Enter the Saint by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page A

think you can safely be left to wonder what I’m going to do next. See you later, I expect, my Beautiful Ones… .” The Saint rose and walked unhurriedly to the stairs. By that time, there were five men ranged in a row at the foot of the stairs, and they showed no signs of making way for anyone.
    “We should hate to lose you so soon, Mr. Templar,” said Hayn.
    The Saint’s lounging steps slowed up, and stopped. His hands slid into his pockets, and he stood for a moment surveying the quintet of waiters with a beatific smile. Then he turned. “What are these?” he enquired pleasantly. “The guard of honour, or the cabaret beauty chorus?”
    “I think you might sit down again, Mr. Templar,” suggested Hayn.
    “And I think not,” said the Saint.
    He walked swiftly back to the table-so swiftly that Hayn instinctively half-rose from his seat, and the five men started forward. But the Saint did not attack at that moment. He stopped in front of Hayn, his hands in his pockets; and although that maddening little smile still lurked on his lips, there was something rather stern about his poise.
    “I said I was going to leave you, and I am,” he murmured, with a gentleness that was in amazing contrast to the intent tautness of his bearing. “That’s what I came here for, ducky-to leave you. This is just meant for a demonstration of all-around superiority; you think you can stop me-but you watch! I’m going to prove that nothing on earth can stop me when I get going. Understand, lovelines?”
    “We shall see,” said Hayn.
    The Saint’s smile became, if possible, even more Saintly. Somehow that smile, and the air of hair-trigger alertness which accompanied it, was bothering Edgar Hayn a heap. He knew it was all bravado-he knew the Saint had bitten off more than he could chew for once-he knew that the odds were all against a repetition of the discomfiture of the Ganning combine. And yet he couldn’t feel happy about it. There was a land of quivering strength about the Saint’s lazy bearing-something that reminded Edgar Hayn of wire and whipcord and indiarubber and compressed steel springs and high explosives.
    “In the space of a few minutes,” said the Saint, “you’re going to see a sample of rough-housing that’ll make your bunch of third-rate hoodlums look like two cents’ worth of oxtail. But before I proceed to beat them up, I want to tell you this-which you can pass on to your friends. Ready?”
    Hayn spread out his hands.
    “Then I’ll shoot,” said the Saint. “It’s just this. We Saints are normally souls of peace and goodwill towards men. But we don’t like crooks, blood-suckers, traders in vice and damnation, and other verminous excrescences of that type-such as yourself. We’re going to beat you up and do you down, skin you and smash you, and scare you off the face of Europe. We are not bothered about the letter of the law, we act exactly as we please, we inflict what punishment we think suitable, and no one is going to escape us. Ganning got hurt, but still you don’t believe me. You’re the next on the list, and by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be an example to convince others. And it will go on. That’s all I’ve got to say now, and when I’ve left you you can go forth and spread the news. I’m leaving now!”
    He stooped suddenly, and grasped the leg of Hayn’s chair and tipped it backwards with one jerking heave. As Hayn tried to scramble to his feet, the Saint put an ungentle foot in his face and upset the table on top of him. The five tough waiters were pelting across the floor in a pack. Simon reached out for the nearest chair, and sent it skating over the room at the height of six inches from the ground, with a vimful swing of his arms that gave it the impetus of a charging buffalo. It smashed across the leader’s knees and shins with bone-shattering force, and the man went down with a yell. That left four.
    The Saint had another chair in his hands by the time the