Leslie Charteris - The Saint Around the World

I suppose you wouldnt be interested in helping me find my husband, said the blonde.

Frankly, Ive heard a lot more exciting propositions, Simon Templar admitted. If he doesnt have enough sense to appreciate you, why dont we just let him stay lost, and have a ball?

But I really want him back, she said. You see, weve only been married a week, so I havent had time to get tired of him.

Simon sipped his Dry Sack.

All right, he said. Give me a clue. What was it about this bridegroom that impressed you so much, darling?

The name, she said, is Lona Dayne.

Well, thats unusual, anyway. He must have to listen to a lot of funny cracks about it.

Lona Dayne is my name, idiot. Not darling.

Oh.

He regarded her with pleasantly augmented interest. It had been an entirely shallow and stereotyped reaction, he realized, to identify and pigeonhole her so summarily as the blonde. Certainly she had the hair, of a tint much paler than straw, which his worldly eye inevitably measured against her light brown eyes and traced back from there to the alchemy of some beauty parlor but wasnt it a mere clich of fiction that expensively rinsed blondes were by contrary definition cheap, while the only good ones owed their coloring solely to a lucky combination of chromosomes? The pretty face and approximately 35-23-35 vital statistics which convention also attributes to blondes appeared to be hers without any important debt to artifice. And she could get away with calling him Idiot, when she smiled in that provocatively intimate way while she said it.

To me, youll still be darling, he said. At least, until your husband turns up. I suppose his name is Dayne too.

Naturally.

You can never be sure, these days.

Havelock Dayne.

It has rather a corny sound, but I guess his parents loved it.

I love your dialogue, she said dispassionately. But I wasnt kidding. You are the Saint, arent you?

Simon sighed. He had heard that question so often, by this time, that he seemed to have used up all the possible smooth, shocking, modest, impudent, evasive, chilling, misleading, or witty answers. Now he could only wish, belatedly, that he had had the forethought to insist on an alias. But while that might have let him enjoy one cocktail party as an anonymous guest, it wouldnt have fitted in with the project that brought him to Bermuda.

It had been a good party, until then. The Saint had thought it a happy coincidence, for him, that a friend from many years back in Hollywood, Dick Van Hessen, was currently managing a miniature movie studio which had been improbably yet astutely set up in Bermuda to take advantage of tax privileges and lower costs to compete for the American television market. At the Van Hessens hillside house was therefore gathered, almost automatically, a useful cross-section of island personalities: the local bankers and bigwigs, the grim and the gay social sets, the press and the professions, the merchants and the dilettantes, and a leavening of working actors and visiting firemen on whom all the others could prove how easily they could mix with celebrities. The Saints cool blue eyes drifted down the long verandah that overlooked Hamilton Harbor, but failed to make any pertinent identification among the convivial mob.

Ive met so many people tonight, I couldnt possibly remember half their names, he confessed disarmingly, and with an unblushing lack of truth. Does your husband have anything conspicuous about him like a green mustache, for instance?

You havent met him tonight. He isnt here.

When did you lose him, then?

The day before yesterday.

And only married five days at the time, according to what you said. It must have been a hell of a wedding. Did you have any inkling that Havelock was such a dizzy type when you agreed to let him love, honor, and pay the bills?

He isnt at all. Hes lots of fun, of course, but hes terribly ambitious and earnest too. Hes a lawyer.

Im looking for a lawyer myself, said the Saint. Only I want one whos already embezzled at least five million dollars. Have you known Havelock long enough to notice him flashing a lot of green stuff around?

Im sorry, she said stiffly. I suppose I was asking for it. I should have known better. But I dont think your dialogue is so excruciatingly funny, after all

A quiver of her lips spoiled the trenchant ring that her last sentence was phrased for, and she turned away quickly, but not quickly enough for him to miss the blurring of her eyes. He moved even more swiftly to place himself beside her again where she leaned over the verandah railing with her back turned squarely to the incurious crowd.

Pardon my two left feet, he said reasonably. Im afraid the atmosphere of the place got me. I thought you were playing it strictly chin-up and British, so I was going along with the gag. Lets start over, if youre serious.

She looked at him, blinking hard.

I am!

All right. I know how youre feeling. I wish I could help. But just plain wandering husbands are a bit out of my line. I expect if you asked a few discreet friends and bartenders or even the police

But I cant. Ive had to cover up tell everyone hes laid up with a terrible cold. Youre the first person Ive told, and I shouldnt even have done that.

Then stop being silly. If hes lost, hes lost, and false pride wont help you find him. Think yourself lucky he isnt really a case up my alley, for which hed have to be at least kidnaped or even murdered.

That, she said steadily, is exactly what Im afraid of. Or I wouldnt have talked to you.

Without any change of expression, the Saints bronzed face seemed to become opaque, like a mask from behind which his eyes probed with a sort of rueful cynicism.

Now Ill begin to think youre suffering from too much lurid literature.

Youd be wrong, she said flatly. Unless I suffered from writing it. Until a week ago, my name was Lona Shaw. Well, that doesnt mean anything to you. But it would if youd lived in England lately. Ive worked for the London Daily Record since I was nineteen, and for the last four years Ive been their star sob-sister. Do you have any idea how hard-boiled and unhysterical a girl has to be to hold that job on a newspaper like the Record?

Simon nodded. Suddenly, as if a cloud had passed, the mask of his face was translucent again. It was the only outward sign that he had felt and recognized the icy caress of Destinys fingers along his spine.

Okay. he said soberly. Im sold.

His gaze nickered over the crowded balcony again, warily conscious of the beginning of one of those unanimous re-shufflings that surge intermittently through the human molecules of every cocktail party, and even more sharply perceptive of the covetous glances of certain males within striking distance who had transparently settled on Lona Dayne as the most intriguing target for tonight and were getting set to cut in at the first opening.

Simon huddled strategically closer to her along the rail.

I gather you came alone, he said.

Yes.

Me too. No plans for dinner?

No. Fay Van Hessen said I could

She wont mind. You just made a date with me, darling.

He put down his glass, took her by the arm, and steered her firmly and skillfully into an eddy that was flowing towards the exit. The frustrated wolf pack was still standing on its heels as they jostled into the line that was babbling thanks and goodbyes.

Oh, dont go yet, Fay protested. Were going to have some food presently.

But Lonas husband might get better tomorrow, and Id never get her all to myself again, Simon said with a leer.

Well, behave yourselves.

There should be a taxi waiting below. Dick Van Hessen said helpfully. Send him back from wherever youre going, for the next customers.