Featuring the Saint Read Online Free PDF

throttled off the engine with a gentle smile of satisfaction.
    It wasn’t the easiest landing in the world to make, especially in that weather; but the Saint put the machine on the deck without a mistake, turned, and taxied back to a sheltered corner of the field he had chosen. Then he climbed out of the cockpit and stretched himself.
    “I can peg her out for the night,” he remarked, as Lemuel joined him on the ground, “and there shouldn’t be any harm done if it doesn’t blow much harder than this.”
    “A little more of that flying would have killed me,” said Lemuel; and he was really looking rather pale. “Where are we?”
    Simon told him.
    “It’s right off the map, and I’m afraid you won’t get a train back to town to-night; but I know a very decent little pub we can stay at,” he said.
    “I’ll phone for my chauffeur to come down,” said Lemuel. “I suppose there’s a telephone in this place somewhere?”
    “I doubt it,” said Simon; but he knew that there was.
    Again, however, luck was with him. It was quite dark by the time the aëroplane had been pegged out with ropes obtained from a neighbouring farm, and a steady rain was falling, so that no one was about to watch the Saint climbing nimbly up a telegraph pole just beyond the end of the village street… .
    Lemuel, who had departed to look up the post office, re joined him later in the bar of the Blue Dragon with a tale of woe.
    “A telegraph pole must have been blown down,” he said. “Anyway, it was impossible to get through.”
    Simon, who had merely cut the wires without doing any damage to the pole, nevertheless saw no reason to correct the official theory.
    Inquiries about possible conveyance to the nearest main line town proved equally fruitless, as the Saint had known they would be. He had selected his village with care. It possessed nothing suitable for Mr. Lemuel, and no traffic was likely to pass through that night, for it was right off the beaten track.
    “Looks as if we’ll have to make the best of it, Old Man,” said Lemuel, and Simon concurred.
    After supper Lemuel’s spirits rose, and they spent a convivial evening in the bar.
    It was a very convivial evening. Mr. Lemuel, under the soothing influence of many brandies, forgot his day’s misadventures, and embarked enthusiastically upon the process of making a night of it. For, he explained, his conversation with Jacob Einsmann was going to lead to a lot of easy money. But he could not be persuaded to divulge anything of interest, though the Saint led the conversation cunningly. Simon smiled, and continued to drink him level-even taking it upon himself to force the pace towards closing time. Simon had had some opportunity to measure up Francis Lemuel’s minor weaknesses, and an adroit employment of some of this knowledge was part of the Saint’s plan. And the Saint was ordinarily a most temperate man.
    “You’re a goo’ feller, Ole Man,” Mr. Lemuel was proclaiming, towards eleven o’clock. “You stick to me, Ole Man, an’ don’ worrabout wha’ people tell you. You stick to me. I gorra-lotta money. Show you trick one day. You stick to me. Give you a berra job soon, Ole Man. Pallomine …”
    When at length Mr. Lemuel announced that he was going to bed, the Saint’s affable “Sleep well, sir!” would have struck a captious critic as unnecessary; for nothing could have been more certain than that Mr. Lemuel would that night sleep the sleep of the only just.
    The Saint himself stayed on in the bar for another hour; for the landlord was in talkative mood, and was not unique in finding Simon Templar very pleasant company. So it came to pass that, a few minutes after the Saint had said good-night, his sudden return with a face of dismay was easily accounted for.
    “I’ve got the wrong bag,” he explained. “The other two were put in Mr. Lemuel’s room, weren’t they?”
    “Is one of them yours?” asked the publican sympathetically.
    Simon