Saint Intervenes by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page A

was
helpless in the expert hands that held him. He was tripped
and flung to the floor, and pinioned there with practised skill. Through
whirling mists of horror he saw the doctor coming towards him with a
hypodermic syringe, and he was still yelling feebly about the Popish
Plot when the needle stabbed into his arm… .
    Dr.
Jethero went downstairs and rang up a number which he had been given.
    “I’ve
got your uncle, Mr. Tombs,” he announced. “He gave us a
bit of trouble, but he’s quite safe now.”
    Simon
Templar, who had found the name of Tombs a convenient alias
before, grinned invisibly into the transmitter.
    “That’s
splendid. Did he give you a lot of trouble?”
    “He
was inclined to be violent, but we managed to give him an injection, and
when he wakes up he’ll be in a strait- jacket. He’s really a most interesting
case,” said the doctor with professional enthusiasm. “Quite
apart from the delusion that he is Titus Oates, he seems to have some
extraor dinary hallucination about a stamp. Had you noticed that be fore?”
    “I
hadn’t,” said the Saint. “You may be able to find out some more
about that. Keep him under observation, doctor, and call me again on
Monday morning.”
    He rang
off and turned gleefully to Patricia Holm, who was waiting at his
elbow.
    “Titus
is in safe hands,” he said. “And now I’ve got a call of my
own to make.”
    “Who
to?” she asked.
    He showed
her a scrap of paper on which he had jotted down the words of
what appeared to be a telegram.
    Amazing discovery stop have reason to believe boom may
be based on genuine possibilities stop do not on any account
sell without hearing from me.
    “Dicky
Tremayne’s in Paris, and he’ll send it for me,” said the Saint.
“A copy goes to Abe Costello and Jules Hammel tonight—I just want to make
sure that they follow Titus down the drain. By the way, we shall clear
about twenty thousand if Midorients are still at 61 when they open
again tomorrow morning.”
    “But
are you sure Jethero won’t get into trouble?” she said.
    Simon
Templar nodded.
    “Somehow
I feel that Titus will prefer to keep his mouth shut after I’ve had a
little chat with him on Monday,” he said; and it is a matter of history
that he was absolutely right.

Ill
    The Newdick Helicopter
     
    “I’m
afraid,” said Patricia Holm soberly, “you’ll be getting into
trouble again soon.”
    Simon
Templar grinned, and opened another bottle of beer. He poured it
out with a steady hand, unshaken by the future predicted for
him.
    “You
may be right, darling,” he admitted. “Trouble is one of the
things that sort of happen to me, like other people have colds.”
    “I’ve
often heard you complaining about it,” said the girl sceptically.
    The Saint
shook his head.
    “You
wrong me,” he said. “Posterity will know me as a maligned,
misunderstood, ill-used victim of a cruel fate. I have tried to be
good. Instinctive righteousness glows from me likean
inward light. But nobody gives it a chance. What do you suggest?”
    “You
might go into business.”
    “I
know. Something safe and respectable, like manufactur ing woollen
combinations for elderly ladies and lorgnettes. We might throw in a
pair of lorgnettes with every suit. You could knit them, and
I’d do the fitting—the fitting of the lorgnettes, of course.” Simon
raised his glass and drank deeply. “It’s an attractive idea, old
darling, but all these schemes involve laying out a lot of capital
on which you have to wait such a hell of a long time for a return. Besides,
there can’t be much of a profit in it. On a rough estimate, the amount of
wool required to circumnavigate a fifty-four inch bust —— ”
    Monty
Hayward, who was also present, took out a tobacco-pouch and began to fill his
pipe.
    “I had
some capital once,” he said reminiscently, “but it didn’t do
me much good.”
    “How
much can you lend me?” asked the Saint hopefully.
    Monty
brushed stray ends of tobacco