The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

Начало книги

SIMON TEMPLAR yanked the hand brake back into the last notch as the huge cream-and-red Hirondel shot past the little knot of struggling men, and stood up while the tires were still screaming for a hold on the cobblestones. The Hirondel rocked to a shuddering standstill just beyond the other car that was pulled in to the side of the road; and Simon sat on the back of the seat and swung long, immaculately trousered legs over the side. From under the jauntily tilted brim of his hat he gazed back at the inspiring scene with a glimmer of reckless delight beginning to dawn in gay blue eyes which should have seemed entirely misplaced in a man who was better known as the Saint than by any other name.

In the seat beside him, Hoppy Uniatz screwed his head round on his thick neck and also surveyed the scenery, with the strain of intense thought creasing its unmistakable contortions into the rugged contours of what, from its geographical situation rather than any­thing else, must reluctantly be called his face. Somewhere inside him an awe-inspiringly lucid deduction was struggling for delivery.

Читать дальше →