Read Online Call for the Saint by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online Page A

almost as much as his eyes.
    There was an iron bedstead, a chair, a lavatory basin, a battered bureau-all confined within a space of about seventy square feet. The walls were dun-painted plaster, relieved only by a framed printing of Kipling’s If, There was the one little window, of the sash variety, which he was able to open about six inches. He stood in front of it, as if sniffing the grimy air, and noted that the glass panes had wire mesh fused into them.
    After a while he took off some of his clothes and lay down on the bed. He did not switch off the one dim light that Big Hazel had left him. He might have been unaware of its existence.
    He dozed. That was also literally true. The Saint had an animal capacity for rest and self-refreshment. But not for an instant was he any more stupefied than a prize watchdog; and he heard Big Hazel’s cautious steps outside long before she unlatched the door.
    He didn’t know how much time had gone by, but it must have been about three hours.
    He was wide awake, instantly, and alert as a strung bow, but without the least movement.
    “Who is it?” he mumbled grumpily; and even then he could see her clearly in the doorway.
    “It’s Hazel Green. I didn’t mean to disturb you” Some people came in late and held me up.”
    “That’s all right,” he said, and sat up.
    She came in and shut the door behind her, and stood looking down at him.
    “Everything all right?”
    “Yes, thank you, ma’am.”
    “What’s your name?”
    He remembered that she had never asked him before.
    “Smith,” he said. “Tom Smith.”
    “Like all the rest of “em,” she observed, without rancor. “You been in town long?”
    “No, not long.”
    “How’s it going?”
    “Not bad.”
    “You’re not a bad-looking guy to end up in a dump, like this.”
    “That’s how it goes.” He took a chance, keeping his eyes averted. “You’ve got a nice voice, to be running a dump like this.”
    “It’s a job.”
    “I suppose so.” He ventured another lead, making himself querulous again. “Why did you lock me in? I wanted to go to the bathroom—
“There’s a thing under the bed. We lock everybody in. It isn’t only men who come here. You have to keep a place like this respectable. Women stop here too.”
    For no good reason, an electric tingle squirmed up the Saint’s spine. There was nothing he could directly trace it to, and yet it was unmistakable, a fleeting draught from the flutter of psychic wings. Without time to analyze it, without knowing why, he deadened every response except that of his mind, exactly as he had controlled his awakening when she walked in, and turned the instinctive quiver into a bitter chuckle.
    “You wouldn’t expect them to give people like me any trouble, would you?”
    “You never can tell.” Big Hazel moved closer, her hands dropping into the pockets of her voluminous skirt. Her voice was still brisk and businesslike as she went on: “I’ll make out your registration tomorrow, and you can put a cross on it or whatever you do.”
    “Thank you, ma’am.”
    “Would you like a drink?”
    The Saint stirred a little on the bedside, as if in mild embarrassment, as the same reflex prickle retraced its voyage over his ganglions. But he still kept his face expressionless behind the blank windows of his smoked glasses.
    “Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t drink anything. Not being able to see, it sort of makes me a bit dizzy.”
    “You won’t mind if I do?”
    Without encouraging an answer, she pulled a pint bottle of a cheap blend out of the folds of her skirt and attacked the screw cap. She held the bottle and the cap in pleats of her clothing for a better purchase, but even her massive paws seemed to make no impression on their union.
    The Saint paid only incidental attention to her heavy breathing until she said: “The damn thing’s stuck. Can you open it?”
    He found the bottle in his hands, and unscrewed the cap with a brief effort of steel