Free The Saint Returns by Leslie Charteris Page B

straight on to Brazil
without even slowing down.”
    “It’s a natural thought,” Drew
said, with a conspicuous lack of the truculence his voice had carried
a few mo ments before.
    “I suppose it is, for the kind of man
who would do it,” Simon responded pleasantly. “But I’m not
that sort of man.
And besides, they have an old friend of mine along with your daughter, and I wouldn’t like to be responsible for his being hurt. Does that reassure you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you’ll have the money by tomorrow
night?”
    Drew nodded.
    “Yes. Where will I find you?”
    “I’ll be staying here tonight and for
the day tomorrow. I’m getting tired of covering the road between Dublin and Lough
Reagh. At four tomorrow afternoon I’ll come to your suite here
and pick up the cash. Then if everything goes well, Mildred and my friend will
be free be fore
midnight.”
    “All right,” said Drew. “I’ll
have to trust you.”
    Simon paused at the door.
    “Yes. You should. Don’t try to follow me
or have me followed. It may seem like a smart idea at first thought,
but if Brine and Mullins suspected anything they might bolt before I could
pay them—and possibly they’d do something drastic on their way out.”
    “It’ll be in your hands then,” Drew
said.
    For the first time he showed signs of letting
his ten derer emotions get control of him. His huge eyes moist ened and
his mouth threatened to tremble.
    “And … tell Mildred,” he
mumbled, “that who she marries is her own business, if that’s how it
has to be. I won’t stand in the way.”
    “I’ll deliver the message. It seems like
a wise one.”
    The Saint looked at Drew more intently. His
final re quest, toward which it might be said that all the earlier part of his conversation had been secretly building, would have
to be phrased in such a way as to arouse no suspicions. To slip
now would be like settling weight on a false footing just
inches before reaching the top of a precipice.
    “There’s just one thing I’m curious
about,” he said.  
    “What?” Drew asked.
    “You’re very concerned about who has
captured your daughter, and all about my character. I’m sure you’ll have me checked
out thoroughly before I get my hands on that money tomorrow.
The one thing you haven’t thought to ask is whether or not the kidnappers
have your daughter.”
    Drew was obviously taken aback. He looked a
bit like a schoolboy caught in a ridiculous arithmetical error.
    “Well,” he said defensively,
“Brine and Mullins are far overdue in contacting me—which seems to
confirm your story. My daughter, after all, is missing. And you’re so anxious for
me to trust in your honesty: it was you who was with her, and who told me you
left her in the house where you found the note. I don’t even understand what you mean,
now …”
    “I mean,” said Simon, “that I
have never seen your daughter—before yesterday. Do you have a
picture of her?”
    Drew seemed flabbergasted that the Saint
would bring up such a crucial question of identification at that late moment.
    “Yes,” he said. “I brought
this with me in case I had to ask the police to put out a public
alarm.”
    He went into the bedroom which adjoined the
living room of the suite and returned with a large photograph in his
hand.
    Simon took it and studied it. Then he smiled.
    “Yes,” he said, taking a last
satisfied look. “That settles it.”
     
    9
     
    The fat man called Brine sat in an old
Austin-Healey at
the crossing of two unpaved roads six miles from the village of Birr. It was two minutes before nine o’clock, and though the man must have been tired, since he
could have had little sleep in the past twenty-four hours, he was as alert as a sentry on the border of enemy
territory. His head jerked toward the
direction of the slightest sound, and
the Saint was sure that his hand must never be far from the ignition key, so that he could start the
engine and be off at the first threat
of