The Saint Returns Read Online Free

there. The SS
taught me on the farm. In case something happened to them they fig ured I
might need to know how.”
    “So you lived on the farm too?”
    “Only for a few days, right after they
took me out of the convent.”
    Simon turned and crossed River Liffey between
the ornate iron lampposts that lined either side of O’Connell Bridge.
    “So here you are,” he said.
“All grown up, a skillful and sensible driver, with lots of books
under your belt and lovely clothes on your lovely back. There’s just one thing: Why
were your guardians chasing you?”
    “Because I didn’t want to
co-operate.”
    “Co-operate in what?” Simon asked.
    “Their plan is to take me back to Germany
as the figurehead for a new Nazi movement.”
    They had reached upper   O’Connell Street and the Gresham
Hotel, so Mildred’s narrative had to be inter rupted at that
climactic point, with no really worthy response by the Saint.
Surrendering the car to the door man, he led her through the lobby, where the
egress of well-clad guests for dinner, theater, or cinema was just beginning.
    “Would you like to use my room for
freshening up?” Simon asked.
    “I’d much rather have a drink.”
    “Drinking too?” he remarked as they
entered the mez zanine Cocktail Bar. “What goes on in these
convents?”
    She looked at him with doe-eyed
ingenuousness.
    “I have to learn, don’t I?”
    “If it’s learning to drink you
want,” Simon said in a louder voice with traces of an Irish brogue,
“here’s just the teacher for you.”
    Patrick Kelly, who was seated at the bar
attending to a bottle of Jameson, turned his great red head and split its lower
half with a prognathous grin.
    “Simon, ye ould dog!” he bellowed.
“Ye tould me ye were goin’ fishin’, but niver that this was
what it was ye were fishin’ for!”
    “Pat, meet Mildred,” said the Saint,
“and call for two more glasses.”
    Kelly gave her a more than appreciative look
and his ham-sized mitt enveloped her fingers.
    “I’m charmed. A face like a darlin’
jewel itself she has —and here I’ve slept the entire mornin’
away.”
    “It’s evening,” Mildred said
innocently, taking a stool between the men.
    “Oh, and shure you’re mistaken,”
said Kelly, rearing back to inspect the watch on his hairy wrist. “Seven
in the mornin’ it must be. Here—have a bite o’ breakfast.”
    He poured whiskey into the clean glasses
brought by the bartender. Mildred shivered and looked over her shoulder.
    “What if they followed us?” she
whispered.
    “I wouldn’t worry,” Simon said.
“And what could they do in a public place?”
    “What could who do?” Kelly asked.
“Who’s followin’ ye?”
    Simon finished his drink and stood up.
    “It’s a long and wonderful story, and
I’ll leave Mildred to tell it to you while I change for dinner. I’ve been fishing
and fighting all afternoon.”
    Kelly swelled like an excited bullfrog.
    “Ye mean to say I missed a fight,
too?”
    “Big one,” the Saint said casually. “SS men.”
    Kelly snorted.
    “Ye don’t mean them big German fellas
with the black uniforms? Now ye’re handin’ me a pail of malarkey, man. There’s
been none of them about for twenty years.”
    “Ask Mildred,” Simon said.
    As he strolled away from the bar, he heard
her begin in a low
confidential voice:
    “How much do you remember about Hitler’s
death?”
    When Simon returned from his room, showered and immaculately
dressed, he found Kelly looking dazed and Mildred
chattering like a magpie just recovered from laryngitis.
    “Simon!” the Irishman exclaimed.
“Ye should only hear what she’s been tellin’ me!”
    His sidewise look at the Saint held more doubt
than his voice. He obviously wanted some confirmation or denial,
but he got only a helpless gesture of upturned hands.
    “Let’s go eat,” Simon said.
“Mildred’s problem isn’t the kind of thing I like to think about with
an empty stomach.”
    She clutched his arm in