Charteris, Leslie - The Saint 38 - The Saint on TV by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, Humorous, General, Traditional, Crime, Fiction
ISBN: 9781477842973
Publisher: Amazon Publishing
Published: 2014-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

II. THE POWER ARTIST

ADAPTED BY FLEMING LEE

ORIGINAL TELEPLAY BY JOHN KRUSE

THE POWER ARTIST

"Taxi, sir?"

Simon Templar, who had just closed the door of his house in Upper Berkeley Mews, stopped flat-footed and stared at the driver. He had seen the cab as he came out and assumed that it must be parked there on business with some neighbor. Upper Berkeley Mews was not the sort of street where any enterprising London cabman would wait in the hope of picking up a fare. For one to go even further and obtrude himself with a direct solicitation was simply not even plausible. And although he had come out with every intention of taking a taxi, he had not survived all those years of important buccaneering by dint of such naiveties as taking cabs which tried so crudely to thrust themselves upon him.

Relaxed but hair-triggered as a watchful leopard, he treated the driver to a lifted eyebrow that came somewhere between wariness and weariness.

"Really, chum," he protested. "Is my diaper showing? Whatever booby-trap you've got in that hack, you shouldn't insult me by being so unsubtle about it."

"You are Mr Templar, aren't you?" said the driver. "The chap they call the Saint?"

The Saint saw no point in an empty denial.

"I have been called that."

The driver climbed down from his seat and came towards him, holding a folded piece of paper in his hand. Simon watched him come without moving, except for shifting a little more weight invisibly on to his toes. There was the faintest hint of a smile on his bronzed pirate's face which might have suggested that he was not only ready but almost hoping for the approach to turn into an attack.

"I have a message for you, sir," the man said.

"My telephone is in order, and so is the national postal service, I think," the Saint said pleasantly. "My friends are getting awfully snobbish if they won't use either one."

"It was a man what wouldn't give his name," said the driver, who was small and ugly and cheerful-looking. "Came up to me by Piccadilly and give me this."

Simon unfolded the paper and saw typed there a name and an address.

Perry Loudon 54 Pinter Street Chelsea

"Never heard of him," he said. "And it's not much of a message, either."

But in the faint electric chill which ran along his bones he knew that fate and his reputation as an outlaw who preyed on the lawless were trying to involve him again in one of those adventures which had made his life a legend.

"I was told to ask you to let me take you there, sir," the driver said. "This bloke says it would be well worth your while—something you'd never want to miss—and the fare is all paid in advance, including wherever you'd like to go afterwards." The driver grinned his ugly cheerful grin. "He was most generous with me. I told him I'd do me best."

The Saint let his blue eyes dwell thoughtfully on the other's face for a moment, and then he looked at his watch.

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