Enter the Saint by Leslie Charteris Page A

earnest conversation. He tapped on the pane, and Hayn looked up and nodded. The hidden door swung open as Stannard reached it, and closed after him as he passed through.
    He strolled through the gaming rooms, greeted a few acquaintances, and watched the play for a while without enthusiasm. He left the club early, as soon as he conveniently could.
    The next morning, he hired a car and drove rapidly out of London. He met the Saint on the Newmarket road at a prearranged milestone.
    “There was a man following me,” said the Saint happily. “When I got out of my bus, he took a taxi. I wonder if he gave it up, or he’s still toiling optimistically along, bursting the meter somewhere in the wilds of Edmonton.” He gave Stannard a cigarette, and received a check in return.
    “A thousand pounds,” said Stannard. “As I promised. ” The Saint put it carefully away in his wallet. “And why I should give it to you, I don’t know,” said Stannard.
    “It is the beginning of wisdom,” said the Saint. “The two thousand that’s left will pay off your debts and give you a fresh start, and I’ll get your lOU’s back for you in a day or two. A thousand pounds isn’t much to pay for that.”
    “Except that I might have kept the money and gone on working for Hayn.”
    “But you have reformed,” said the Saint gently. “And I’m sure the demonstration you saw last night will help to keep you on the straight and narrow path. If you kept in with Hayn, you’d have me to deal with.” He climbed back into his car and pressed the self-starter, but Stannard was still curious.
    “What are you going to do with the money?” he asked. “I thought you were against crooks.”
    “I am,” said the Saint virtuously. “It goes to charity. Less my ten per cent commission charged for collecting. You’ll hear from me again when I want you. Au revoir-or, in the Spanish, hasta la vista- or, you prefer it in the German, auf Wiedersehen!”
    Chapter VIII
ABOUT a week after the Saint’s mercurial irruption into Danny’s, Gwen Chandler met Mr. Edgar Hayn in Regent Street, one morning by accident. At exactly the same time, Mr. Edgar Hayn met Gwen Chandler on purpose, for he had been at some pains to bring about that accidental meeting.
    “We see far too little of you these days, my dear,” he said, taking her hand.
    She was looking cool and demure in a summer frock of printed chiffon, and her fair hair peeped out under the brim of her picture hat to set off the cornflower blue of her eyes. “Why, it seems no time since Jerry and I were having supper with you,” she said.
    “No time is far too long for me,” said Mr. Hayn cleverly. “One could hardly have too much of anyone as charming as yourself, my dear lady.”
    At the supper-party which she had unwillingly been induced to join, he had set himself out to be an irreproachable host, and his suave geniality had gone a long way towards undoing the first instinctive dislike which she had felt for him, but she did not know how to take him in this reversion to his earlier pose of exaggerated heartiness. It reminded her of the playful romping advances of an elephant, but she did not find it funny.
    Mr. Hayn, however, was for the moment as pachydermatous as the animal on whose pleasantries he appeared to have modelled his own, and her slightly chilling embarrassment was lost on him. He waved his umbrella towards the window of the shop outside which they were standing. “Do you know that name, Miss Chandler?” he asked.
    She looked in the direction indicated.
    “Laserre? Yes, of course I’ve heard of it.”
    “I am Laserre,” said Hayn largely. “This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for to introduce you to our humble premises-and how convenient that we should meet on the very doorstep.”
    She was not eager to agree, but before she could frame a suitable reply he had propelled her into the glittering red-carpeted room where the preparations of the firm were purveyed in a