Free The Saint and the Happy Highwayman by Leslie Charteris Page A

often enough before, which he could recognize at once. Some of them he had seen happily married, bringing up adoring families; others … For some reason the Saint thought that this girl ought not to be one of those others.
    Then he felt her arm go limp, and took the gun out of her unresisting hand. He put it away in his pocket.
    “Come for a walk,” he said.
    She shrugged dully.
    “All right.”
    He took her arm and led her down the block. Around the corner, out of sight of the mayor’s house, he opened the door of the first of a line of parked cars. She got in resignedly. As he let in the clutch and the car slipped away under the pull of a smoothly whispering engine, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed silently.
    The Saint let her have it out. He drove on thoughtfully, with a cigarette clipped between his lips, until the taller buildings of the business section rose up around them. In a quiet turning off one of the main streets of the town, he stopped the car outside a small restaurant and opened the door on her side to let her out.
    She dabbed her eyes and straightened her hat mechanically. As she looked around and realized where they were, she stopped with one foot on the running board.
    “What have you brought me here for?” she asked stupidly.
    “For lunch,” said the Saint calmly. “If you feel like eating. For a drink, if you don’t. For a chat, anyhow.”
    She looked at him with fear and puzzlement still in her eyes.
    “You needn’t do that,” she said steadily. “You can take me straight to the police station. We might as well get it over with.”
    He shook his head.
    “Do you really want to go to a police station?” he drawled. “I’m not so fond of them myself, and usually they aren’t very fond of me. Wouldn’t you rather have a drink?”
    Suddenly she realized that the smile with which he was looking down at her wasn’t a bit like the grimiy triumphant smile which a detective should have worn. Nor, when she looked more closely, was there anything else about him that quite matched her idea of what a detective would be like. It grieves the chronicler to record that her first impression was that he was too good-looking. But that was how she saw him. His tanned face was cut in a mould of rather reckless humour which didn’t seem to fit in at all with the stodgy and prosaic backgrounds of the law. He was tall, and he looked strong—her right hand still ached from the steel grip of his fingers—but it was a supple kind of strength that had no connection with mere bulk. Also he wore his clothes with a gay and careless kind of elegance which no sober police chief could have approved. The twinkle in his eyes was wholly friendly.
    “Do you mean you didn’t arrest me just now?” she asked uncertainly.
    “I never arrested anybody in my life,” said the Saint cheerfully. “In fact, when they shoot politicians I usually give them medals. Come on in and let’s talk.”
    Over a couple of martinis he explained himself further.
    “My dear, I think it was an excellent scheme, on general principles. But the execution wasn’t so good. When you’ve had as much experience in bumping people off as I have, you’ll realize that it’s no time to do it when a couple of cops are parked at the curb a few yards away. I suppose you realize that they would have got you just about ten seconds after you created a vacancy for a new mayor?”
    She was still staring at him rather blankly.
    “I wasn’t trying to do anything to the mayor,” she said. “It was Al Eisenfeld I was going to shoot, and I wouldn’t have cared if they did get me afterwards.”
    The Saint frowned.
    “You mean the seedy gigolo sort of bird who was with the mayor?”
    She nodded.
    “He’s the real boss of the town. The mayor is just a figurehead.”
    “Other people don’t seem to think he’s as dumb as he looks,” Simon remarked.
    “They don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with Pur-dell, but Eisenfeld–-“
    “Maybe