Saint on Guard by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page A

helpfully. “Cokey is just trying to be practical. Now, what are the possibilities? We could all just stand around here for ever, but one day we might get bored with our own conversation. Of course, you could always shoot me; but then one of the other apartments might hear it and get curious about the noise. You might take me for an old-fashioned ride; but that’s kind of a luxury these days, what with the tire situation and gasoline rationing and everything.”
    “Or,” said Varetti, in the same vein, “we might call the police again and give you back to them for breaking in here.”
    “That’s quite an idea,” Simon admitted. “But I was under the impression that this apartment belonged to a Miss Barbara Sinclair. Are you sure that you mightn’t have to do a little awkward explaining about why you’re here yourselves and how you got in?”
    As bait, it was worth the casual try; but Varetti’s greasy smile was toothily unchanged.
    “I think you forget your position, Mr Templar. Yes, I am sure you do. I ask the questions. You answer them … I hope. If not, I shall have to ask Cokey to help you. And that wouldn’t be nice. I’m afraid Cokey doesn’t like you.”
    “I like him,” Cokey said glitteringly. “I’ll show you, Ricco. Just lemme tie a piece of rope around his neck and show you. He bust my head open, didn’t he?”
    “You see?” said Varetti. “He does like you. And there are plenty of things you ought to be telling us. Yes. Perhaps he has the right idea.”
    “He must have one sometimes,” Simon conceded. “Anyone with his looks has to have some compensation.”
    “You shut your trap,” said Cokey with cold savagery; and the Saint raised one mildly mocking brow at him.
    “Well, well, well! What coarse idioms you do use, Cokey, old chum. I didn’t think you’d really be sore about our little game of hide-and-seek last night. I thought that would all be under the heading of business as usual.”
    Varetti flashed him another dental broadside.
    “Cokey has his feelings,” he said. “You hurt his pride last night. So he’s entitled to a little revenge… . Go and find your piece of rope, Cokey. We’ll try to make Mr Templar take us into his confidence.”
    Everything had been diverting enough up to that point; but there is always a stage in such situations where the fun can go too far, and Simon Templar was very sensitive to those subtle barometric changes. He could feel this one all the way from his fingertips to his toes.
    He said coolly: “While we’re all getting so friendly, would you mind very much if I took my hands down from this uncomfortable position and had a cigarette?”
    “Go ahead,” said Varetti. “But don’t try anything clever, because I’d hate to have to deprive Cokey of his entertainment.”
    The Saint let his hands down and eased his shoulders as he took out his cigarette-case, watching Varetti with thoughtful blue eyes like flakes of sapphire.
    He was not, he told himself, a slave to snap judgments. He tried to be broadminded and forbearing; he tried to find in even the most repulsive creatures some redeeming spark that would allow his heart to warm towards them. But even with the most noble effort, it was becoming cumulatively plain to him that he and Mr Varetti could never be as brothers. He did not like any part of Mr Varetti, from his marcelled hair to his pointed shoes. And he particularly disliked Mr Varetti’s idea of suave dialogue—no doubt partly because it was too much like a hammy imitation of his own. He was going to enjoy doing something about Comrade Varetti.
    He selected his cigarette with care from one end of the case— it was the single cigarette that had been left there when he refilled it, as it was always still left there when he refilled, for the Saint was never totally unprepared for any emergency. He lighted it, and strolled across the room to deposit the match in an ashtray as Cokey came back from the kitchen.
    He was figuring