Read Online Saint's Getaway by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online Page A

invention is still at
your disposal, my dear Mr. Templar. What a pity it is that it fails to meet
with your approval… .”
    “Believe me,” said the Saint.
    He hooked a chair round with his foot, and
drew the tele phone towards him. With one elbow propped on the table, and the
strong-box parked alongside, he slid one eye onto the combination panel and
kept the prince skewered on the other.
    “Innsbruck achtundzwanzig neun
dreizehn.”
    The number clacked back at him from the
receiver. And a great wide grin of pure beatitude was deploying itself
round his inside. Even Rudolf could still make his mistakes; and it seemed to
Simon that the exchange of errors was piling itself up beautifully on the
side of righteousness and the Public School Code. But for once he
deliberately chose to let the op portunity pf chirruping go by. ‘
    And then he was through to his own suite at
the K ö nigshof.
    “Hullo, Pat, old angel! How’s the world?
… Where have I been? Oh, toddling here and there. Wonderful amount of Alp
there is in Austria. The place is simply bulging with it… . Well, don’t
rush me. I’ve been touring the great open spaces. Pat, where men
are men and women wear flannel next the skin. Rudolf has been doing the
honours. But that’ll keep. Shoot me the news from home, old darling… . Whassat? … Well, I will be teetotal and let it snow!”
    His forehead was crinkling as he listened,
while the receiver rattled and spluttered with a recital that began by
making his hair stand on end. For fully five minutes his granitic
silence was punctuated only by an infrequent monosyllable that siz zled into
the transmitter like a splinter of hot quartz.
    And then, as the tale went on, he began to
smile. His inter ruptions wafted through the air on a breath of inward
laugh ter. And the concluding sentence of the story fetched him half out of his
chair.
    “Did you say that? … Oh, Pat, my
precious cherub—get me that scaly humbug on the wire!”
    He looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes
to five, with barely an hour to go before the dawn. Then another
familiar accent
answered him.
    “H’lo, Monty!” The Saint’s voice was
sparkling. “So you’re the man who wanted to be good! … Well,
I’ve got some thing here for you to take back to the Bible class. You
couldn’t have arranged it better. This is Simon Templar speaking
from a Grade A schloss with whiskers on its chest, and he also feels the
emigrating urge. Your job is to push out and freeze onto the
fastest automobile you can get your fists on, and meet me on the
road to Jenbach. All I’ve got here is the second worst car in Europe, but I
ought to get that far. Now jump to it—— ”
    The Saint’s gun cracked. He was a second
late—his bullet split a thick wedge of wood out of the angle of the dummy bookcase that was closing behind the prince, and then the hid den door
had slammed back into place. He heard Monty’s sharp question and
laughed shortly.
    “That was Rudolf on his way, and I
missed him. Don’t worry —travel!”
    He dropped the receiver on its hook and stood
up. The strong-box fitted bulkily into his poaching pocket. He darted out into
the empty passage and saw another room on the other side. From the window
he could locate an eighteen-inch ledge of stone running just
beneath it. He swung himself over the sill and went two-stepping along the
brink of sticky death.
     
    IV.      HOW MONTY HAYWARD   CARRIED   ON
     
    THE apotheosis of Monty Hayward did not
actually trouble the attention of the Recording Angel until some time after
the Saint had catapulted himself through the open windows and batted off into space on his
own business.
    Displaying remarkable agility for a man of his
impregnable sang-froid, Monty Hayward possessed himself of the weapon which had fallen from the disabled gunman’s hand, seized its badly
winded owner by the collar; and lugged him vigorously into the sitting
room, where the lights were still functioning. There