Señor Saint by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page B

Opportunity had already knocked as often as it was likely to do in one night.
    “Al Hotel Comee,” he said.
    The Comee is not the plushest hotel hi Mexico City, being a few minutes’ drive from the fashionable center of town; but its entirely relative remoteness makes it quieter than the more publicized caravanserais, and the Saint preferred it for that reason.
    He sat on his bed and turned the pages of the telephone directory.
    Would Carlos Xavier have an unlisted number? But Xavier was sure to be still tied up with a burgled politico, in any case. And the Saint was far from obsessed with the idea of talking to Xavier again-just yet.
    What kind of hotel would the Inklers be staying at? There could only be a limited number of possibilities. He picked up the telephone. “The Reforma Hotel, please,” he said. After the usual routine of sound effects, the connection was made.
    “Mr. Inkler, please,” he said. “Mr. Sherman Inkier. I-n-k-l-e-r.”
    “One moment, please.”
    It was longer than that. Then the Reforma operator said: “I’m sorry, there is no Mr. Inkler here.” “Thank you,” said the Saint.
    He lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out more comfortably on the bed while he jiggled the telephone bracket. This method of search might take some tune. But it was bound to succeed eventually. When he got the Comee operator back, he said: “Get me the Del Prado.”
    He drew another blank there. But all it would take was patience.
    He was starting to recall his own operator again when there was a knock on the door. He hung up with a frown, and stood up and opened it. Doris Inkler stood outside.
    “You don’t have to try any longer, unless you particularly want to,” she said. “May I come in?”
    The Saint was not given to exaggerated reactions. He did not fall over backwards in an explosion of sparks and stars like a character in the funny papers, with his eyebrows shooting up through his hair. He may have felt rather like it, but he was able to resist the inclination. In his memoirs, he would probably list it among the finest jobs of resisting he ever did.
    He waved his cigarette with an aplomb that had no counterpart in his internal sensations.
    “But of course,” he said cordially. “This proves that telepathy is still better than telephones.”
    She stepped in just as calmly, and he closed the door.
    “I could have let you work a lot longer, if I’d wanted to make it tough for you,” she said. “But I got tired of standing outside.”
    Her head and eyes made an indicative movement back and upwards, and he followed their direction to the open transom above the door. He shut it.
    “You must have a very big kind heart,” he said.
    “It’s a pretty tedious way to track anyone down,” she said. “I know. That’s how I located you.”
    “Did you make a deal or wash out with the Enriquez brothers so quickly?”
    “They dropped me off first, and just took Sherman along. I think they have an old-world prejudice against having wives sit in on business conferences. So I was probably able to start calling sooner than you did. Besides, I was lucky.”
    “Where, as a matter of interest, are you staying?”
    “In Room six-eleven.”
    The Saint sighed.
    “And this is probably the last hotel I’d have tried. It would have seemed too easy. Whereas you, being a simple-minded woman, probably tried it first.”
    “Correct. But let’s change that ‘simple-minded’ to ‘economical.’ This was the one place I could try before I started to run up a telephone bill.”
    He cleared some things from a chair, and she sat down. He gave her a cigarette, lighted it, and sat on the end of the bed. At last he was actually as relaxed and at ease as he had contrived to seem from the beginning. He wondered why he had ever allowed himself to get in a stew about the apparent dead end he had run into. He should have known that such a fantastically pat and promising beginning could not possibly peter out, so long