Free The Saint Sees It Through by Leslie Charteris Page A

her full and lovely
height. “I’m no cross section on the man. Many more think he’s
wonderful than not. And in some ways,” she said thoughtfully,
“he’s quite a guy, I guess.”
    The Saint did not ask what those ways were. He
took himself and Avalon away, and hailed a taxi. When they were in it,
and he had given the address of James Prather to the driver, he let himself
consider Mrs. Meldon.
    “Blackmail,” he said finally.
    “Ah, beg pardon?” Avalon murmured.
“Understanding not.”
    “It’s in the picture somewhere,” he
insisted. “I don’t care how free from inhibition she may be, she wouldn’t
be as bitter as she was unless he’s bleeding her in some fashion. How, is
the question.”
    “I don’t expect to be of any help,”
Avalon said meekly, “but I suspect the lady has played fast and loose
at one time or another with the doctor—or others.”
    “Could be,” Simon answered.
“And you are a help, you know, just by being.”
    That line of thought occupied them
shamelessly during the remainder of the ride.
    James Prather they found to occupy an
expensive flat in an expensive neighborhood. He gave them a rather
nervous wel come,
bade them be seated, and did not offer a drink. James Prather paced the floor in house slippers, smoking jacket, and fawn-colored slacks. He was a man middling
thirty, with great blue eyes that reminded you of a lobster. His chin was a
hue, neither pale nor blue.
    He twisted the question out between writhing
fingers.
    “Yes? What is it?”
    The Saint represented himself again as a Time magazine man, and named the subject of his research.
    “Yes, yes,” Prather said.
“What about Dr. Zellermann? What kind of a man, or what kind of a
doctor?”
    “Both,” said the Saint.
    “Ah, well—— ” The telephone
rang. “Excuse me.” Prather answered, listened intently for a
moment. Then he shot a glance at the Saint. “Yes,” he said.
“Yes. I see. Goodbye.”
    He turned to Simon. “Will you please get
out of here?”
    The Saint watched Mr. Prather at first with a
mild disdain, as if he were watching a caterpillar in somebody else’s
salad; then with mild amusement, as if he had discovered the owner of the salad to be his
dipsomaniac Uncle Lemuel; then with concern,
as if he had remembered that Uncle Lem was without issue, and might
leave that handpainted cufflink to his only nephew;
then with resignation, as if it were suddenly too late to rescue Uncle—or the caterpillar.
    Simon motioned Avalon to a tasteful divan,
and seated himself. His eyes were now mocking and gay, with blue lights. His smile was
as carefree and light as a lark at dawn. He took a gold pencil and
a pad from his pocket.
    “You were saying,” he prompted,
“about Dr. Zellermann?”
    James Prather’s fingers were like intertwined
pallid snakes, writhing in agony.
    “Please,” he begged. “You must
go at once. I have no time for you now. Come back tomorrow, or next
week. An important appointment, unexpected. Sorry, but—— ”
    He went to the door, and held it open.
    The Saint considered, and after due and
deliberate considera tion rose and helped Avalon to her feet.
    “I’d like to come back,” he told
Prather at the door.
    Prather nodded nervously, watched the Saint
and Avalon walk toward the elevator for a few feet, then almost
slammed the door. Simon pushed the elevator button, and just before the door
opened, planted a swift kiss on her startled but quickly responsive
mouth.
    “Wait for me in the lobby,
darling,” he whispered, and hand ed her inside the car.
    He took up a post of observation further down
the hall, so that the elevator door was halfway between him and
Prather’s door. He
suspected he would not have long to wait before something happened. What that
something might be, he was unable to
predict.
    He thought of the false trails he had run
down before he began to sniff around Cookie’s Cellar. He wondered if this would turn
out to be another. Each of his