Free Catch the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page B

I wanted to confirm. The most interesting
fact I uncovered was that the owner of the Rembrandt, who doesn’t yet know it’s a real Rembrandt, is Lord Oldenshaw. You’ve heard of Lord Oldenshaw? A very rich gentleman, and soon to be a lot r icher when he gets his painting back.”
    “How did you get in
that place?” Julie asked.
    “Oh, I decoyed a
constable, picked a lock, then just pulled out m y flashlight and
settled down to go through Cyril’s files. Then I put everything back just the way it had been before I got there, locked the door behind me, and went home and had
a nightcap.” Julie continued to
stare at him.
    “I’ve been in such a
daze,” she said. “I’ve let you take charge as if you had a
right to, and yet you still haven’t told me anything about yourself. Except now you talk about burgling an art gallery as if it were like making a phone call. And the
way you got that recording—”
    “I told you my real
name,” he said. “Apparently it didn’t ring a
bell. I may have to get a new press agent. Would it help if I mentioned
that a few people also call me the Saint?”
    He hadn’t actually
expected her to give an imitation of a punctured balloon, but that was the
approximate result.
     
    CHAPTER 8
     
    “There it is!”
Julie cried, scooting forward on the car seat. “There,
I can see the sign!”
    “The Happy
Huntsman,” Simon acknowledged blandly, with out easing the pressure
of his foot on the accelerator.
    Julie’s head turned to keep her eyes on the old
inn as the Hirondel sped past it. Over her
pretty face came contours of dismay such
as might distort the countenance of a lady watching her fallen handbag disappear in the wake of an ocean
liner.
    “Why didn’t you
stop?” she asked unbelievingly.
    “Terrible place,” Simon remarked,
jerking his head back in the direction of the
now-vanished building. “Even the huntsman wasn’t really happy there, by the look on his face.”
    Julie stiffened her back
and glowered at the road, a slender band of pavement
which had zigzagged through a brief kink where it passed the
fieldstone structure of The Happy Huntsman, but
now flowed smoothly as an old river through rich pastures grazed by lazy
cows.
    “You’ve been making a
joke out of this ever since we started out
from London this morning,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t fancy this a picnic, as you seem to. We must have spent at least an hour and
a half over lunch when we could have got by just as well on a sandwich, and at one tenth the cost. How you can even keep
this car on the road after all that wine, I can’t imagine. And now you’ve roared right past the one place we know
of that’s near my brother.”
    “You underestimate my
capacity to incorporate wine harmo niously into my system as much as you
underestimate my good judgement,” said
the Saint placidly.
    Julie glanced at the chiseled lines of his
tanned face against the blurred background
of sky and green fields. His strong fingers lay easily but with perfect control along the steering wheel of the powerful car. She could not keep her eyes on him
without being tempted into renewed
confidence. Her voice went on almost pleadingly after a moment,
nervous strain giving way to an only slightly sarcastic
supplication: “My brother. Adrian. Remember him?
He’s a prisoner around here somewhere.”
    “And we’ll have a
much better chance of finding him,” Simon answ ered,
“if we don’t stay at an inn which Caffin considers a landmark. If we’d stopped there we might very well get found
ourselves—by Pargit if he comes out to check on your brother’s progress in his
artistic endeavours. Also, Caffin and his mob may even have connections with
the place. And furthermore, if you’re s till
not satisfied, I’d rather not advertise our presence in the neighbourhood anyway.”
    “I’m
satisfied,” Julie sighed grudgingly. “Where are we go ing?”
    “To the nearest hotel that offers decent
accommodation to a bird