Saint Goes West by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online

what I’m talking about. The mystery.”
    “So I gathered,” said the Saint. “But I’m not so psychic after a night like last night. And if you want to know, I’m just where I was last night. I just wish you were more careнful about hiring servants.”
    “They had good references.”
    “So had everybody else who ever took that way in. But what else do you know about them?”
    “What else do I know about them?” Freddie echoed, for the sake of greater clarity. “Nothing much. Except that Angelo is the best houseboy and valet I ever had. The other Filipino-Al, he calls himself-is a pal of his. Angelo brought him.”
    “You didn’t ask if they’d ever worked for Smoke Johnny?”
    “No.” Freddie was surprised. “Why should I?”
    “He could have been nice to them,” said the Saint. “And Filipinos can be fanatically loyal. Still, that threatening letter seems a little bit literate for Angelo, I don’t know. Another way of looking at it is that Johnny’s friends could have hired them for the job … And then, did you know that your chef was an Italian?”
    “I never thought about It. He’s an Italian, is he? Louis? That’s interesting.” Freddie looked anything but interested. “But what’s that got to do with it?”
    “So was Implicato,” said the Saint. “He might have had some Italian friends. Some Italians do.”
    “Oh,” said Freddie.
    They turned over the bridge across the stream, and there was a flurry of hoofs behind them as Ginny caught up at a galнlop. She rode well, and she knew it, and she wanted everyнone else to know. She reined her pony up to a rearing sliding stop, and patted its damp neck.
    “What are you two being so exclusive about?” she deнmanded.
    “Just talking,” said the Saint. “How are you doing?”
    “Fine.” She was fretting her pony with hands and heels, making it step nervously, showing off. “Esther isn’t so happy, though. Her horse is a bit frisky for her.”
    “Don’t worry about me,” Esther said, coming up. “I’m doнing all right. I’m awful hot, though.”
    “Fancy that,” said Ginny.
    “Never mind,” said the Saint tactfully. “We’ll call a halt soon and have lunch.”
    They were walking down towards a grove of great palms that rose like columns in the nave of a natural cathedral, their rich tufted heads arching over to meet above a cloister of deep whispering shade. They were the same palms that Simon had paused under once before, years ago; only now there were picnic tables at their feet, and at some of them a few hardy families who had driven out there in their automoнbiles were already grouped in strident fecundity, enjoying the unspoiled beauties of Nature from the midst of an enthusiнastic litter of baskets, boxes, tin cans, and paper bags.
    “Is this where you meant we could have lunch?” Freddie asked rather limply.
    “No. I thought we’d ride on over to Murray Canyon-if they haven’t built a road in there since I saw it last, there’s a place there that I think we still might have to ourselves.”
    He led them down through the trees, and out on a narrow trail that clung for a while to the edge of a steep shoulder of hill. Then they were out on an open rise at the edge of the desert, and the Saint set his horse to an easy canter, threading his way unerringly along a trail that was nothing but a faint crinkling in the hard earth where other horses had folнlowed it before.
    It seemed strange to be out riding like that, so casually and inconsequentially, when only a few hours before there had been very tangible evidence that a threat of death to one of them had not been made idly. Yet perhaps they were safer out there than they would have been anywhere else. The Saint’s eyes had never stopped wandering over the changing panoramas, behind as well as ahead; and although he knew how deceptive the apparently open desert could be, and how even a man on horseback, standing well above the tallest clump of scrub, could