn’t? He’s nice-looking, in a craggy sort of way. His kind of crisp curly hair always gives women itchy fingers.”

“I always wondered what did it,” murmured the Saint. “Ah, the patter of little fingers through one’s locks...!” He dropped his bantering tone for one laced with puzzlement. “But there was something off key. Her ‘place’? That usually means an apartment. Why her apartment? She’s a female real-estate agent — why not an office? Oh well...” He shrugged. “The sergeant is a lucky character, Pat. He has — or will shortly have — a place to lay his head, and those of his family. Which he most certainly deserves, but which doesn’t help us. However, it does give me an idea.”

“Don’t let it run away with you,” said Patricia tartly. “You haven’t seen his wife yet.”

The Saint ran a hand over his dark head.

“Darling, my thoughts would get a special award from the Hays office. It only occurred to me that there may be a solution to this hotel business. Why do we have to go through this routine with the hotels? Why don’t we just take an apartment, and when we’re tired of the place we’ll just rent it and move on.”

This was an interesting idea while it lasted, which was for some three hours after lunch. In that time they had an intensive refresher course in the topography of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, made the acquaintance of a couple of dozen real-estate agents and twice that many apartment managers, and came painfully to the conclusion that several thousand other people had had the same idea first.