13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

THE

SAINT

INTERVENES

LESLIE CHARTERIS

MB

A MACFADDEN-BARTELL BOOK

TO

H. H. GIBSON

Many years ago I resolved that you were one of the first people I must dedicate a book to. But time slips by, and it's sadly easy to lose touch with someone who lives hundreds of miles away. So this comes very late, but I hope not too late; because even though this may be a bad book, if 1 hadn't come tinder your guidance many years ago it would probably have been very much worse.

THIS IS THE COMPLETE TEXT OF THE HARDCOVER EDITION

A MACFADDEN BOOK   ....   1966

MACFADDEN BOOKS are published by

Macfadden-Bartell Corporation

205 East 42nd Street, New York, New York, 10017

This story was originally published in England under the title Boodle.

Copyright, 1934, by Leslie Charteris. All rights reserved. Published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.

CONTENTS

      I       The Ingenuous Colonel

    II     The Unfortunate Financier

   III       The Newdick Helicopter

   IV       The Prince of Cherkessia

      V       The Treasure of Turk's Lane

   VI       The Sleepless Knight

 VII        The Uncritical Publisher

VIII       The Noble Sportsman

  IX       The Damsel in Distress

    X       The Loving Brothers

  XI       The Tall Timber

 XII       The Art Photographer

XIII     The Man Who Liked Toys

XIV       The Mixture as Before

The villains in this book are entirely imaginary, and have no relation to any living person.

 

I

The Ingenuous Colonel

Lieut.-Colonel Sir George Uppingdon, it must be admitted, was not a genuine knight; neither, as a matter of fact, was he a genuine colonel. This is not to say that he thought that sandbags contained the material for mixing trench mortar, or that an observation post was a species of flagpole on which inquisitive brigadiers hung at half-mast; but his military ex­perience was certainly limited to a brief period during the lat­ter days of the war when conscription had gathered him up and set him to the uncongenial task of peeling potatoes at Aldershot.

Apart from that not inglorious interlude of strengthening the stomachs of the marching armies, his career had been far less impressive than the name he passed under seemed to in­dicate. Pentonville had housed him on one occasion, and he had also taken one short holiday at Maidstone. Nevertheless, although the expensive public school which had taught him his practical arithmetic had long since erased his name from its register of alumni, he had never lost his well-educated and aristocratic bearing, and with the passing of time had added to them a magnificent pair of white moustachios which were almost as valuable to him in his career.

A slight tinge of the old-fashioned conservatism which characterised his style of dress clung equally limpet-like to the processes of his mind.

"These new-fangled stunts are all very well," he said dog­gedly. "But what happens to them? You work them once, and they receive a great deal of publicity, and then you can never use them again. How many of them will last as long as our tried and proved old friends?"

His companion on that occasion, an equally talented Mr. Sidney Immelbern—whose real name, as it happens, was Sid­ney Immelbern—regarded him gloomily.

"That's the trouble with you, George," he said. "It's the one thing which has kept you back from real greatness. You can't get it into your head that we've got to move with the times."

"It has also kept me out of a great deal of trouble," said the Colonel sedately. "If I remember rightly, Sid, when you last moved with the times, it was to Wormwood Scrubs."

Mr. Immelbern frowned. There were seasons when he felt that George Uppingdon's gentlemanly bearing had no real foundations of good taste.

"Well," he retorted, "your methods haven't made us mil­lionaires. Here it's nearly two months since we made a click, and we only got eight hundred from that Australian at Brigh­ton."

Mr. Irnmelbern's terse statement being irrefutable, a long and somewhat melancholy silence settled down upon the part­nership.