The Saint in the Sun by Leslie Charteris

Author:Leslie Charteris [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780856172267
Publisher: Coronet Books
Published: 1963-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"Oh. Pardon my ignorance."

"She's an ex-wife of Jose Santander, the Venezuelan oil man."

"Now that's more like type-casting," said the Saint, with an air of flippant relief; but a couple of knife-thin wrinkles remained between his brows as a throbbing crescendo of revving-up engines drew their attention back to the course.

The starter's flag dropped, and with a deafening roar the twelve tidily deployed automobiles surged forward, comfortably spread out three abreast for a bare instant before they broke ranks and crowded into one suicidal bid for position at the first bend. To the naive spectator who has never seen a shop open its doors to the first arrivals at a genuine bargain sale, or been caught on a suburban artery at the rush hour when a light turns green, these first few seconds are the most thrilling in any race of this kind. Even to Simon Templar it was still one of the peak excitements of every event.

Cynthia's white Bristol was off in front. Teresa's dark green Maserati, starting from one of the rear positions, shoved viciously through the pack like a bulldozing footballer, shouldering less ruthless drivers aside to left and right with an unswerving callousness which is the only ultimate factor in these jams. She was still only a close fourth at the turn, but the Saint thought she came out of it perceptibly faster than the two cars ahead of her as they flashed into the next short stretch and temporarily disappeared from view.

The track at that time was not laid out with much regard for the audience. Superimposed on the existing runways of Oakes Field, the former airport of Nassau, and making the most possible use of the already paved surfaces, it meandered off into backwaters previously known only to aviators, with little regard for the perspective of the cash customers. The most obvious thrills which the public comes to see in this kind of racing, of course, are on the corners; but practically none of these were clearly visible from the expensive boxes or the general admission stands, or accessible to either class of client. For most of the winding five-mile course, between their dashes through the short spectator stretches, the cars could be followed only in occasional tantalizing glimpses as they whizzed through the two or three fairly distant sections of which the terrain gave an unobstructed vista. This made it pleasantly painless to chat about other things or patronize the bar, without fear of missing too much of the race. On previous days, Simon had found this a fairly agreeable consolation for the inferior visibility; but this time he felt himself nagged by a faint far-down uneasiness, something like a tiny splinter might set up as it worked down into a calloused palm. He strained his eyes for the first cars to come out of the "chicane", two consecutive sharp turns that were at a bad head-on viewing angle from the club stand, and saw the white Bristol still leading, then another car, then another, dark green one which had to be Teresa's, the only one of that color in the competition.

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