Catch the Saint by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page B

replied. “Do you like them?”
    “Well, they’re very interesting,” the
Saint remarked. “Every one of these
paintings is very good.” He leaned close to the big canvas, moving the tips of his fingers very
lightly over the surface. “Technically, they’re brilliant. He seems to be
able to make a brush do anything he
wants it to do. But he makes it do some thing different each time. I
mean, each painting in here could have been
done by a different man. There’s no continuity in the style.” He turned
back to Julie, wanting to draw her out more. “Don’t you agree?”
    She nodded a little
reluctantly, as if by agreeing she would be criticising
her brother.
    “Adrian said almost
the same thing about himself,” she ad mitted.
“He said he couldn’t seem to find his own personal style. I guess he learned to paint mostly by copying masterpieces in museums, and he never grew out of it. That’s what he said. He’s really made most of his money restoring paintings, or making copies for
people. Even when he tried to paint something en tirely his own, he said it came out looking like somebody else’s.”
    Simon indicated the
bucolic scene on which Adrian had been working.
    “Titian in this
case,. Didn’t he ever go in for twentieth-century styles?”
    “I suppose not. He
doesn’t think much of modern painting. He loves the old masters.”
    The Saint nodded almost
abruptly.
    “I’d better be going
now. Thanks very much for everything you’ve told me and
shown me.”
    The suddenly almost formal way he spoke to her
suggested that he wanted to break off the
discussion and get on with some thing he considered more urgent. Julie
took it to mean that he was dropping the
whole subject.
    “But what are we
going to do?” she asked half frantically. “If my brother’s been kidnapped we must call the police. That
man Pargit—”
    “Is our only lead at the moment,”
Simon interrupted. “He’s much more
likely to show us the way to your brother if he doesn’t suspect anyone’s on to him than if the police land
on him. There must be quite a group
involved in addition to Pargit if they had three men round here posing as Special Branch officers. And the stakes must be pretty high to merit all that
manpower.”
    “But the police are trained to handle
things like this, aren’t they?”
    “If it makes you
feel any better, an inspector from Scotland Yard
was in Pargit’s emporium this afternoon, and I’m sure that even though he doesn’t know about your brother yet he’s taking a close and continuing interest in the Leonardo Galleries.
Believe me, if Scotland Yard hears about the Fawkes caper it
won’t be a well-kept secret; somebody among
the enemy is almost sure to get on to the fact that you’re being questioned.
Since it’s so im portant to them to keep anybody from
knowing that your brother has disappeared, it might be
very unhealthy for him if he became a hot
potato.”
    Julie stood in the
living-room near the front door. She looked almost tearful again, tired and
distraught and discouraged.
    “Do you mean that we
just have to wait?”
    “No. I mean that in
a case like this I’m a lot more confident in my own methods than I
am in Scotland Yard’s. Within a few hours
after I leave here, Pargit isn’t going to have a minute of privacy. He won’t know it, but I’ll know exactly
what he’s up to. I don’t like
waiting any more than you do, but if we’re patient for just a little while we
should be able to get a lead on what’s going on.”
    “How will I
know?” Julie asked.
    “I’ll be keeping in
close touch with you—which would be a pleasure even if it
weren’t a necessity. And if you need to contact me, here’s a number you
can call. Keep trying until I answer. And one thing in particular: Considering
our enemy’s tactics, don’t go anywhere with any stranger, even if he proves to
you that he’s a policeman or a detective— especially if he proves he’s a policeman or a detective.