Isn't that the Saint?
How odd. A few years ago, I went on an absolute Charteris binge while I was writing DR HERMES REVIEWS. I searched little local libraries and used book stores within a fifty mile radius and even sent away for several titles from a service. This also happened with Lester Dent, Norvell Page, Sax Rohmer and a few others. When you're immersed in a writer that way, you pick up every little inconsistency and evolution of style. After five years or so, I grew tired of reviewing and the hobby started to become a chore. (At that point, it was obviously time to buy a scanner and start a NEW hobby, I just never learn.)
Where was I going with this? Oh yes. Two days ago, I was skulking around a used book store with some idea of finding Golden Age comic reprints or the like, when I saw a uniform row of Saint hardcovers from the 1940s. Three were titles that I hadn't read, so I pounced on them with lukewarm interest. Maybe I'd get to them. Well, within an hour I was deeply into "The High Fence," read it straight through, ate it up and am ready for more.
This story is from the June 16 1934 issue of THE THRILLER and included in the collection THE SAINT GOES ON. It's classic Charteris. (Maybe not quite his best, as the hero is helped by sheer luck at a crucial moment). Simon Templar is in London still badgering poor old Claud Eustace Teal, added by the lovely and reckless Patricia Holm (yay!) and the dim brutal Hoppy Uniatz (muted yay-sorta). Teal is being further harassed by a new underling, Junior Inspector Pryke, a well-dressed prig who is just insufferable.
The case on hand is the search for the High Fence, who manages to run a successful market in stolen gems while remaining unidentified. As Teal begins to ask questions of a shady sort named Sunny Jim, someone shoots the fellow and gets away. When Teal returns from the brief chase, he finds the body of Sunny Jim is not longer there.
Instead, flippant and infuriating as ever, there sits Simon Templar. And the old game is on again, the Saint and Teal working sort of together and sort of against each other as they both seek the High Fence, while the newbie Pryke has to endure the same insolence that has given Teal acid reflux over the years. Complicating things is that Sunny Jim was not dead, only grazed and spirited away by the Saint.
The sad thing is that within a few pages a little light bulb went "Ding!" over my head and I realized who the High Fence was. This used to happen all the time when reading Ellery Queen and Mike Shayne books and I was nearly always proven wrong. But this time the final unexpected twist didn't pop up in the last few pages. What the heck, was Charteris playing on our expectations and goofing on us by leaving the anwer so obvious? I guess so. (The actual twist is almost as satisfying, as it looks as if the Saint will come out of this adventure without any loot; don't count on it.)
One highlight of the story is when Simon has been taken by the bad guys and is about to be dumped into the Thames with a heavy weight tied to his feet. And for once, he does not talk his way out of it, into the drink he goes. Leslie Charteris' prose is as cocky and flamboyant as I remember it. If you like terse, blunt sentences in the Hemingway vein, he's not for you. But if you enjoy an author who can digress for a paragraph about how wonderful his stories are (dismissing various cliches even he has grown tired of) and how intelligent his readers must therefore be, you have to chuckle at his brass. Charteris and the Saint obviously had the same attitude toward life. The good news for me is that I now have four more Saint novelettes sitting on the desk before me, and a favorite little literary spark that I had forgotten has flared up again.