Read Online The Saint in the Sun by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online

what she saw replayed.
    “The only thing I could think of was just as hysterically corny. I told him about my mother and my brother, and I said: ‘That’s the only reason I can’t say no, but I can’t make myself pretend to enjoy it. If you can enjoy it like that, go ahead.’ And I lay down limp like a rag doll.” She turned to Simon again, and gripped his arm in a sudden gesture that was more like a convulsive release of suppressed tension than anything personal. “And it worked!”
    “It licked him?”
    “He told me to get out and come back in the morning for the contract. He even let me take his car to go home and come back in.”
    “So that’s where you were when I called.”
    She nodded.
    “Of course I was afraid he’d have changed his mind. But he hadn’t. He said if he’d had a sister who would have been ready to do as much for him, he might have felt a lot differently about women. It was a real tear-jerker. But he signed the contract, and that was that. I mailed it to my agent and came looking for you.”
    “Did he say you could play Messalina?”
    “No. But it has to be a big part, for what they’re paying. And however it turns out, I’ll get the money, and that’s the most important thing to me.”
    The Saint stood up, grinning, and put out a hand to help her to her feet.
    “Then we’ve got something to celebrate. Let’s go to the Voile d’Or at St Raphaël and introduce you to Monsieur Saquet’s bourride. It’s only the best on the whole Coast.”
    “Yes. I’m starving. You always have the most wonderful ideas.”
    As they trudged towards the road he asked: “Do you still have Undine’s car?”
    “No. I was glad to return it. Do you know, it’s a Rolls Royce painted exactly like his speedboat, including the big monogram on the side. I took a taxi.”
    “In that outfit?”
    She laughed.
    “I’m afraid I’m not quite emancipated enough for that.” She opened the plastic zipper bag she carried and took out a roll of cloth not much bigger than his fist, which shook out into a one-piece play-suit of some wrinkle-proof synthetic. In five seconds she was what daytime St Tropez would have considered almost overdressed. “See?”
    “What won’t they make next,” said the Saint admiringly. “So we can head straight for the fish kettle, without any footling about.”
    Thus it was that they made no stop in St Tropez until mid-afternoon, and had no preliminary intimation of the mystery which was going to climax Sir Jasper Undine’s career with its last headlines.
    Maureen Herald said she would have to find a travel agency in the town to check on her return flight to London, so the Saint stopped in the parking lot near the Casino and walked with her to the Quai de Suffren. And there they ran into, or more literally were run into by a hustling and vaguely frantic Wilbert.
    “Oh, it’s you,” he said brilliantly, when the fact had registered. “Do you know anything about Sir Jasper?”
    “Several things,” said the Saint. “And nearly all of them are uncomplimentary. What aspect would you like to hear about?”
    “I mean, have you seen him, or anything?”
    “I saw him making his usual prowl in the speedboat this morning. But he went off without any passengers. That was about a quarter to eleven. Why, what’s the excitement?”
    “Hadn’t you heard?” spluttered the tycoon’s stooge. “Sir Jasper has disappeared!”
    Simon raised his eyebrows.
    “Theoretically, I’d say that was impossible,” he murmured. “He must be easily the most visible man in this hemisphere. He’s probably even luminous in the dark.”
    “But he has! The Chris-Craft was found forty miles out at sea, with nobody in it. I just got a message that a French Navy patrol boat had brought it in.”
    “You’re headed the wrong way,” Simon said. “The Navy jetty is on the north side of the port, that-a-way. Let’s go and view the salvage.”
    As they went, Wilbert managed to calm down sufficiently