The Saint Returns (4 page)

“Big one,” the Saint said casually. “SS men.”

Kelly snorted.

“Ye don’t mean them big German fellas
with the black
uniforms? Now ye’re handin’ me a pail of malarkey, man.
There’s
been none of them about for twenty years.”

“Ask Mildred,” Simon said.

As he strolled away from the bar, he heard
her begin
in a low
confidential voice:

“How much do you remember about Hitler’s
death?”

When Simon returned from his room, showered and immaculately
dressed, he found Kelly looking dazed and
Mildred
chattering like a magpie just recovered from
laryngitis.

“Simon!” the Irishman exclaimed.
“Ye should only hear
what she’s been tellin’ me!”

His sidewise look at the Saint held more doubt
than
his voice. He obviously wanted some confirmation or
denial,
but he got only a helpless gesture of upturned
hands.

“Let’s go eat,” Simon said.
“Mildred’s problem isn’t
the kind of thing I like to think about with
an empty
stomach.”

She clutched his arm in what was becoming an
habit
ual gesture.

“I’m frightened to go out,” she
said. “What if
they …”

“No need to be frightened while
I’m
about,” Kelly
as
sured her, displaying a fist big enough
to crack the
Blarney stone. “Simon an’ me have handled worse than a
couple o’ second-hand supermen.”

“And we don’t even need to leave the
hotel,” Simon
said. “The Grill here is as good as anyplace in
town.”

As they were leaving the bar, Kelly stopped,
tucked
in his chin, and stared down at Mildred.

“But only imagine,” he said,
“a tiny thing like this going
to conquer the world!”

3

Simon placed his fork on the platter which
minutes
before had
been heaped with the delectable cadavers of
Dublin
Bay prawns, looked contentedly around at the elegant red and black decor of the
Gresham Grill, and
finally let his
gaze come to rest on Mildred, who avoided
a direct meeting with its intensity by chasing a last bit
of lettuce across the salad plate. Kelly was still
engaged
in demolishing a double-cut
steak done to dry death in
the manner
admired by true Gaelic countrymen.

“Mildred,” said the Saint
thoughtfully, “what are we
going to do about you?”

She shrugged uncomfortably.

“I
don’t know. But I think I must
get out of Dublin—
and out of the country. I’ll hide someplace where they’ll
never find me.” Her eyes grew brighter as inspiration
began to
flow again. “I once read a story about a girl
who disguised herself as a boy and signed
on a ship and
nobody found out for months.
I’ll take a schooner to the
South
Seas, and then I’ll…”

Kelly looked at her figure appreciatively as he mopped
his mouth with a napkin.

“I’m afraid ye’d never get away with that
disguise for
more than an hour.”

“No,” said Simon. “I’m sure
there must be a better way.
Are you sure you’ve told us all the facts,
exactly as
they are?”

She looked him in the eye.

“As incredible as it sounds, it’s all
the gospel truth.”

“And I don’t suppose you know anybody
who can help
you?” the Saint said.

“Not a soul. Only you—and I’ve given you too much
trouble already—and put you in danger.”

She closed her eyes and tears appeared on her
long
brown lashes. The Saint and Kelly exchanged unbeliev
ing but
concerned glances.

“Simon,” said the Irishman,
“shure and to let her go
now would be like castin’ out a kitten in a
snowstorm.”
He pushed back his chair and gave the table a decisive
thump with
a meaty paw. “If talk were cloth a man
might have the makin’s of an overcoat— An
ould soldier
like me can’t stand such a
quantity of speech without no
action.
Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take her out to my
place. It’s so far from anything, God Himself couldn’t
find it with a guidebook. There she’ll be safe,
and Simon
and me won’t mind havin’ a
nice little girl about the
house to
make things cozy when we come in from fishin’ all day.” He looked at
Mildred. “Me dear wife’s down in
Cork
visitin’ her mother, and I’m like a lost soul, with
dirty dishes pilin’ clear up to the rafters.”

The Saint watched Mildred’s reactions to that
speech
and saw that she was delighted with the idea—though
her eager
expression wilted a little at the mention of
dirty dishes.

“Well, Pat,” he said, “I
couldn’t have thought of a bet
ter plan myself. If this poor misguided child
honestly
prefers
us to the SS, she’s welcome to come along. Maybe
a little fresh country air will clear our heads and give us some good
ideas for the next step.”

Mildred was ecstatic.

“You really don’t mind?” she said excitedly.
“You’ll let
me come?”

Simon nodded.

“And I think the sooner we get on our
way the better.
It’s
just possible those guardians of yours recognized my
face and could trace us here.”

She gave him a puzzled look.

“Why should they recognize your
face?”

Her ignorance offended Kelly’s pride of
friendship.

“Good heavens, girl! Haven’t ye heard of
the Saint?
Simon Templar—the Saint?”

He seemed to think that if he spoke the
name
to her
loud enough she would be bound to recognize it. But
she looked
at him blankly.

“Saint?” she said.

“Never mind,” said Simon.
“Remember, she’s been
cooped up in a convent for over twenty
years.”

There was a ray of dawn on Mildred s face.

“You mean you’re famous,” she said.
“And I didn’t
even know it. I’m so sorry.”

“Didn’t they give ye any newspapers or
anything in
that place?” Kelly inquired, as Simon asked their
waiter
for the check.

“They were very careful about what I
saw,” Mildred explained. “No newspapers or magazines. I was brought
up to
think of my father as a great hero who tried to
save the West from Bolshevism, and I was
told that even
though he had lost the war
there were still millions and
millions
of people who believed in his cause and were
only waiting for something to give them the courage to stand up and be
counted. Then one day I came across
something in one of the convent’s
books that showed me
some of the other side
of the story. I guess with all the
books
they let me read they were bound not to screen
them all quite carefully enough. So when I realized what the rest of the
world seemed to think of my father I was
shocked.”

“Made ye see the light, did it?”
Kelly said.

“Well, naturally I didn’t just turn right
around and deny everything I’d been taught since I was born—but
I had
enough doubts to want to find out both sides of the story before I let anybody
use me to lead a big political
movement. That’s why I ran away.”

Simon stood up, putting money on the table.

“A wise decision,” he said. “Now I think you’d be
safer
coming up to my room while Pat and I
pack than stay
ing down here by
yourself.”

“If ye don’t mind,” said Kelly,
“I’ll have a final spot o’
gargle for me nerves, and then I’ll be off to
get me
things.”

Mildred went with Simon out to the lobby as
Pat
waved down the waiter. Most hotel guests who were
going out
were out by now, and the receptionist, a blond
woman, was intent on
her record books. A dowdy man
in a rumpled suit was reading a newspaper
nearby.
Then a porter came through the main entrance from the
street carrying a pair of
expensive-looking leather bags.
Behind him
walked a tall thin gentleman of about fifty-
five, with a strangely egg-shaped head, long grey hair
falling thick on the back of his neck, and bulging
brown
eyes. He was obviously in a
hurry, and with those
enormous
compelling eyes fixed on the receptionist to
ward whom he was heading he did not notice the Saint
and Mildred, who by then had just reached the
elevator
at one side of the lobby.

Simon would have thought nothing about the
new
comer if it had not been for Mildred’s reaction. In a
fraction of
a second all the color drained from her face
and she gasped
audibly.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she
whispered, averting her
head. “Ladies’ room.”

And she disappeared into a public corridor
next to the
elevator.

Naturally the Saint’s former lack of interest
in the
stranger immediately increased by one hundred per cent,
and he
sauntered back into the vicinity of the reception
desk and pretended to
study the contents of a magazine
rack. The rumpled man with the newspaper was
likewise
affected by the guest’s arrival. He got to his feet, put
down his
paper, and hovered expectantly like a sup
pliant waiting his
moment to petition the passing
emperor.

“Good evening, sir,” said the blond
receptionist pleasantly. “Do you have a reservation?”

The protuberant eyes fixed her scornfully.

“I take it you do not recognize me?”

The woman, since she clearly did not
recognize him,
was a little flustered.

“No, sir. I’m afraid not. I
…”

“It doesn’t matter,” he grumbled.
“My name is Drew
,
and I have a reservation.”

She found his card quickly.

“Mr. Eugene Drew?” she said.

“That’s correct.”

She pushed the register toward him and he
scrawled
a
signature.

“I’ve read about you, Mr. Drew,” she
said. “In the
papers. Consolidated Steel, and the coal mines, and…”

Her belated recognition of his importance
failed to
mollify him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said
abruptly. “Have you held
the suite I requested?”

“Of course, sir. The porter will take you
up.”

As Drew walked from the desk the man who had
been
waiting came up to him.

“Mr. Drew, sir,” he said in a low
voice, with an
ingratiating smirk, “me name is Blaney,
correspondent
for the
London Echo.”

“Wonderful,” Drew remarked, with
superciliousness
that would have shriveled an apple on the spot. “Now
if
you’ll pardon me …”

“Just a word,” wheedled Blaney,
“on the reasons for
yer visit.”

“No comment.”

“Is there any truth in this talk ye’re
interested in buyin’
into the Hardacre Group?”

“Get out of my way.”

Drew stepped around the reporter, who moved
along
with him
crab-style.

“There’s rumors, sir,” the reporter
said in a more
intense but less audible tone, “that serious troubles
in
yer family have …”

Drew stopped and turned to face the speaker.

“I shall not forget your name, Blaney,
and if you ad
dress one more question to me I shall contact Lord
Abbeyvale,
the proprietor of your paper, and request that he dismiss you immediately. I
assure you he will respect
my wishes.”

The reporter, beaten, backed away with
cringing
nods.

“Thank yer, sir. Thank yer very kindly
in any case.”

As Blaney made his exit, Simon returned to
the corridor
down which Mildred had disappeared. Before he had
gone more
than a few steps, however, he heard Drew’s
name called
breathlessly in the lobby he had just left.
A glance over his shoulder told him that
his alleged SS
acquaintances from the trout
stream had just come into
the hotel—in
dry clothes and unmuddied shoes—and
were
hurrying toward the elevator. They passed from his field of view, but he could
hear the first exchange
of words.