The Saint versus Scotland Yard (The Saint Series) by Charteris Leslie

Author:Charteris, Leslie [Charteris, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

“So even your arrangements can break down, Templar—when your accomplice fails you,” Kuzela remarked silkily. “My enterprising young friend, when you are older you will realise that it is always a mistake to rely upon a woman. I have never employed a woman myself for that reason.”

“I’ll bet that broke her heart,” said the Saint.

Once again he sat in Kuzela’s study, with his head still throbbing painfully from the crashing welt it had received, and a lump on the back of it feeling as if it were growing out of his skull like a great auk’s egg. His hair was slightly disarranged, and straps on his wrists prevented him from rearranging it effectively, but the Saintly smile had not lost one iota of its charm.

“It remains, however, to decide whether you are going to be permitted to profit by this experience—whether you are going to live long enough to do so. Perhaps it has not occurred to you that you may have come to the end of your promising career,” continued the man on the other side of the desk dispassionately, and the Saint sighed.

“What, not again?” he pleaded brokenly, and Kuzela frowned.

“I do not understand you.”

“Only a few months ago I was listening to those very words,” explained the Saint. “Alas, poor Wilfred! And he meant it, too. ‘Wilf, old polecat,’ I said, ‘don’t you realise that I can’t be killed before page three hundred and twenty?’ He didn’t believe me. And he died. They put a rope round his neck and dropped him through a hole in the floor, and the consequences to his figure were very startling. Up to the base of the neck he was not so thin—but oh, boy, from then on…It was awfully sad.”

And Simon Templar beamed around upon the congregation—upon Kuzela, and upon the two bruisers who loafed about the room, and upon the negro who stood behind his chair. And the negro he indicated with a nod.

“One of your little pets?” he inquired, and Kuzela’s lips moved in the fraction of a smile.

“It was fortunate that Ngano heard some of the noise,” he said. “He came out of the house just in time.”

“To sock me over the head from behind?” drawled the Saint genially. “Doubtless, old dear. But apart from that—”

“Your accomplice escaped, with my property. True. But, my dear Templar, need that prove to be a tragedy? We have your own invaluable self still with us—and you, I am quite sure, know not only where the lady has gone, but also where you have hidden a gentleman whom I should very much like to have restored to me.”

Simon raised languid eyebrows.

“When I was the Wallachian Vice-Consul at Pfaffenhausen,” he said pleasantly, “our diplomacy was governed by a picturesque little Pomeranian poem, which begins:

Der Steiss des Elephanten

Ist nicht, ist nicht so klein.

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