Free Saint Intervenes by Leslie Charteris Page A

put him on your tracks.”
    “But,
please,” said the Prince in ingenuous bewilderment, “what
is wrong with our customs? My people have been happy with them for
hundreds of years.”
    “The
Saint wouldn’t approve of them,” said Teal with conviction, and realised the hopelessness
of entering upon a discussion of morals with
such a person. “Anyhow, sir, I’d be
very much obliged if you would let us give you a special guard until you take your crown out of the
country.”
    The Prince
shook his head, as if the incomprehensible cus toms of England
baffled him to speechlessness.
    “In
my country there are no notorious criminals,” he said, “because
as soon as a criminal is known he is beheaded. However, I shall be
glad to help you in any way I can. The crown is to be
delivered here tomorrow, and you may place as many guards in my suite as you
think necessary.”
    The news
that four special detectives had been detailed to guard the Prince of
Cherkessia’s crown was published in an evening paper which
Simon Templar was reading at a small and exclusive dinner at which the morning
paper’s interview was
also discussed.
    “I
knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it,” said Patricia Holm
fatalistically, “directly I saw the headlines. You’re that sort of
idiot.”
    Simon
looked at her mockingly.
    “Idiot?”
he queried. “My dear Pat, have you ever known me to be anything but
sober and judicious?”
    “Often,”
said his lady candidly. “I’ve also known you to walk into exactly the
same trap. I’ll bet you anything you like that Teal made up the whole story
just to get a rise out of you, and the Prince ‘ll turn out to be
another detective with a false beard.”
    “You’d
lose your money,” said the Saint calmly. “Teal is as worried
about it as you are, and if you like to drop in at Vazey’s on Bond Street
or make discreet inquiries at the Southshire Insurance Company, you’ll
find that that crown genuinely is costing a hundred thousand quid
and is insured for the same amount. It’s rather pleasant to think that
South shire will have to stand the racket, because their ninety per cent
underwriter is a very scaly reptile named Percy Quiltan, whose morals are even
more repulsive than Prince Schamyl’s. And the Prince’s are bad enough… .
No, Pat, you can’t convince
me that that tin hat isn’t legitimate boodle; and I’m going to have it.”
    A certain
Peter Quentin, who was also present, sighed, and turned the sigh into
a resigned grin.
    “But
how d’you propose to do it?” he asked.
    The Saint’s
blue eyes turned on him with an impish twinkle.
    “I
seem to remember that you retired from this business some months ago,
Peter,” he murmured. “A really respectable citizen wouldn’t be
asking that question with so much inter est. However, since
your beautiful wife is away—if you’d like to lend a hand, you
could help me a lot.”          
    “But
what’s the plan?” insisted Patricia.    
    Simon
Templar smiled.
    “We
are going to dematerialise ourselves,” he said blandly. “Covetous but
invisible, we shall lift the crown of Cherkessia from under Claud
Eustace’s very nose, and put it on a shelf in the fourth dimension.”
    She was no
wiser when the party broke up some hours later. Simon informed
her that he and Peter Quentin would be moving into Prince Schamyl’s hotel
to take up residence there for a couple of days; but she knew that
they would not be there under their own names, and the rest of his plan remained
wrapped in the maddening mystery with which the Saint’s sense of the
theatrical too often required him to tantalise his confederates.
    Chief
Inspector Teal would have been glad to know even as little as
Patricia; but the evidence which came before him was far less
satisfactory. It consisted of a plain postcard, ad dressed to Prince
Schamyl, on which had been drawn a skeleton figure crowned with a rakishly tilted halo. A
small arrow pointed to the halo,