The Saint and the Happy Highwayman Read Online Free PDF Page B

we ought to do is pick out a job that he looks likely to do, watch it, and catch him red-handed. After all, his character is so well known that any real detective ought to be able to pick out the things that would interest him with his eyes shut. There’s one in that paper on your desk—I noticed it this morning.”
    “Are you still talking about this?” Fernack demanded unsympathetically. “Because if so–-“
    Corrio shook his head.
    “I mean that man Oppenheim who owns the sweatshops. It says in the paper that he’s just bought the Vanderwoude emerald collection for a million and a half dollars to give to his daughter for a wedding present. Knowing how Oppenheim got his money, and knowing the Saint’s line, it’s my idea that the Saint will make a play for those jewels.”
    “An’ make such a sucker play that even a fairy like you could catch him at it,” snarled Fernack discourag-ingly. “Go back and do your detecting at the Merrick Playhouse—I hear there’s a bad ham out there they’ve been trying to find for some time.”
    If he had been less incensed with his subordinate Fernack might have perceived a germ of sound logic in Corrio’s theory, but he was in no mood to appreciate it. Two days later he did not even remember that the suggestion had been made; which was an oversight on his part, for it was at that time that Simon Templar did indeed develop a serious interest in the unpleasant Mr Oppenheim.
    This was because Janice Dixon stumbled against him late one night as he was walking home along Forty-eighth Street in the dark and practically deserted block between Sixth and Seventh avenues. He had to catch her to save her from falling.
    “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
    He murmured some absent-minded commonplace and straightened her up, but her weight was still heavy on his hand. When he let her go she swayed towards him and clung onto his arm.
    “I’m sorry,” she repeated stupidly.
    His first thought was that she was drunk, but her breath was innocent of the smell of liquor. Then he thought the accident might be only the excuse for a more mercenary kind of introduction, but he saw that her face was not made up as he would have expected it to be in that case. It was a pretty face, but so pale that it looked ghostly in the semidarkness between the far-spaced street lamps; and he saw that she had dark circles under her eyes and that her mouth was without lipstick.
    “Is anything the matter?” he asked.
    “No—it’s nothing. I’ll be all right in a minute. I just want to rest.”
    “Let’s go inside somewhere and sit down.”
    There was a drugstore on the corner and he look her into it. It seemed to be a great effort for her to walk and another explanation of her unsteadiness flashed into his mind. He sat her down at the counter and ordered two cups of coffee.
    “Would you like something to eat with it?”
    Her eyes lighted up and she bit her lip.
    “Yes. I would. But—I haven’t any money.”
    “I shouldn’t worry about that. We can always hold up a bank.” The Saint watched her while she devoured a sandwich, a double order of bacon and eggs and a slice of pie. She ate intently, quickly, without speaking. Without seeming to stare at her, his keen eyes took in the shadows under her che’ekbones, the neat patch on one elbow of the cheap dark coat, the cracks in the leather of shoes which had long since lost their shape.
    “I wish I had your appetite,” he said gently, when at last she had finished.
    She smiled for the first time, rather faintly.
    “I haven’t had anything to eat for two days,” she said. “And I haven’t had as much to eat as this all at once for a long time.”
    Simon ordered more coffee and offered her a cigarette. He put his heels up on the top rung of his stool and leaned his elbows on his knees. She told him her name, but for the moment he didn’t answer with his own.
    “Out of a job?” he asked quietly.
    She shook her head.
    “Not yet.”
    “You