The Saint Returns by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page A

in his pockets, “the little people will
get you.”
    “Little people?” Mildred whimpered,
catching up a bit.
    “Sure. Leprechauns. This is just the
spot for them. You look a bit pixyish. They might take you for one of their own.”
    “Damn!”
    Mildred’s exclamation had not been evoked by
fear of Irish
fairies. She balanced on one foot and held out her shoe for Simon to see. The stiletto heel had broken off.
    “I can’t walk like this,” she
moaned.
    “Let’s see the other shoe,” said
Simon.
    She stood in her stocking feet and handed it
to him. He grasped the remaining whole shoe firmly in both hands and
snapped its heel off.
    “There,” he said proudly, handing it
to her. “Now you’re back on an even keel.”
    She threw both shoes on the ground and
vigorously recited a phrase which she most definitely had not learned
either in a convent or as a Queen’s Guide.
    “I’d advise you to wear those,” the
Saint said, starting up the hill again. “They’re better than
nothing—and your faithful followers may discover this road at any minute.”
    She clumped along beside him in the modified shoes, panting and clinging to his sleeve for occasional
support. Simon looked up at the stars.
    “Now is the time for fortitude and inner
strength,” he philosophized. “Keep the image of Rick firm in your
mind. The course of true love never did run smooth.”
    They went on for ten minutes, and then they
saw the reddish glow of a fire through the trees at the base of the hill.
Simon led the way and looked cautiously into the small clearing.
Around a bonfire stood or sat five people, as yet oblivious to Simon’s
and Mildred’s arrival. There were a man and woman of late middle
years, and a pair of girls and a boy ranging from about twelve to
eighteen. All of them were devoting their attention to a soot-blackened metal
pot which steamed over the fire, suspended from a tripod. Nearby, a pair of
horses grazed at the edge of a tiny brook. Like parts of a stage backdrop
on the border of the circle of firelight stood two barrel-headed caravans—large
painted wooden wagons like horizontal kegs on wheels—in which the family
lived, and which it was the horses’ duty topull.
    “Gypsies,” whispered Mildred.
    “A tinker, I think,” Simon said.
“They’ve been travel ling over Ireland like this since the
beginning of time.”
    The older man, who was seated in a folding
canvas chair—undoubtedly
a recent addition to the tinker’s inventory of household goods—waved his hand
toward the pot and said to the boy,
“What’s it now?”
    The boy pulled a large thermometer from the
liquid.
    “Sixty-three.”
    The older man turned to the adolescent girls.
    “Put it in.”
    The two girls each picked up a small sack and
dumped its contents into the mixture while the boy stirred with a long
wooden stick.
    “Is that … potheen?” Mildred
asked Simon in a hushed voice.
    “It must be. The most potent stuff this
side of hell-fire and brimstone. Let’s go in quietly and peaceably, but not as
if we’re trying to sneak up. People who make illicit whiskey tend
to shoot first and find out later whether their guests were revenue
agents.”
    As he and Mildred first appeared in the
wavering, golden light the boy looked up from the pot and shouted,
“Hey!”
    For a moment the whole tableau was absolutely
motionless. Even the heavy-necked horses seemed to sense the drama
of the moment and froze in position. Then, like a squad of American football players
shifting into a defensive formation, the
whole family moved. The three women
stood between the newcomers and the bubbling
cauldron as the men stepped forward, the elder first, the younger just behind. Simon and Mildred waited.
    “They don’t look friendly at all,”
said Mildred out of the corner of her mouth.
    “They’re not,” the Saint said
simply. “Now’s a good chance for you to use your greatest talent.
Think of some lie to make them love us.”
    Smiling pleasantly,