The Saint Bids Diamonds Read Online Free PDF Page A

started to flounder out of his depth and eventually given up the effort, seeing no reason to exhaust himself with agonising mental labour when, in the fulness of time, everything that it was good for him to know would be duly explained to him by the Saint. Besides, there was a much more urgent problem which had been occupying all his attention for some time.
    “Boss,” said Mr Uniatz plaintively, as if pointing out an incomprehensible oversight, “ya left a toid of de bottle.”
    “Okay,” said the Saint resignedly. “You find a home for it.”
    He went back to the bedside. The old man was touching the girl’s face and hair with nervously twitching fingers, speaking in a weak husky voice:
“Where are we, Christine ? … How did we get here? … What happened?”
    “It’s all right, darling. Darling, it’s all right. You’ve just got to rest.”
    The old man’s eyes went back to the Saint, and his hand clutched at the girl’s arm.
    “Who are these people, Christine? I haven’t seen them before. Who are they?”
    “Lie still, darling.” She was comforting him with a kind of motherly tenderness, as if he was a feverish child. “They won’t hurt you, Joris. They came and saved you when the others were fighting you.”
    “Yes, they were fighting. I remember. I never could fight very much. You remember, Christine-that other time ? Did they hurt you, Christine ?”
    “No, darling. Not a bit.”
    The old man’s eyes closed again, and for a moment he relaxed, as if the strain of talking had been too much for him. And then, suddenly, his eyes opened again.
    “Did they get it?” he asked hoarsely.
    “Hush, Joris. You must be quiet.”
    “But did they get it?”
    Vanlinden’s voice was louder, and his eyes were staring. She tried to press him back on the bed, but he flung off her hands. He began to feel in his breast pocket, unsteadily at first, and then more wildly; then he was feeling in all his pockets, turning them out again and again, in a pitiful sort of frenzy.
    “No, no,” he muttered incoherently. “Not there. No. It’s gone!” His voice rose and broke on something like a scream. “It’s gone!” He stared at the Saint. “Did you take it?”
    “Take what?” asked the Saint helplessly.
    “My ticket!”
    “Oh, a ticket. No, I haven’t seen it. D’you mean your ticket for going away from here? I shouldn’t worry about that. If you go and explain things to the shipping company or whatever it is —”
    “No, no, not that!” Vanlinden’s voice had a despairing shrillness that made the Saint’s flesh creep. “My lottery ticket!”
    “What?”
    Christine got up suddenly from the bed. She faced the Saint like a tigress though her head barely reached his shoulder.
    “Yes,” she said fiercely. “Did you take it ?”
    “Me?” said the Saint blankly. He spread out his arms. “Search me and strip me if you want to. Take me apart and put me together again. I never saw his lottery ticket in my life.”
    She swung round and pointed at Hoppy Uniatz.
    “He was sitting in the back of the car with Jon’s all the time. Did he take it?”
    “Did you take it, Hoppy?” snapped the Saint.
    Mr Uniatz swallowed nervously.
    “Yes, boss.”
    “You took it ?” snapped the Saint incredulously.
    Hoppy gulped.
    “Yes, boss,” he said apologetically. “I t’ought ya said I could take it.” He pointed to the table. “Dey wasn’t so much in de bottle, at dat.”
    “You immortal ass!” snarled the Saint. “We aren’t talking about the whiskey!”
    He turned back to the girl.
    “Hoppy didn’t take it,” he said. “And neither did I.
    If you don’t believe us, you can go ahead and turn us inside out. I didn’t even know Joris had a lottery ticket. How much was it worth?”
    “You may as well know now,” she said dully. “It was a ticket in the Christmas lottery. It won the first prize-fifteen million pesetas.”
    II
How Simon Templar Conversed with a
Porter, and a Brace of Guardias