Saint Goes West by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Espionage
ISBN: 9780340017128
Publisher: Coronet
Published: 1975-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

“Get out of here,” Byron Ufferlitz was saying coldly. “And stay out, you drunken bum.”

Orlando Flane might have gone back to the floor a second time, if the Saint had not been interestedly holding him up. He reeled inside the supporting semicircle of the Saint’s arm, and wiped the back of his head across his bruised lips. But he had sobered surprisingly, and there was no more alcoholic slur in his syllables than there was in the savage set of his dark long-lashed eyes as he looked back across the room.

“All right, you bastard,” he said distinctly. “You can throw me out now because I’m drunk. But I can remember just as far back as you can. I’ve got plenty of things to settle with you, and when I fix you up you’re going to stay fixed!”

3

THE COLORED BUTLER showed Simon into April Quest’s living-room, and brought him a Martini. It was a comfortable room, modern in style, but it had the untouched impersonal feeling of an interior decorator’s exhibit. Everything in it looked very new and overwhelmingly harmonious. But the chairs were large and relaxing, the sort of chairs that a man likes, and at least there were no sham-period gewgaws or laboriously exotic touches.

Simon lighted a cigarette and amused himself with some magazines which he found on a shelf under the table by the couch. Some of them were fan magazines, and one of them had her picture on the cover. He remembered now that it had caught his eye on a newsstand not long ago. Naturally it was a beautiful face, since that was part of her profession, framed in softly waved auburn hair, with a small nose and high cheekbones and large expressive eyes. But he had noticed her mouth, which was generous and yet sultry, laughing and yet wilful, as if she could be passionate in her selfishness but never cold or unkind … Then he looked up, and she was standing in front of him.

It was a slight shock, as if the picture had suddenly come to life. She was so exactly like it. The only thing different was her dress, and this was something formal and white and very simple. But the neck was cut down to her waist, and the material was so sheer that you would have known exactly what she wore underneath it if she had worn anything. She looked like a wayward Madonna decked out in a suitable disguise to find out what really went on in night clubs.

She said: “Sorry I wasn’t ready, but I had the goddamnedнest time getting dressed. Every lousy rag I put on looked like hell.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m glad you were able to save something out of the junk pile.”

“Pretty frightening, isn’t it?” she said, looking down at herself. “Brings out all the floozie in me. And everything else. Well, nobody can ever say I didn’t give my All.”

She had a glass in her hand, practically empty. She emptied it, and sat down beside him and tinkled a small hand-bell.

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