Leslie Charteris - The Saint And The Fiction Makers

A dark-suited man, seated in front of a typewriter, was slipping slowly forward and to the floor, a long knife projecting from between his shoulder blades.

The Saint’s automatic was already in his hand. Almost simultaneously with blasting away the lock on the french windows with a single shot, he kicked the windows open and, without making a target of himself, prepared to incapacitate anything hostile. But all he saw was a most unhostile and terrified-looking girl leaning back against the opposite wall. She was standing, her ankles lashed together, her wrists apparently in the same condition behind her. A white towel was tied around her head, restricting her powers of communication to a series of mouselike squeaks.

The room had only one exit into the rest of the cottage, and Simon dashed to that open door. A glance down the central hall told him that the front entrance was closed and bolted from inside. He had heard no sound of the nearby kitchen door being opened, which could only mean that the wielder of the knife was in all probability still in the house. He did not, however, have time to plan at his own pace what he would do about the situation because suddenly a bullet slammed into the lintel above his head, accompanied by the loud report of a pistol which would have sent a man with nerves of anything less than pure platinum jumping at least five feet.

Simon whirled, ducking, and saw the captive girl, her back to him, holding a revolver upside down in her roped hands. She was hopping towards the open french windows, the nose of her weapon waving like the nozzle of a garden hose as she fired it again — this time into a picture on the wall at a quite comfortable distance from the Saint.

“Hold it!” he shouted at her. “I’m a friend.”

Her third shot, remarkably near his feet considering that both he and she were moving and that she was not even looking in his direction, said more about her scepticism than any number of words.

“Cut that out so I can catch the people who did this,” he yelled at her.

In his lunge to catch her arm, while at the same time he tried to keep his eye on the hall door for a possible flanking attack, he almost fell over the body of the man who had been seated at the typewriter. Simon’s foot, instead of meeting the solid resistance of bone and flesh, sent the man’s form skidding across the floor as if it had been a mere bag of straw.

And that was more or less what it was. It was no man. It was a well-dressed dummy.

The Saint had no time to inspect the oddity for the moment. His attention was drawn irresistibly to the pistol which could at any moment, if only by sheer accident, put a hole in his head. One of his hands closed on the girl’s arm while the other, after shoving his own gun into the band of his trousers, snatched the weapon out of her hands.

“I think we can put things on a more friendly basis without that,” he said.

The girl could still only squeak. Simon, keeping a wary eye on the doorway, loosened the gag and tore it from her mouth with no great attempt at gentleness. Now that she was free to speak, she suddenly seemed to have lost her desire even to make incoherent noises. She merely stared at him, breathing hard, with a mixture of uncertain fear and defiance that he found most attractive. She would have been attractive even without the display of courage — her face beautiful and proud, her jade eyes looking out at the world from under a cap of short black hair.

“Now,” said the Saint, “how many of us are there, not counting Pinocchio on the floor?”

“Who are you?” the girl demanded.

“I asked the first question, and I’ll add another: who are you? I’d like an answer to both — fast!”

He encouraged her with a waggle of the gun he had taken over.

“There’s nobody else here,” she said, shrinking back. Then she added quickly: “But I’ve called the police. They’ll be here any minute.”

Simon, who had been critically studying the girl’s bonds from various angles, relaxed against the wall.

“I’m afraid that doesn’t frighten me,” he said. “In the first place, I’m crazy about the police. In the second place, I happen to know this cottage doesn’t have a phone.”

The girl frowned.

“How do you know anything like that?”

“Hugoson told me.”

The girl looked momentarily relieved, and then she tensed again.

“Have you hurt him?”

“Hugoson? Of course not. We’re practically blood brothers. Or bruise brothers, anyway. Incidentally, I know you’ve worked your hands out of those ropes, so you might as well put them in front of you where I can admire them.”

She stared at him for an instant with surprise, before she screwed her face up petulantly and let the ropes slip to the floor.

“You’re very observant,” she said.

Simon nodded agreement.

“And you’re quite an escape artist,” he told her. “Except I’m not sure you should get full credit for escaping from ropes you put on yourself.”

This time she showed real amazement.

“How’d you know that?”

The Saint smiled.

“I’m very observant. Unfortunately, though, I’m not always observant enough, otherwise I’d never have burst in here to rescue a dummy and a girl who for some obscure reason likes to spend her evenings tying herself up with sash cord.”

The girl was rubbing her wrists.

“The knot got stuck,” she said, “luckily for you. If the loop had come loose I’d have had my gun right side up and potted you between the eyes.” She nodded towards her revolver, which he still held almost absentmindedly in his hand. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“Not in any vital organs, anyway.” He put the pistol in his jacket and folded his arms, noting the heap of lipstick-marked cigarette stubs in the ashtray beside the typewriter. “Now, Annie Oakley, what are your other talents besides fancy marksmanship and rope tricks?”

The girl looked at the typewriter, and then at Simon.

“Didn’t Hugoson tell you?”

“Tell me what?” the Saint asked unguardedly.

The girl hesitated, and then, with an exasperated explosion of breath, put her hands on her lips.

“That I’m Amos Klein.”

“That’s a pretty name for a girl,” said the Saint with extraordinary restraint.

Amos Klein pushed strands of raven hair from her flushed forehead.

“My mother had a poetic soul. And now, if you’re dying to introduce yourself, don’t let me stop you.”

“Gladly. I’m Simon Templar.”

The girl’s face showed surprised recognition of the name, and she looked at him more closely.

“The Saint?” she asked.

He nodded.

“There was poetry in my background, too.”

“Or a pretty far-fetched imagination.” She indicated the shattered french windows. “For a Saint, you have a pretty violent way of coming to call.”

Simon closed the windows and drew the curtain back across them.

“I’ll treat you to a repair job,” he said.

“Would you mind? I’m tired of hopping about like a human pogo stick, and as long as I have a man around I might as well make use of him.”

She was talking about the rope which still bound her ankles together. Simon knelt down to release her.

“A very wise attitude,” he agreed. “As a matter of fact, I was encouraged to come here to be useful. Finlay Hugoson and I were together at the premiere of your latest epic, and when we dropped by his flat we ran into a couple of uninvited guests who hadn’t expected him to come home till after the party. They were looking for your address, and they got away with it. Hugoson thought it would be a good idea if I got right down here to protect you... or keep you from signing up with some competitor of his.”