The Saint Returns Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    “Why are you alone?” Drew demanded.
    “We thought we had her,” said one of
the men, “but some bloke interfered. We have a strong clue, though, and we’ll
soon pick up her trail, I’m sure.”
    “Let’s not broadcast it to the whole
world, shall we?” Drew said in a sharp, hushed voice. “Come
to my room.”
    There was a swoosh as the elevator doors
closed be hind them, and Simon was left with time for a few moments of
silent meditation before Mildred rejoined him.
    First, the SS man’s speech had betrayed more
in fluences of Liverpool than of Berchtesgaden. He had no German
accent at all. That came as no surprise to the Saint, who by now had
about as much confidence in Mildred’s veracity as he did in the Flat Earth
theory. The next obvious question was, then, what exactly was her relation to
Eugene Drew?
    Simon’s speculations on that were delayed by
the cautious arrival of Mildred herself.
    “He’s gone,” Simon said.
    “Who?” she asked, wide-eyed.
    “The man you were running away
from.”
    “I wasn’t running away. I told you where
I was going.”
    The Saint pushed the elevator button.
    “Your friends are here,” he said casually.
    “What friends?”
    “Your SS friends.”
    She looked completely shattered, and all but
pulled at the parting elevator doors to get inside, glancing fearfully over
her shoulder.
    “Where? Did they see you?”
    “No,” Simon said. “Nothing to
worry about.”
    He told the elevator operator his floor and discouraged Mildred from any more talking with a warning shake
of his head. As soon as they were in
his room she wanted to know
everything.
    “They came in and went straight for that
fellow I thought
you were avoiding,” said Simon, opening a suitcase on the bed and
beginning to pack immediately, as Mildred
paced up and down the Donegal carpeting.
    “How could they have followed us
here?” she asked, biting