Saint Errant by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780754085454
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1948-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

VI. Luella

MR AND MRS MATTHEW JOYSON had never heard of Paolo and Francesca, but in certain ways they could have given serious competition to those classic lovers. It would be unkind of the chronicler to suggest that this resemblance may even have ex tended to the technical morality of their bedded bliss, although when questioned Mrs Joyson tended to be somewhat hazy about the details of the ceremony by which she acquired the name. We prefer instead to refer to the intensity of Mr Joy-son's jealous devotion, a feature which he frequently had occasion to emphasize, and which paid him much better dividends than ever stuck to the wad of the late Paolo Malatesta.

Matt Joyson was a man of about fifty with the solidly impressive bearing that one would associate with a banker or an attorney, which had been a certain asset to him in the days when he had played parts of that type in second and third road companies. Unfortunately his thespian talents were some what less distinguished than his appearance, and the rigors of cheap rooming houses between jobs and even worse accommodations on the road were uncongenial to a temperament conditioned by the stage-sets in which he usually appeared; so that when he met a kindred soul in the very nubile shape of the fair Luella, an ambitious ingenue who tried to pawn a watch which he unguardedly left in his dressing room, it seemed like a good time to branch out into a more comfortable career.

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.

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