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

can say that again,” put in
his wife, with sudden unwonted vehemence. She turned to the Saint.
“Yes, there is something you can do—for me, anyway. When you get down around Palm
Beach, look up a fellow called Ed Diehl.”
    “Now, Ernestine—”
    “Well, why shouldn’t he? The Saint likes a good crook to go after, doesn’t he? And he might just happen to run short of
crooks some wet weekend. And this Diehl’s   cer tainly a prize
one.”
    “Now, Ernestine, we can’t expect the
Saint to take off after any little chiseler who took advantage of—”
    “Little chiseler? He’s a big chiseler. ‘Square’ Diehl, he calls himself, Simon. Hah!”
    One of the Saint’s redeeming graces was that
he knew when he had hooked himself and could accept the conse quences
gracefully.
    “All right,” he said placatingly.
“I asked for it. What was the deal this merchant got you into?”
    “Well, it wasn’t long after we started
building this place,” Jim Harris said. “An aunt of mine back
in Texas died and left me four lots she owned somewhere around Lake Worth. We were
much too busy getting this place in shape to go down and look at ‘em, though I
know we could’ve done it all in a day. We kept telling ourselves we’d
have to do it, but somehow we never could find that whole day to spare. A lot of people think that running a camp like this is all play and no
work, but you’d be surprised how it ties you down.”
    “So one day we get a letter from this
Diehl,” Ernestine said. “He says he’s had an inquiry about these
lots, and would we be interested in selling. If so, call him
collect. He’s a regular real-estate broker with a fancy
letterhead, so we didn’t think there’d be any harm in talking to him.”
    “He’s a real smooth operator,” her
husband resumed reminiscently . “He soon found out that we’d never
been down that way and didn’t know much about conditions there, and while he was doing that he’d made himself sound so honest and
helpful, I just didn’t even doubt him when I asked him what sort of
property it was and he said it was in a poor section of town
that never had done much good and lots were only fetching about a
thousand dollars. I didn’t see what he was doing at the time, but I’ve
thought about it since. Right then, when he said he had a customer
offering five thousand for the four lots just because they were all together
and he was a cranky old guy who didn’t want any near neighbors, he
made it sound like the last chance we’d ever have to get that kind of
price.”
    “And I can’t even say ‘I told you so,’
” lamented the distaff side of the record. “It sounded just as
convincing to me, as you told it, and we thought we were lucky to get a windfall
like that just when we could use it.”
    Simon lighted a cigarette.
    “And then you finally made the safari
South and saw what you’d sold—”
    “No, we still haven’t been able to take
that day off,” Jim said. “But one day we had a couple
staying here from Lake Worth, and we got to talking, and right off they
said they hoped we hadn’t been given a fast shuffle like it seems this Ed
Diehl is known for. So I got out the papers, and they knew exactly where
these lots were, on a main-road corner right in the middle of
a lot of new building developments, and there was a big new supermarket
going up now on those very same lots we sold.”
    “And the old codger who just wanted his
privacy?”
    “They recognized his name, too. Seems
he’s a pretty active attorney, not very old, and also a cousin of
Mrs. Diehl’s.”
    The Saint nodded sympathetically.
    “Yes, of course. If a supermarket had
appeared as the buyer, you couldn’t have helped knowing your property was worth more.
They probably sold it to the market out of the same escrow, at a fat
profit, without even putting up a dime of their own. And after that first
vague letter, I bet you never had anything else from Diehl in writing except
the formal