Read The Saint to the Rescue for Free Online Page A

traditional
appointments of such sancta, was empty.
    Simon set the spring lock in the off
position, as his story required it, closed the door, and
conscientiously forced himself to make another of the definitive
checks which seemed to be foisting themselves on him with irksome
regu larity. Mr. Fennick was not in the conveniently coffin-sized coat
closet. He was not under or behind the desk. Unless he had been cremated
like a moth on the quarter-smoked but cold cigar in the ash tray, or
ingested by the mouthpiece of the recording machine which still purred
electronically beside the desk, or sucked out through the air
conditioner which effectively blockaded the window, he must simply have gone
out. Whether his antipathetic amanuensis knew it or not.
    The Saint thought that she couldn’t know. If
she had known, it would have been just as easy to say he was out, and should have
given her the same orgasm of unhelpful- ness.
    The clock that formed the centerpiece of the
onyx ink stand on the desk showed that it still lacked more than twenty
minutes of noon.
    Simon sat down in one of the guest armchairs,
lighted a cigarette, and thought a lot more. For a full two minutes.
    Then the outer door opened with the click of
a key, and Otis Q. Fennick came in.          
    After the first bounce of his entrance had
ploughed to a soggy halt, as if he had bumped into an invisible wall
of half-congealed treacle, the lordling of the lollipops looked almost
exactly the same as he had when Simon pulled him off the hotel fire
escape. That is, he wore the same clothes and the same expression of paralytic
befuddlement. The only material difference
was that on the former occasion he had been empty-handed, whereas at this
moment he was awk wardly lugging under
one arm a cardboard carton about the
size of a case of Old Curio. This he very nearly dropped as he gaped at the Saint with the reproachful
intensity of a gaffed goldfish.
    What he said can be loosely reproduced as:
“Wha—well— I mean—how—”
    “Greetings again, Otis,” said the
Saint amiably. “I hope you’ll forgive me waiting for you like this. Your devoted watchbitch (is that the correct feminine?)
insisted that you were busy and wouldn’t let me in, but I couldn’t tell her why I was sure you wouldn’t be too busy
to see me. So I toddled around and came in this other door which was
fortunately unlatched.”
    Mr. Fennick pushed the door shut, frowning at
it.
    “I could have sworn I—”.
    “It must’ve fooled you,” Simon said
calmly. “Locks will do that sometimes.”
    The candy caliph put down his box. It seemed
to be moderately heavy, and gave a faint metallic rattle when it tipped.
    “Perhaps I didn’t check it too
carefully,” he said. “I only went to the men’s
room.”
    “Do you have to take your own pottie?” Simon inquired, gazing pointedly at the carton. “I thought
this was quite a modern
building.”
    Mr. Fennick also glanced at the box, but
seemed to de cide against pursuing that subject. He straightened his
coat and tie and moved to his desk, pulling himself together with the same
air of forced resolution as he might have brought to a difficult
business situation.
    “Well, now, since you’re here,” he
said, “I hope you didn’t think I was ungrateful last night. But
the note I left you was intended to be my last word on the subject, Mr. Templar.”
    “That’s what I thought,” said the
Saint. “But what you forgot was that it mightn’t necessarily be
mine.”
    “That is what I was afraid of. And that
is why I hoped you would be saintly enough to accept my refusal of your services
in the spirit in which it was made.”
    “So you did recognize my name.”
    “After you’d left me in your room. I had
nothing to do but keep on thinking, and it all fitted so well with what
I’ve heard of your reputation. But it also meant that I couldn’t afford to
be mixed up with you.”
    “Do you mean because of your reputation,
or your bank