Leslie Charteris - The Saint to the Rescue

“A Seminole wouldn’t mind it a bit,” contradicted the Saint. “But if it doesn’t appeal to you, you don’t have to stay.”

Mr Diehl knew it. And in that moment of truth, he also saw the elementary answer that had eluded him for so many wretched hours, and could scarcely believe that he had been so stupid as to miss it in the first five minutes.

“You’re right, I don’t,” he said. “Give me that repellent. And the check-book. And while I’m writing the check, get me a can of beer.”

“You could probably use a sandwich, too, to hold you till you get home,” said the Saint. “Let’s call it fifty-five thousand for the whole works, since you’re paying it all at once.”

Mr Diehl scribbled the check, and would not have cared much what the exact figures were. But the Saint examined it carefully before he folded it and put it away in his wallet.

“You may wonder why I should take all this trouble, when it might have been easier just to forge your signature,” he said. “But for some years now I’ve been trying to go straight, as the phrase has it, and I don’t want to be accused of doing anything criminal to get your money.”

Mr Diehl drained the can of beer in three long gulps, and scratched himself almost joyously. He was beginning to think that this highly publicized Saint character might literally have a weak place in his head, which it had taken a smart and nerveless man like Ed Diehl to discover.

“I just hope you get a sympathetic jury when you have to justify your prices,” he felt bold enough to say.

“Everyone is entitled to his day in court,” said the Saint equably. “And to save a lot of time-wasting argument there, I think we ought to mark this historic spot.”

He turned the check-book over and wrote quickly on the back of the last check: “This is the place that I paid $55,000 to be flown out of.”

“Sign it,” he said, “and I’ll witness it.”

This was done, and the note was sealed inside the plastic sandwich box, which was buried under the cypress log on which Mr Diehl had spent a good part of his unhappiest day. But he was far from unhappy as the whirling blades overhead brought the reassuring geometric patterns of highway and building in sight again, and in an absurdly few minutes the runways of the Lantana airfield were rising towards them out of the dusk.

He opened the door on his side and jumped out the moment the helicopter touched down, and was slightly ecstatically amazed that the Saint made no attempt to grab him. He did not fall on his knees and kiss the firm concrete under him, not being that kind of emotional jerk, but nothing could have stopped him taking a stand directly he had backed off beyond probable recapture or reprisal, and shouting his ultimate triumph and defiance.

“You sonofabitch!” he bawled. “Don’t waste time trying to cash that check after the cops get through working you over, because I’ll be at the bank when it opens on Monday to stop payment!”

Simon cut the engine and leaned out so as not to have to compete in vulgar volume.

“Okay, Ed,” he said gently. “You play it the way you see it. But long before that, I’ll have flown in a load of witnesses to pick up our X-marks-the-spot, and they’ll all be qualified surveyors who can testify that we buried it right where your plan calls for the City Hall of a dream town called Heavenleigh Hills. It should make fabulous publicity for everything else you’re contributing to the Future of Florida. Anyhow, you’ve got all tomorrow to think it over.”

Mr Diehl’s petulant baby face, grubby and scorched and sweat-streaked, puckered slowly but exactly like the face of a spoiled child about to burst into tears. It was an expression that the Saint had seen before. He hoped he would see it many times again.

There is a story, which may be apocryphal, about a certain bookmaker (of the horsey, not the literary, variety) who was making a long trip by car when towards nightfall he happened upon a hostelry which displayed an ordinary sign bearing a most unusual name, “The Even Steven.”

To a man in his business, this quaint appellation was of course doubly intriguing, and since it was in the middle of a particularly bleak and desolate stretch of country, and he had no idea how much farther he might have to drive to find a meal and a bed, he quickly decided to stop there for the night and satisfy his curiosity at the same time. The proprietor soon explained the peculiar designation of the place.

“It’s very simple, really. You see, my name actually is Steven Even. So I just decided to turn it around and call this ‘The Even Steven.’ I thought it might get a few folks puzzled enough to stop and ask questions, and sometimes it does. Like yourself.”

“That’s a pretty smart way to use the luck of a name,” said the bookie appreciatively. “I bet it brings you a lot of business.”

Mr Even, a dour and dejected type of individual, seemed glad to have someone to talk to.

“It hasn’t brought me so much luck,” he said. “The folks who stop don’t stay long. There’s not much gaiety around here, as you could see. In fact, there’s not another soul lives closer than thirty miles away, whichever way you go. Makes it pretty lonely for me, a widower. And worse still for my daughters. Three of the loveliest girls you ever set eyes on, should have their pick of boyfriends. But the nearest lads would have to drive thirty miles to pick ’em up, thirty more to take ’em to a movie, thirty miles to bring ’em home, and thirty back themselves. That’s more’n they got time to do even for beauties like these. The girls are getting so frustrated they’re about ready to do anything for a man.”

The bookie made sympathetic noises, and listened to more in the same vein until hunger obliged him to change the subject to that of food. An excellent home-cooked dinner was served to him by a gorgeous blonde who introduced herself as Blanche Even, and when he was surfeited she still kept pressing him to ask for anything else he wanted.

“A toothpick, perhaps?” he suggested.

She brought it, and said, “Would you like me to sit and talk to you for a while?”

“Thank you,” he said politely, “but I’ve had a long day and I feel like closing the book.”

He went to his room, and had just started to undress when there was a knock at the door and an absolutely breath-taking brunette came in.

“I’m Carmen Even,” she said. “I just wanted to see if you’d got everything you want.”

“I think so, thank you,” he said pleasantly. “I do a lot of traveling, so I pack very systematically.”

When he had finally convinced her and got rid of her, he climbed in between the sheets and was preparing to read himself to sleep over the Racing Form when the door opened again to admit an utterly stupefying redhead in a négligée to end all négligées.

“I’m Ginger Even,” she announced. “I wanted to be sure your bed was comfortable.”

“It is,” he assured her.

“I hope you’re not just being tactful,” she insisted. “May I try it myself?”

“If you must,” said the bookie primly. “I will get out while you do it.”

When she had gone, he settled down with a sigh of relief and was about to put out the light at last when the door burst open once more and the proprietor himself stomped in, glowing with indignation.

“What’s the matter with you?” he roared. “I got to listen all night to my daughters moaning an’ wailing, the most lusciousest gals in this county, because they all try to show you hospitality an’ you won’t give one of ’em a tumble. Ain’t us Evens good enough for you?”

“I’m sorry,” said the transient. “But I told you when I registered, I’m a professional bookmaker. I only lay Odds.”