Free Featuring the Saint by Leslie Charteris

morning.
    In the old days, Patricia Holm had shared his immunity. Now that his was gone, her own went also. The knowledge of her existence, and what she might be assumed to mean to the Saint, was free to anyone who took the trouble to watch him. The plan of campaign that the facts suggested was obvious; the only wonder was that it had not been tried before. For one thing, of course, the number of the Saint’s enemies whose minds would take that groove was limited, and the number who would be capable of actually travelling along the groove was more limited still-but the idea must not be allowed to grow. And Lemuel had lost much-he would have a long memory.
    “I don’t think he’s a useful citizen,” concluded the Saint, out of the blue; and Patricia Holm looked up blankly from her newspaper.
    “Who’s that?”
    “Uncle Francis.”
    Then she heard of the nocturnal visitors.
    “He doesn’t know that all the money I took off him has gone to Queen Charlotte’s Hospital-a most suitable charity -less only our regular ten-percent fee for collection,” said the Saint. “And if I told him, I don’t think he’d believe me. As long as he’s at large, he’ll be thinking of his lost fortune-and you. And, as I said, I don’t think he’s a useful citizen.”
    “What can you do?” she asked.
    Simon smiled at her. He really thought that she grew more beautiful every day.
    “Sweetheart,” he said, “you’re the only good thing this rolling stone’s collected out of all the world. And there’s only one logical thing to do.”
    But he left her to guess what that was; he had not worked out the details himself at that moment. He knew that Francis Lemuel owned a large country house standing in its own spacious grounds just outside Tenterden, and the next day he learned that Lemuel had established himself there-“to re cover from a severe nervous collapse,” the newspaper informed him-but it was not for another two days, when another item of news came his way, that the Saint had his inspiration for the manner in which Francis Lemuel should die.
    9
I shall call on Wednesday at 3 p.m. You will be at home.
    Francis Lemuel stared at the curt note, and the little sketch that served for signature, with blurring eyes. Minutes passed before he was able to reach shakily for the decanter-his breakfast was left untasted on the table.
    An hour later, reckless of consequences, he was speaking on the telephone to Scotland Yard.
    At the same time Simon Templar was speaking to Patricia Holm, what time he carefully marmaladed a thin slice of brown bread and a thick slice of butter.
    “There are three indoor servants at Tenterden-a butler and a cook, man and wife, and the valet. The rest of the staff have been fired, and half the house is shut up-I guess Francis is finding it necessary to pull in his horns a bit. The butler and cook have a half-day off on Wednesday. The valet has his half-day on Thursday, but he has a girl at Rye. He has asked her to marry him, and she has promised to give her answer when she sees him next-which will, of course, be on Thursday. He has had a row with Lemuel, and is thinking of giving notice.”
    “How do you know all this?” asked Patricia. “Don’t tell me you deduced it from the mud on the under-gardener’s boots, because I shan’t believe you.”
    “I won’t,” said the Saint generously. “If you want to know, I saw all that last part in writing. The valet is an energetic correspondent. Sometimes he goes to bed and leaves a letter half finished, and he’s a sound sleeper.”
    “You’ve been inside Lemuel’s house?”
    “These last three nights. The burglar alarms are absolutely childish.”
    “So that’s why you’ve been sleeping all day, and looking so dissipated!”
    Simon shook his head.
    “Not ‘dissipated,’” he said. ” ‘Intellectual’ is the word you want.”
    She looked at him thoughtfully.
    “What’s the game, lad?”
    “Is your memory so short, old Pat? Why, what