Leslie Charteris - Featuring the Saint

"Fool," said his lady.

The Saint grinned, and pushed back his chair. Breakfast was over; a blaze of summer sunshine was pouring through the open windows into the comfortable room; the first and best cigarette of the day was canted up between the Saint's smiling lips; all was right with the world.

"What's the absorbing news, anyway?" he inquired lazily.

She passed him the paper; and, as is the way of these things, the matter which had given rise to her question was of the most ephemeral interest-and yet it interested the Saint. Simon Templar had always been the despair of all those of his friends who expected him to produce intelligent comments upon the affairs of the day; to read a newspaper not only bored him to extinction, but often gave him an actual physical pain. Therefore it followed, quite naturally, that when the mood seized him to glance at a newspaper, he usually managed to extract more meat from that one glance than the earnest regular student of the press extracts from years of daily labour.

It so happened that morning. Coincidence, of course; but how much adventure is free from all taint of coincidence? Coincidences are always coinciding-it is one of their peculiar attributes; but the adventure is born of what the man makes of his coincidences. Most people say: "How odd!"

Simon Templar said: "Well, well, well!"

But the Times really hadn't anything exciting to say that morning; and certainly the column that Patricia had been reading was one of the most sober of all the columns of that very respectable newspaper, for it was one of the columns in which such hardy annuals as Paterfamilias, Lieut-Colonel (retired), Pro Bono Publico, Mother of Ten, unto the third and fourth generation, Abraham and his seed forever, let loose their weary bleats upon the world. The gentleman ("Diehard") who had incorporated an obiter dictum in his effort was giving tongue on the subject of motorists. It was, as has been explained, pure coincidence that he should have written with special reference to a recent prosecution for dangerous driving in which the defendant had been a man in whom the Saint had the dim beginnings of an interest.

"Aha!" said the Saint, thoughtful like.

"Haven't you met that man-Miles Hallin?" Patricia said. "I've heard you mention his name."

"And that's all I've met up to date," answered the Saint. "But I have met a bird who talks about nothing else but Miles. Although I suppose, in the circumstances, that isn't as eccentric as it sounds."

He had, as a matter of fact, met Nigel Perry only a fortnight before, by a slightly roundabout route. Simon Templar, being in a club in Piccadilly which for some unknown reason al lowed him to continue his membership, had discovered that he was without a handkerchief. His need being vital, he had strolled over to a convenient shop-without troubling to put on a hat. The rest of the story, he insisted, was Moyna Stanford's fault. Simon had bought his handkerchief, and the shop assistant had departed towards the cashier with the Saint's simoleons, when Moyna Stanford walked in, walked straight up to the Saint, and asked if he could show her some ties. Now, Moyna Stanford was very good to look upon, and there were quantities of ties prominently displayed about the shop, and the Saint could never resist anything like that. He had shown her several ties. The rightful tie exhibitor had returned. There had been some commotion. Finally, they had lunched together. Not including the tie exhibitor.

The rest of the story, as the Saint retailed it to Patricia Holm, was perfectly true. He had met Nigel Perry, and had liked him immediately-a tall, dark, cheery youngster, with a million-dollar smile and a two-figure bank balance. The second of those last two items Simon had not discovered until later. On the other hand, it was not very much later, for Nigel Perry had nothing approaching an inferiority complex. He talked with an engaging frankness about himself, his job, his prospects, and his idols. The idols were, at that moment, two -Moyna Stanford and Miles Hallin. It is likely that Simon Templar was shortly added to the list; perhaps at the end he headed the list-on the male side. But at the time of meeting, Miles Hallin reigned supreme.

The Saint was familiar with the name of Hallin, and he was interested in the story that Nigel Perry had to tell, for all such stories were interesting to the Saint.

At that breakfast table, under the shadow of an irrelevant obiter dictum, Simon explained.

"Hallin's a much older man, of course. Nigel had a brother who was about Hallin's age. Years ago Hallin and the elder Perry were prospecting some godless bit of desert in Australia. What's more, they found real gold. And at the same time they found that one of their water barrels had sprung a leak, and there was only enough water to get one of them back to civilization. They tossed for it-and for once in his life Hallin lost. They shook hands, and Perry pushed off. After Perry had been gone some time, Hallin decided that if he sat down on the gold mine waiting to die he'd go mad first. So he made up his mind to die on the move. It didn't occur to him to shoot him self-he just wouldn't go put that way. And he upped his pack and shifted along in a different direction from the one that Perry had taken. Of course he found a water hole, and then he found another water hole, and he got out of the desert at last. But Perry never got out. That's just a sample of Hallin's luck."

"And what happened to the gold?"

"Hallin registered the claim. When he got back to England he looked up young Nigel and insisted on giving him a half share. But it never came to much-about a couple of thou sand, I believe. The lode petered out, and the mine closed down. Still, Hallin did the white thing. Taking that along with the rest, you can't blame Nigel for worshipping him."

And yet the Saint frowned as he spoke. He had a professional vanity that was all his own, and something in that vanity reacted unfavourably towards Miles Hallin, whom a sensational journalist had once christened "The Man Who Cannot Die."

"Are you jealous?" teased Patricia; and the Saint scowled.

"I don't know," he said.

But he knew perfectly well. Miles Hallin had cropped up, and Miles Hallin had spoiled a beautiful morning.

"It annoys me," said the Saint, with what Patricia couldn't help thinking was an absurd pettishness. "No man has a right to Hallin's reputation."

"I've heard nothing against him."

"Have you heard anything against me?"

"Lots of things."

Simon grinned abstractedly.

"Yes, I know. But has anyone ever called me 'The Man Who Cannot Die'?"

"Not when I've been listening."

"It's not a matter of listening," said the Saint. "That man Hallin is a sort of public institution. Everyone knows about his luck. Now, I should think I've had as much luck as anyone, and I've always been much bigger news than Hallin will ever be, but nobody's ever made a song and dance about that side of my claim to immortality."

"They've had other things to say about you."

The Saint sighed. He was still frowning.

"I know," he said. "But I have hunches, old darling. Let me say here and now that I have absolutely nothing against Hallin. I've never heard a word against him, I haven't one reasonable suspicion about him, I haven't one single solitary fact on which I could base a suspicion. But I'll give you one very subtle joke to laugh about. Why should a man boast that he can't die?"

"He didn't make the boast."

"Well-I wonder. . . . But he certainly earned the name, and he's never given it a chance to be forgotten. He's capitalized it and played it up for all it's worth. So I can give you an even more subtle joke. It goes like this: 'For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. . . .' "

Patricia looked at him curiously. If she had not known the Saint so well, she would have looked at him impatiently; but she knew him very well.