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Authors: Leslie Charteris
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too right. It’s a little hard to believe.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Galaxy said cheerfully. For a split second the cloud shadow that Simon had noticed before crossed her face, but her voice betrayed nothing. ‘I had a hard time believing it myself for a while.’
As he followed her down the long room towards closed doors of heavy oak, he was more fascinated than ever by the operations of his own mind in these strange circumstances. His powers of recall had always been exceptional and had more than a few times brought him success or even saved his life because of the advantage they gave him. But when he had read the Charles Lake books he had done so entirely for entertainment, or even derision, and with no thought at all that there would be any point in remembering even details of the plots, much less the names of characters, the descriptions of rooms, or the mechanisms of the fantastic devices so prevalent in Charles Lake’s weird world.
But now Simon had new confirmation of something he had always believed—that nothing in one’s experience was ever really lost, though the calling up to consciousness of long ‘forgotten’ facts seemed more responsive to accidental association than to a deliberate effort of will. The stimulus of the Saint’s surroundings—the names, the gadgets, the furnishings—began to revive more and more details of the Amos Klein novels he had read. At first the trickle of recollections had been small, but now the revelations came like the rapid thawing of tributaries in the spring—streams flowing into larger brooks, brooks flowing into rivers. Now Simon’s mind was filling with a torrent of facts about the world of Charles Lake which was astonishing in its completeness.
As Amos Klein—a role that had been thrust upon him, and which he welcomed in the circumstances—he had to know those things about the novels he had supposedly written. He was grateful to the mental gift which renewed a knowledge that he might reasonably have expected to have lost for ever.
‘Here we are,’ Galaxy said.
They were standing in front of another pair of oaken doors, but before she could expose her thumb to the glowing yellow disc beside them, they swung open from within, revealing what Warlock called the planning room.
‘Greetings, Mr. Klein, and welcome to your rightful place in the world.’
The speaker was Warlock himself. He stood just a few feet inside the doorway, and even in his immaculate grey suit he managed to look like a jovial Caligula. The room which provided the setting for his welcome was large, richly panelled with rosewood, and strikingly modern in contrast to the room Simon was leaving. Behind the expansive Warlock was a long mahogany table. Around the table stood four men, two of whom the Saint recognized immediately as the phoney policemen of the night before.
‘Overwhelmed,’ said the Saint, inclining slightly.
Warlock did not miss the mocking twist of Simon’s lips. He nodded approvingly.
‘So far, Mr. Klein, you have lived up to my fondest expectations. I might have known you’d take all this with the same aplomb as Charles Lake … although of course I had no way of telling whether or not you’d resemble him in the slightest.’
Warlock spoke precisely, with a neutral British accent which told nothing about him except that he had probably artificially cultivated his present way of speaking—in the same way that a radio announcer or actor tends to lose the speech patterns of his native region. Warlock’s accent, as a matter of fact, resembled that of the actor who played the role of Warlock in the Charles Lake films.
‘We’re always told,’ he continued, ‘that one should never meet one’s favourite author. The man might be so much less impressive than his work that one could be terribly disappointed. But I must say, Mr. Klein, that I’m not disappointed at all. I’m delighted! You’re much more Charles Lake than the man who plays his part in the
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Galaxy said cheerfully. For a split second the cloud shadow that Simon had noticed before crossed her face, but her voice betrayed nothing. ‘I had a hard time believing it myself for a while.’
As he followed her down the long room towards closed doors of heavy oak, he was more fascinated than ever by the operations of his own mind in these strange circumstances. His powers of recall had always been exceptional and had more than a few times brought him success or even saved his life because of the advantage they gave him. But when he had read the Charles Lake books he had done so entirely for entertainment, or even derision, and with no thought at all that there would be any point in remembering even details of the plots, much less the names of characters, the descriptions of rooms, or the mechanisms of the fantastic devices so prevalent in Charles Lake’s weird world.
But now Simon had new confirmation of something he had always believed—that nothing in one’s experience was ever really lost, though the calling up to consciousness of long ‘forgotten’ facts seemed more responsive to accidental association than to a deliberate effort of will. The stimulus of the Saint’s surroundings—the names, the gadgets, the furnishings—began to revive more and more details of the Amos Klein novels he had read. At first the trickle of recollections had been small, but now the revelations came like the rapid thawing of tributaries in the spring—streams flowing into larger brooks, brooks flowing into rivers. Now Simon’s mind was filling with a torrent of facts about the world of Charles Lake which was astonishing in its completeness.
As Amos Klein—a role that had been thrust upon him, and which he welcomed in the circumstances—he had to know those things about the novels he had supposedly written. He was grateful to the mental gift which renewed a knowledge that he might reasonably have expected to have lost for ever.
‘Here we are,’ Galaxy said.
They were standing in front of another pair of oaken doors, but before she could expose her thumb to the glowing yellow disc beside them, they swung open from within, revealing what Warlock called the planning room.
‘Greetings, Mr. Klein, and welcome to your rightful place in the world.’
The speaker was Warlock himself. He stood just a few feet inside the doorway, and even in his immaculate grey suit he managed to look like a jovial Caligula. The room which provided the setting for his welcome was large, richly panelled with rosewood, and strikingly modern in contrast to the room Simon was leaving. Behind the expansive Warlock was a long mahogany table. Around the table stood four men, two of whom the Saint recognized immediately as the phoney policemen of the night before.
‘Overwhelmed,’ said the Saint, inclining slightly.
Warlock did not miss the mocking twist of Simon’s lips. He nodded approvingly.
‘So far, Mr. Klein, you have lived up to my fondest expectations. I might have known you’d take all this with the same aplomb as Charles Lake … although of course I had no way of telling whether or not you’d resemble him in the slightest.’
Warlock spoke precisely, with a neutral British accent which told nothing about him except that he had probably artificially cultivated his present way of speaking—in the same way that a radio announcer or actor tends to lose the speech patterns of his native region. Warlock’s accent, as a matter of fact, resembled that of the actor who played the role of Warlock in the Charles Lake films.
‘We’re always told,’ he continued, ‘that one should never meet one’s favourite author. The man might be so much less impressive than his work that one could be terribly disappointed. But I must say, Mr. Klein, that I’m not disappointed at all. I’m delighted! You’re much more Charles Lake than the man who plays his part in the
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