Read Online Follow the Saint by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online

was buttoning it as he skated down
the stairs.
    The
customer was a fat and frowsy woman in a bad temper.
    “Tike
yer time, dontcher?” she said scathingly. “Think I’ve got all die ter
wiste, young man? You’re new here, aintcher ? Where’s Mr Osbett ?”
    “Some
people, madam, prefer to call me fresh,” replied the Saint courteously.
“Mr Osbett is asleep at the moment, but you may confide
in me with perfect confidence.”
    “Confide
in yer ?” retorted the lady indignantly. “None o’ your
sauce, young feller! Iwant three pennyworth of lickerish an’
chlorodeen lozenges, an’ that’s all. Young Alf’s corf is awful
bad agin this morning.”
    “That’s
too bad,” said the Saint, giving the shelves a quick once-over, and
feeling somewhat helpless. “Just a minute, auntie—I’m
still finding my way around.”
    “Fresh,”
said the lady tartly, “is right.”
    Liquorice
and chlorodyne lozenges were fairly easy. The Saint found a large
bottle of them after a short search, and proceeded to tip half
of it into a paper bag.
    ”
‘Ere, I don’t want all that,” yelped the woman. “Three pennyworth,
I said!”
    Simon
pushed the bag over the counter.
    “As
an old and valued customer, please accept the extra quantity with Mr Osbett’s
compliments,” he said generously. “Threepence is
the price to you, madam, and a bottle of cough mixture thrown
in. Oh, yes, and you’d better give young Alf some cod-liver oil —— ”
    He piled
merchandise towards her until she grabbed up as much as she could
carry and palpitated nervously out into the street. Simon
grinned to himself and hoped he had not overdone it. If the
news of his sensational bargain sale spread around the district,
he would have his hands full.
    During the
lull that followed he tried to take a survey of the stock. He would be
safe enough with proprietary goods, but if anyone asked for some more
complicated medicine he would have to be careful. He had no grudge to
work off against
the neighbourhood at large; which was almost a pity.
    The next
customer required nothing more difficult than aspirin, and left the shop in a
kind of daze when the Saint insisted on supplying a bottle of a hundred tablets
for the modest
price of twopence.
    Simon took a
trip upstairs and found that his three prizes had still failed to progress beyond the
stage of half conscious meanings and a
spasmodic twitching of the lower limbs. He returned downstairs to attend to a
small snotty-nosed urchin who was
asking for a shilling tin of baby food. Simon blandly handed her the largest size he could see, and told
her that Mr Osbett was making special
reductions that morning.
    “Coo!”
said the small child, and added a bag of peardrops to the order.
    Simon poured
out a pound of them—“No charge for that, Delilah—Mr Osbett is
giving peardrops away for an adver tisement”—and the small child sprinted out as if it
was afraid of waking up before it got home.
    The Saint
lighted another cigarette and waited thought fully. Supplying
everybody who came in with astounding quantities of Mr Osbett’s goods at
cut-throat prices was amusing enough, admittedly, but it was not
getting him any where. And yet a hunch that was growing larger every minute
kept him standing behind the counter.
    Maybe it
wasn’t such a waste of time… . The package of Miracle Tea in which
he had found fifteen hundred testi monials to the lavish beneficence of his guardian angel had come from that shop; presumably it had been
intended for some special customer;
presumably also it was not the only eccentric
transaction that had taken place there, and there was no reason why it should be the last. Maybe no
other miracles of the same kind were
timed to take place that day; and yet …
    Mr
Osbett’s boxes of extra special toilet soap, usually priced at seven and sixpence, were reduced
for the benefit of a charming young damsel
to a shilling each. The charming damsel
was so impressed that she tentatively