The Saint to the Rescue by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online

suppose it’s possible.”
    “I have another hunch about her. I don’t
think your mar ried life is exactly blissful. Not that you ever said it
was. But I think she’d be happy to get rid of you—if she could only keep
enough of the heavy sugar from those Crunchy Wunchies. And you
know it, because you’re no fool. For the same reason, I think you’d give her
her freedom if she’d take a fair settlement. But she’s too greedy,
so you’ve been holding out. You could do that if you’d been a good hus band and
had never given her the usual grounds for divorce.”
    Mr. Fennick’s thin mouth was grim and tight
around his cigar.
    “You’re making a lot of personal
assumptions, Mr. Tem plar.”
    “Let me make some more. You weren’t
worried about her jealous nature, as you led me to believe, but about how much she
could take you for if she had the goods on you. And when you recovered
from that hit on the head, you figured she’d got ‘em. Perhaps you put in a
call to your home in New York and found that she’d flown out here yesterday,
but without getting in touch with you. That would have cinched it. She
could have identified herself as your wife so that even that supercilious
young jerk on the desk last night would have given her a spare key
to your room, which was all Balton and Norma needed. And you knew you
couldn’t buy them off, because with that evidence she could match any bid
you made. She was all set to take you for everything you’ve got.”
    The Candy Company’s president had his
fingertips pressed to his temples and his thumbs on his cheeks, his hands lightly
covering his eyes, in an attitude of intense concen tration, and he took
no advantage of the moment of silence that Simon offered him.
    The Saint got up and walked over to the carton
that the other had brought in, giving him time, and lifted the lid inquisitively. What he saw first was a mechanic’s cap on top of a
crumpled suit of coveralls, which made him sud denly and purposefully
delve further. Underneath them he came to the source of the muffled
clanking he had heard, a well-worn set of plumber’s tools in an open
carrier, on top of which was a cheap pair of tinted glasses.
    “Well, this fills in a few more
blanks,” he murmured. “You could have bought the tools at any
secondhand store, and the overalls and glasses anywhere, and they make a much
better disguise than a false beard. Even if anyone noticed you, the
description would never fit Otis Q. Fen nick, the genius
behind Jumbo Juicies. Even your colleagues on the convention
probably wouldn’t recognize you on a fast walk-through. And yet
you’d only need a minute in a booth in any public john to change into it
or out again. You’re just loaded with wasted talent, daddy-o. The only
flaw is that you’re still stuck with Liane, who could still give the cops that
missing motive. One thing leads to another, as the actress tried to warn
the bishop when he helped her off with her galoshes.”
    Mr. Fennick sat perfectly still, so that for
a second or two Simon seriously wondered whether the accumulated shocks and strains
could have been too much for a weak heart.
    Then the communicating door burst open, and
the surly duenna of the outer office burst in.
    For an instant the sheer outraged
astonishment of seeing the Saint standing by the desk made her falter
in her tracks and almost choked off the words that were piled up to
burst from her mouth; but the pressure behind them was too strong.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Fennick, but I knew you’d
want me to disobey you about this. The hotel called. It’s about Mrs. Fennick. They were trying to locate you through the con vention,
and finally they got Mr. Smith at the lecture, and he told them you were
here. I must warn you, it’s some thing awful—”
    “What is it?” Fennick asked.
    “She fell out of the window, Mr. Fennick.
Or she jumped. They seem to think it was suicide!”
    “Good God,” Fennick said huskily.
    Simon stepped forward,