Brighter Buccaneer by Leslie Charteris Page B

let him do his dying gladiator act alone. The man in the Panama was no human hairpin, and his legs seemed to have turned to rubber.
    Then Simon saw that the man’s eyes were open. He grinned at the Saint crookedly.
    “Sorry, friend,” he said, in the broadest Yankee. “I’ll be okay in a minute. Been trying to do too much after my operation, I guess-the doc told me I’d crack up if I didn’t take it easy … Gosh, look at the rubbernecks waitin’ to see me die! Say, do you live in there? Is there a foyer I can sit down in? I don’t wanna be stared at like I was the Nelson Monument.”
    Simon helped the man inside and sat him on a settee beside the lift. The American tipped off his Panama and wiped his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.
    “Just four days outa the hospital and tearin’ about like a fool for two of ‘em. And missed my lunch today. That’s what’s done it. Say, is there a public telephone here? I promised to meet my wife an hour ago, and she must think I had myself a street accident.”
    “I’m afraid there isn’t,” said the Saint. “This is just a block of flats.”
    “Well, I guess I’ll just be bawled out. Gosh, but that poor kid’ll be worried stiff!”
    Simon looked up at the clock. He was in no great hurry.
    “You can phone from my flat if you like,” he said. “It’s on the second floor.”
    “Say, that’s real kind of you!”
    The Saint helped him into the lift, and they shot upwards. Settled in an armchair beside the telephone, the American made a reassuring call to the Savoy Hotel number. Simon thought it was excessively sloppy, but it was not his business.
    “Well, that’s that,” said his guest, and when the gush was over, “I guess I owe you something for your kindness. Have a cigar?”
    Simon accepted the weed. It was a large fat one, with a lovely picture on the band.
    “Think of me cracking up like that in your arms!” prattled the American, whose vocal cords at least seemed unimpaired. “Gosh, you musta thought I was something out of a flower-bed. I didn’t know they could take that much outa you along with your appendix. And all this fuss to find a damn brass Buddha! Gosh, it makes you wonder what nut started this collecting game.”
    The Saint, with a match half-way to his cigar, stared at him till the flame scorched his fingers.
    “Brass Buddha?” he said faintly. “Who wants a brass Buddha?”
    “Louis Froussard wants one, if that means anything to you, friend. But here am I in your apartment, and you don’t even know my name. Allow me.” The American dug out his wallet, extracted a card and handed it over. “James G. Amberson, at your service. Any time you want one of Napoleon’s skulls, or the original pyjamas the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon-I’m just the man to go and find ‘em. Yes, sir. That’s my job-huntin’ for missing links for museums and millionaires who feel they gotta collect something so’s they can give the reporters something to write about. That’s me.”
    “And you want a brass Buddha?” said the Saint, almost caressingly.
    James G. Amberson (according to his card, the G. stood for Gardiner, which the Saint thought was very modest-it might have been Gabriel) flapped a raw-boned hand deprecatingly.
    “Aw, you ain’t gonna offer me the thing your auntie brought home last time she went on a world cruise, are you? Everyone in London’s got a brass Buddha, but none of ‘em is the right one. This one’s a special one-you wouldn’t know it to look at it, but it is. Some Chink emperor back in about two million b.c. had three of ‘em made for his three daughters, who were no better than they shoulda been, accordin’ to history-you don’t wanna know all that hooey, do you? I guess I’m a bit fuddled over it myself. But anyhow, Lou Froussard has got two of ‘em, and he wants the third. I gotta find it. Sounds like I’d taken on a long job, don’t it?”
    Simon drew on his cigar a little less