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

following a kerbstone vendor of bootlaces, a pavement artist, and a barrel-organ team of two ex-servicemen, whom the Saint had hired for ten shillings apiece for the occasion; and it may also be mentioned that the quartet, assembling at a near-by dairy to celebrate the windfall, were no less mystified than were the four painstaking bloodhounds who dogged their footsteps for the rest of the day.
    It was the Saint’s idea of a joke-but then, the Saint’s sense of humour was remarkably good.
    Chapter IX
“AND now let’s get down to business-as the bishop said to the actress,” murmured Simon, fishing out his cigarette-case, and tapping a gasper on his thumbnail. “I want to ask you a very important question.”
    Hayn sat down. “Well, Mr. Templar?”
    “What would you say,” asked the Saint tentatively, “if I told you I wanted ten thousand pounds?”
    Hayn smiled. “I should sympathize with you,” he answered. “You’re not the only man who’d like to make ten thousand pounds as easily as that.”
    “But just suppose,” said Simon persuasively- “just suppose I told you that if I didn’t get ten thousand pounds at once, a little dossier about you would travel right along to Inspector Teal to tell him the story of the upstairs rooms here and the inner secrets of the Maison Laserre? I could tell him enough to send you to penal servitude for five years.”
    Hayn’s eye fell on the calendar hung on the wall, with a sliding red ring round the date. His brain was working very rapidly then. Suddenly, he felt unwontedly confident. He looked from the calendar to his watch, and smiled.
    “I should write you a check at once,” he said. “And your current account would stand it?” “All my money is in a current account,” said Hayn. “As you will understand, it is essential for a man in my position to be able to realize his estate without notice.”
    “Then please write,” murmured the Saint. Without a word, Hayn opened a drawer, took out his check book, and wrote. He passed the check to Templar, and the Saint’s eyes danced as he read it.
    “You’re a good little boy, son,” said the Saint. “I’m so glad we haven’t had any sordid argument and haggling about this. It makes the whole thing so crude, I always think.”
    Hayn shrugged. “You have your methods,” he said. “I have mine. I ask you to observe the time.” He showed his watch, tapping the dial with a stubby forefinger. “Half-past twelve of a Saturday afternoon. You cannot cash that check until ten o’clock Monday morning. Who knows what may have happened by then? I say you will never pay that check into your bank. I’m not afraid to tell you that. I know you won’t set the police on to me until Monday morning, because you think you’re going to win- because you think that at ten o’clock on Monday morning you’ll be sitting on the bank’s doorstep waiting for it to open. I know you won’t. Do you honestly believe I would let you blackmail me for a sum like that-nearly as much money as I have saved in five years?” The crisis that he had been expecting for so long had come. The cards were on the table, and the only thing left for Edgar Hayn to wonder was why the Saint had waited so many days before making his demand. Now the storm which had seemed to be hanging fire interminably had broken, and it found Edgar Hayn curiously unmoved.
    Templar looked at Hayn sidelong, and the Saint also knew that the gloves were off. “You’re an odd cove,” he said. “Your trouble is that you’re too serious. You’ll lose this fight because you’ve no sense of humour-like all second-rate crooks. You can’t laugh.”
    “I may enjoy the last laugh, Templar,” said Hayn.
    The Saint turned away with a smile and picked up his hat. “You kid yourself,” he said gently. “You won’t, dear one.” He took up his stick and swung it delicately in his fingers. The light of battle glinted in his blue eyes. “I presume I may send your kind