The Holy Terror (The Saint) - Stories

Stories

The book consisted of the following stories, labelled as "Part One", "Part Two", and "Part Three".

1. The Inland Revenue: Simon finds himself up against an undefeatable enemy — the taxman — when Inland Revenue pursues him for back taxes after Templar publishes a novel. In order to come up with the money, Templar and his girlfriend, Patricia Holm, hatch a scheme to capture a blackmailer known as The Scorpion whose exploits have already led to a murder and several suicides. Templar's plan is complicated by a promise made to Inspector Claud Eustace Teal that he won't kill the villain this time. In this story it is established that his "Saints" gang of earlier books has been disbanded for some time and that Templar himself has (temporarily at least) given up the mantle of The Saint.
2. The Million Pound Day: While returning home to London after a brief holiday in Cornwall, Templar rescues a delirious man from the hands of a thug. When the man recovers, Templar and Patricia discover a scheme to undermine a new issue of Italian paper currency with unauthorized and counterfeit bills. This story takes place several months after the events of "The Inland Revenue", and as the story ends, Templar finds himself running afoul of Inspector Teal more so than usual.
3. The Melancholy Journey of Mr. Teal: Six months after the "Million Pound Day", Templar finds himself a few hundred pounds short of having 100,000 pounds in his bank account—enough to (for a while) retire. He sets his eyes on relieving two murderous diamond smugglers of their ill-gotten loot. When his scheme goes awry, however, Templar's long-simmering feud with Inspector Teal (which dates back to Enter the Saint) finally comes to a boil, and Templar finds himself not only on the run from Teal, but in order to ensure that he gets the diamonds, he is forced to also help one of the smugglers escape. (The title of the book, The Holy Terror somes from a description Templar gives of himself in this story.) This story leads directly into the next Saint book, Getaway.

Some editions of this book include an introduction, "Between Ourselves", in which Charteris discusses the philosophy of The Saint, promising that despite recent negative reviews in some publications, he had no intention of retiring from writing about Simon Templar (indeed, Charteris would continue to write stories about the character until the early 1960s, after which he would serve in an editorial capacity on further Saint adventures up until 1983).