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

fingers.
    “Thanks, Mr. Smith.”
    She took a quick gulp from the bottle, and guided his groping hand to replace the cap.
    “Well, have a good night,” she said.
    She went out, and the door closed behind her. And once again he heard the lock click.
    Simon lay back on the hard bed, remembering vividly that she had never touched the bottle except through the cloth of her skirt pocket. He rested all night in the same vigilant twilight between sleep and waking, revolving a hundred speculations and surmises; but nothing else disturbed him except hisown goading thoughts.
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was surprisingly easy to get out- almost too easy. In the early morning feet crept past the door again, and the lock clicked stealthily. When he tried the door, after a while, it opened without obstruction. He tapped his way downstairs, and the thin meek man at the desk scarcely looked up as he went by. Big Hazel was nowhere to be seen.
    In the role of a blind man it would have been difficult to shake off any possible shadowers, but that seemed an unnecessary precaution. If he was suspected at all, everything would be known about him anyway; if not, he would not be shadowed. But he thought he knew which it was.
    He showered and shaved at his own hotel; and he was finishing a man-sized breakfast of bacon and eggs when the telephone rang.
    “Listen, Mr. Templar,” Lieutenant Kearney said. “You’re not figuring on leaving town, are you?”
    “My plans are nearly completed,” Simon informed him. “At the stroke of midnight a small blimp, camouflaged as a certain well-known Congressman, will drop a flexible steel ladder to the roof of this hotel. I shall mount it like a squirrel and flee southward, while the sun sinks behind beautiful Lake Michigan. It all depends on the sun,” he added reflectively. “If I can only induce it to put off sinking until midnight, and do it in the east for a change, the plan will go off without a hitch.”
    “Listen—” Kearney said, and sighed. “Oh, well. So you know the Commissioner. So I’ve got to give you a break. Just the same-” His tone changed. “I’ve been getting some information around Chicago.”
    “Fine,” Simon approved. “If you run across a good floating crap game, by all means tell me. I need a stake before I make my getaway.”
    Kearney went on doggedly: “This stiff we got in the morgue-we found out who he was. His name’s Cleve Friend. He’s a grifter from Frisco.”
    “You ought to make a song out of that,” Simon told him.
    “Yeah. Well, anyhow, what was the idea saying you didn’t know him?”
    “Did I say that?” Simon asked blandly.
    “You implied it,” Kearney snapped. “And that don’t check with what I’ve been hearing.”
    Simon paused.
    “Just what have you been hearing?” he asked.
    “Things from people. People around town. Not in your social circle, of course.” Kearney’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Bums, poolroom touts, beggars.”
    “Beggars?”
    “We ran Friend’s picture in the paper today,” Kearney said. “The photographer retouched it a little-that hole in his head, you know. And some people came in to look at him. They recognized him. He’s a grifter, or I mean he was, and quite a few people have seen him around Chicago the last month or so. Some of them saw you, too. Some of them even saw you both together.”
    “Those chatterboxes knew me by name, of course?”
    “Listen,” Kearney said, “don’t kid yourself. The Saint’s picture has been in the papers, too, a lot of times. What was it you were seeing Friend about lately?”
    “I can’t tell you,” Simon said.
    “You won’t?”
    “I can’t. I’m too shy.”
    “God damn it,” Kearney roared. “Maybe you can tell me why the autopsy on Friend showed he’d been shot full of scopolamin, then!”
    Simon’s eyes changed. “Scopolamin? That wasn’t what killed him?”
    “You know damn well what killed him. You saw the bullet hole. I’m not doing any more