Saint Errant by Leslie Charteris

that all bets are off.”
    “Obviously,” she said, with cool indifference.
    She let him take a key to the apartment when he left, and that alone told him to save himself the trouble of returning for a search while she was out. If there was anything she didn’t want him to find, it would certainly not be there.
    He had taken routine precautions against being followed when he went to the Bienville, but as he turned into the lobby of the Hotel Monteleone the chunky figure of Lieutenant Wendel rose from an armchair to greet him.
    “Had a nice afternoon, Saint?”
    “Very nice, thank you,” Simon replied calmly; and the detective’s face began to darken.
    “I thought I warned you to stay away from Lady Offchurch.”
    The Saint raised his eyebrows.
    “I wasn’t aware that I’d been annoying her. She is at the St Charles, which is very grand and metropolitan, but the French quarter is good enough for me. I can’t help it if our hotels are only a few blocks apart. Perhaps you ought to have the city enlarged.”
    “I’m talking about this gal Jeannine Roger. What are you cooking up with her?”
    “Oxtails,” said the Saint truthfully.
    Lieutenant Wendel did not seem to be the type to appreciate a simple and straightforward answer. In fact, for some reason it appeared to affect him in much the same way as having his necktie flipped up under his nose. His eyes became slightly congested, and he grasped the Saint’s arm with a hand that could have crumbled walnuts.
    “Listen, mister,” he said, with crunching self-control. “Just because I spotted you right off didn’t mean I figured my job was done. When I found Lady Offchurch was going around with this Roger twist, I had her investigated too. And it comes right back from Washington that she’s got a record as long as your arm. So I put a man on to watch her. And whaddaya know, first thing I hear is that you’re spending time over in her apartment.”
    Simon Templar’s stomach -felt as if a cold weight had been planted in it, but not the flicker of a muscle acknowledged the sensation. As though the grip on his arm hadn’t been there at all, he conveyed a cigarette to his mouth and put a light to it.
    “Thanks for the tip, chum,” he said gravely. “I just happened to pick her up in a restaurant, and she looked like fun. It only shows you, a guy can’t be too careful. Why, she might have stolen something from me!”
    The detective made a noise something like a cement mixer choking on a rock.
    “What you’d better do is get it through your head that you aren’t getting away with anything in this town. This is one caper that’s licked before it starts. You’re washed up, Saint, so get smart while you’ve got time.”
    Simon nodded.
    “I’ll certainly tell the girl we can’t go on seeing each other. A man in my position-“
    “A man in your position,” Wendel said, “ought to pack his bags and be out of town tomorrow while he has the chance.”
    “I’ll think that over,” Simon said seriously. “Are you free for dinner again tonight?-we might make it a farewell feast.”
    He was not surprised that the offer was discourteously rejected, and went on to the bar with plenty to occupy his mind.
    One question was whether Wendel would be most likely to challenge Jeannine Roger openly, as he had challenged the Saint, or whether in the slightly different circumstances he would try to expose her to Lady Offchurch, or whether he would pull out of the warning business altogether and go out for blood.
    The other question was whether Jeannine knew the score already, and what was brewing in her own elusive mind.
    At any rate, he had nothing to lose now by going openly to the Bienville, and he deliberately did that, after a leisured savoring of oysters Rockefeller and gombo filé at Antoine’s, while the young officer who was following him worried over a bowl of onion soup and his expense account. The same shadow almost gave him a personal escort into the