Saint46 - Send for The Saint by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-31T02:11:08+00:00

3

It was as if a photographic flash-bulb had been exploded in front of Simon Templar's eyes. For a while he scarcely saw the man before him, and yet certain details registered mechanically on the film of his memory, so that as much as a year later he might have been able to picture accurately the exact shape of a patch of chipped-off paint on the skirting board beyond Pelton's desk in that supremely un memorable office.

He had worked with Randall. And then their paths had diverged, as men's paths do. But to Simon Templar, Randall was a part of the memory of those days when he had found another kind of satisfaction, as complete in its way as any he had known before or since, when Simon and Randall and others had forged links of mutual respect and brotherhood amid the often hair-raising exigencies of their exploits with the French resistance workers. Frenchman and American and Briton had spoken for once in the same accents, the accents of determination and freedom. Men had been bonded then in a kind of loyalty that only the menace of a common enemy can cement; and it was understood as an inevitable fact of life, and not to be questioned, that when one brave man fell, any of his friends and comrades would step forward to take his place, with a purpose made only more firm by the knowledge of the risks involved ...

And now Randall was dead.

It never even occurred to the Saint that he still had a choice. Almost mechanically, he repeated that the amount of the proffered fee was irrelevant, but said that he would take the job.

Only afterwards was it fully borne in upon him how skilfully Pelton had played the news of Randall's death, like a high trump kept till the last card. He must have known enough about the kind of man Simon Templar was, and about his likely reactions, to be fairly doubtful of enlisting his aid, so he had saved his biggest gun for the moment when its effect would be most immediately and hopefully decisive.

This said something for Pelton's strategic talents — which duly went up a couple of notches in the Saint's estimation — but it also bespoke a degree of coldblooded calculation which cast doubt on his more sympathetic facade, which duly went down the same scale by a similar amount.

But that was after Simon had had a chance, later, to sit down and think about it soberly. At the time, he was carried along in the bitter wake of that final news of Randall. His concentration, once the initial shock had passed, was focused with a grim intensity on one thing and one thing only: the business of getting to grips with The Squad at once or if possible sooner. The Saint was spoiling for a fight, and he was in no mood to wait.

On that score as well as from his healthy aversion to being wrapped up in iron bars and

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