The Saint in London: Originally Entitled the Misfortunes of Mr. Teal Read Online Free PDF Page A

Saint gently, “the statement or suggestion that when you were Undersecretary of State for War you placed an order for thirty thousand Lewis guns with a firm whose tender was sixty per cent, higher than any other, and enlarged your own bank balance immediately afterwards.”
    “Gross and damnable falsehoods,” persisted Lord Iveldown more loudly.
    “As, for instance,” said the Saint, even more gently, “the gross and damnable falsehood that you accepted on behalf of the government a consignment of one million gas masks which technical experts had already condemned in the strongest language as worse than useless––”
    “Foul and calumnious imputations,” boomed Lord Iveldown in a trembling voice, “which can easily be refuted, but which if published would nevertheless to some degree smirch a name which hitherto has not been without honour in the annals of this nation. It was only for that reason, and not because I feared that my public and private life could not stand the light of any inquiry whatever that might be directed into it, that I consented to —ah—grant you this interview.”
    Simon nodded.
    “Since your synthetic detectives had failed to steal that book from me,” he murmured, “it was— ah—remarkably gracious of you.”
    His sardonic blue eyes, levelled over the shaft of a cigarette that slanted from between his lips like the barrel of a gun, bored into Lord Iveldown with a light of cold appraisal which made the nobleman shift his feet awkwardly.
    “It was an extraordinary situation,” repeated his lordship in a resonant voice, “which necessitated extraordinary measures.” He cleared his throat, adjusted his pince-nez, and rocked on his heels again. “Mr. Templar,” he said, “let us not beat about the bush any longer. For purely personal reasons—merely, you understand, because I desire to keep my name free from common gossip—I desire to suppress these base insinuations which happen to have come into your possession; and for that reason I have accorded you this personal interview in order to ascertain what—ah—value you would place on this volume.”
    “That’s rather nice of you,” said the Saint guardedly. “If, for example,” said Lord Iveldown throatily,
    “a settlement of, shall we say—ah—two thousand pounds––”
    He broke off at that point because suddenly the Saint had begun to laugh. It was a very quiet, very self-contained laugh—a laugh that somehow made the blood in Lord Iveldown’s hardened arteries run colder as he heard it. If there was any humour in the laugh, it did not reach the Saint’s eyes.
    “If you’d mentioned two hundred thousand,” said the Saint coolly, “you would have been right on my figure.”
    There was a long terrific silence in which the mere rustle of a coat sleeve would have sounded like the crash of doom. Many seconds went by before Lord Iveldown’s dry cough broke the stillness like a rattle of musketry.
    “How much did you say?” he articulated hoarsely.
    “I said two hundred thousand pounds.”
    Those arctic blue eyes had never shifted from Lord Iveldown’s faintly empurpled face. Their glacial gaze seemed to go through him with the cold sting of a rapier blade—seemed to strip away all his bulwarks of pomposity like tissue, and hold the naked soul of the man quivering on the point like a grub on a pin.
    “But that,” said Lord Iveldown tremblingly, “—that’s impossible! That’s blackmail!”
    “I’m afraid it is,” said the Saint.
    “You sit there, before witnesses––”
    “Before all the witnesses you like to bring in. I don’t want you to miss the idea, your Lordship.] Witnesses don’t make any difference. In any ordinary case—yes. If I were only threatening to advertise your illicit love affairs, or anything like that, you could bring me to justice and your own name would quite rightly be suppressed. But in a case like this even the chief commissioner couldn’t guarantee you immunity. This