“So she got everything,” said the Saint. “That seems to be the story in most American divorces. But for a change, there almost seems to be some justification for it. As you tell it, she was the brains of the act. She dreamed it up and put it over. He was only the first stepping-stone. If she outgrew him after that, and wants to prove she’s arrived by splurging on aristocratic gigolos, it may be deplorable, but I guess it’s her privilege.”
“I understand they paid him two thousand dollars.”
“She might have been more generous,” Simon admitted.
“He’d sold the drugstore long ago, of course, when the medicine business began to take all their time. But that was already community property, and whatever it fetched went into expanding the business. When the break-up came, he was several years older, and he wasn’t young to start with. To be exact, he was fifty-five at the time. And that was two years ago. Not the ideal age to make a fresh start, with no capital.”
“Tough,” Simon said reluctantly. “But—”
“Soon after that he came down with TB. Then it wasn’t even a matter of starting over. When his money ran out, he had to become a charity patient in the State hospital. He’s there now.”
The Saint blinked.
“Don’t look up,” Stern said, “but she seems to have signed the check, and they’re headed this way. Do you want to be introduced?”
“Yes,” Simon said, assiduously finishing his plate. “If you can bring yourself to gamble your good repute on my alias.”
“Who do you want to be — Sebastian Tombs?”
“I think the Count of Cristamonte might appeal to her more.”
He was only just able to say it in time, and then she was at the table. Even before he raised his eyes with carefully measured nonchalance, his senses were aware of a perfume, a warmth, a physical presence that seemed to send out vibrations from its own high-voltage charge.
“Relax, darling,” she said, as the newspaper proprietor stood up. “I’m not going to slap you, or even make a scene.”
“It never occurred to me that you would,” Stern said with easy courtesy.
“I don’t mean for some of those scandalous columns you’ve published — I know you only print what the syndicates send you. I mean, though, I hope you don’t think I’m sore at you for picking on me in that editorial the other day. How did it go? — ‘Louisiana’s industrial potential should not be judged solely by the unfortunate publicity earned by the personal antics of certain of our prominent commercial citizens!’ And everyone knows that I’ve had more publicity than any other commercial citizen of this town. That was a little bit snide, darling.”
She had a naturally husky voice, and she had adapted to herself some of the mannerisms of a famously mannered Southern actress, but an interpretation of her own softened and sugared them.
“It’s all right, I know you can’t admit you were referring to me,” she went on before the other could admit or deny anything. “Especially before witnesses. But you know the Marchese isn’t my attorney.” For the first time she made a show of noticing the Saint. “What about your friend?”
“The Count of Cristamonte,” Stern said with the obligatory gesture. “Mrs Ashville.”
The momentary widening of her eyes might have been hard to measure without a micrometer, but Simon did not miss it. They were brown eyes with flecks of green, and there were hardly any telltale wrinkles around them. Even at close quarters her skin had the clear and silky texture coveted by the users of Dreemicreem. There was no doubt that simply as a female she was what almost any male would have classified to himself as a Dish.
She put out her hand with more than conventional cordiality and said, “Oh, a distinguished visitor getting the VIP treatment. Please don’t be scared by anything I was just saying, about Mr Stern. You couldn’t be in better hands. I was only kidding him, in our crude American way.”
“You don’t have to explain,” smiled the Saint, with the barest trace of some vaguely European accent. “I’ve been in America before. And for the pleasure of meeting you, I would forgive David anything.”
She had left her hand with him when he bent over it, and it took her that long to withdraw it, as if it were something she had forgotten. She had not bothered to present the Marchese to anyone, and he was trying to appear elegantly inscrutable and aristocratically bored in the near background, to which he was strategically relegated by Mrs Ashville’s uncooperative back and the space limitations of the aisle which burdened waiters and bus boys were trying to use as a thoroughfare.
She continued to look the Saint over, not a whit less candidly than he had been studying her a few minutes earlier.
“How long are you here for?”
“To my sorrow, only a few days.”
“I’m sorry too. Very sorry.” She turned back to Stern at last with a smile. “Don’t worry about losing my advertising, darling. As long as your circulation figures hold up, you can make all the jokes you want to about me. Just don’t knock the product... And be careful where you take your handsome friend. He should go back to Europe remembering nothing but the best of this town.”
With a last flashing glance at the Saint she swept on. Her pallidly aesthetic escort followed like a reactivated toy towed by a string, with a coldly perfunctory inclination of his head towards the table that had interrupted their progress, as he went by.
“That’s a lot of woman,” Simon observed as they sat down again. “She transmits like a long-range radio station — and it isn’t only music. I can see where a little guy in a corner drugstore wouldn’t have had much chance.”
“She’s progressed quite a bit since then.”
“Sure. And there are movie stars who graduated just as recently from slinging hash. Some of ’em were smothered with sables before they were quite used to wearing shoes. But more women are natural actresses than end up in Hollywood. If they’re born with the spark, and given the opportunity, they don’t take long to learn the princess routines. Cinderella had to have a fairy godmother, but all the modern gal needs is the confidence that comes with a little success and a lot of money. And I say the performance can be just as much fun if you forget the pedigree.”
“You turn a fine phrase, my friend. But you sound as if you were trying to sell yourself.”
“If she threw herself at me, I can’t pretend it wouldn’t be nice to have an excuse not to duck.”
“And forget the discarded husband in the charity ward? I must have had a wrong impression, but I didn’t know you were as tough as that.”
Simon lighted a cigarette.
“Have you printed that story? It doesn’t seem like it, or she’d’ve mentioned it.”
“Frankly, we only got the tip yesterday. We sent someone out to check on it today, and Ashville begged him to drop it. Said Mrs Ashville didn’t know, and he didn’t want her to.”
“Then where did the tip come from?”
“A sister of his who phoned us. She said Mrs Ashville knew all about it and didn’t care.”
“Do you know if this sister could be bitter about something else? If Mrs Ashville really doesn’t know, you can’t score it against her. Has anyone asked Mrs Ashville? You had a chance to ask her yourself just now,” said the Saint.
“I have a top-notch editor and some excellent reporters,” said his host urbanely. “I don’t try to do all their jobs myself. I was only telling you as much as I happened to know. You’ll have to read the rest of it in the paper — if they decide it’s worth printing. And I’m sorry if I spoiled the romance you didn’t have.”