Follow the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page A

INVISIBLE
MILLIONAIRE
    I
    T HE GIRL’S eyes
caught Simon Templar as he entered the room, ducking his
head instinctively to pass under the low lintel of the door; and they followed him steadily
across to the bar. They were blue eyes with
long lashes, and the face to which
they belonged was pretty without any distinctive feature, crowned with curly yellow hair. And besides anything else, the
eyes held an indefinable hint of strain.
    Simon knew
all this without looking directly at her. But he had singled her out at once
from the double handful of riverside weekenders who crowded the small bar-room
as the most probable writer of the letter which he still carried in his
pocket—the letter which had brought him out to the Bell that Sunday
evening on what anyone with a less incor rigibly optimistic
flair for adventure would have branded from the start as a
fool’s errand. She was the only girl in the place who seemed to be
unattached; there was no positive reason why the writer of that letter should
have been un attached, but it seemed likely that she would be. Also
she was the best looker in a by no means repulsive crowd; and that was simply no
clue at all except to Simon Templar’s own unshakeable faith in his guardian
angel, who had never thrown any other kind of damsel in distress into his
buccaneering path.
    But she
was still looking at him. And even though he couldn’t help knowing
that women often looked at him with more than ordinary interest, it was not
usually done quite so fixedly. His hopes rose a notch, tentatively;
but it was her turn to make the next move. He had done all that had been asked of
him when he walked in there punctually on the stroke of eight.
    He leaned
on the counter, with his wide shoulders seeming to take up half the
length of the bar, and ordered a pint of beer for himself and a bottle of Vat
69 for Hoppy Uniatz, who trailed up thirstily at his heels. With
the tankard in his hands, he waited for one of those inevitable moments when all the
customers had paused for breath at the same time.
    “Anyone
leave a message for me ?” he asked.
    His voice
was quiet and casual, but just clear enough for everyone in the room
to hear. Whoever had sent for him, unless it was merely some pointless
practical joker, should need no more confirmation than that…. He
hoped it would be the girl with the blue troubled eyes. He had a weakness for girls with eyes of that
shade, the same colour as his own.
    The barman
shook his head.
    “No,
sir. I haven’t had any messages.”
    Simon went on gazingat
him reflectively, and the barman misinterpreted
his expression. His mouth broadened and said: “That’s all right,
sir, I’d know if there was anything for you.”
    Simon’s
fine brows lifted puzzledly.
    “I’ve
seen your picture often enough, sir. I suppose you could call me one of
your fans. You’re the Saint, aren’t you ?”
    The Saint smiled slowly.
    “You
don’t look frightened.”
    “I
never had the chance to be a rich racketeer, like the people you’re always
getting after. Gosh, though, I’ve had a kick out of some of the things you’ve
done to ‘em! And the way you’re always putting it over on the
police—I’ll bet they’d give anything for an excuse to lock you up…
.”
    Simon was
aware that the general buzz of conversation, after starting to pick up again,
had died a second time and was staying dead. His spine itched with the
feel of stares fastening on his back. And at the same time the barman became feverishly conscious of
the audience which had been captured by his
runaway enthusiasm. He began to stammer, turned red, and plunged confusedly
away to obliterate himself in some unnecessary fussing over the shelves of
bottles behind him.
    The Saint
grinned with his eyes only, and turned tranquilly round to lean his
back against the bar and face the room.
    The
collected stares hastily unpinned themselves and the voices got going again;
but Simon was as oblivious of those events as he would