"What do you mean?" asked the girl.
"I mean this," said the Saint. "Figure out our timetables for yourselves — the kidnappers' and mine. They can't have been more than a few seconds ahead of me. And from below the window they had to get your father to a car, shove him in, and take him away—if they took him away. But I told you! I walked all round the house, slowly, listening, and I didn't hear anything. When did they start making these completely noiseless cars?"
Quintus half rose from his chair.
"You mean — they might still be in the grounds? Then we're sure to catch them! As soon as the police get here — you've sent for them, of course—"
Simon shook his head.
"Not yet. And that's something else that makes me think I'm right. I haven't called the police yet because I can't. I can't call them because the telephone wires have been cut. And they were cut after all this had happened — after I'd walked round the house, and come back in, and told Rosemary what had happened!"
The girl's lips were parted, her wide eyes fastened on him with a mixture of fear and eagerness. She began to say: "But they might—"
The crash stopped her.
Her eyes switched to the left, and Simon saw blank horror leap into her face as he whirled towards the sound. It had come from one of the windows, and it sounded like smashing glass… It was the glass. He saw the stir of the curtains, and the gloved hand that came between them under a shining gun-barrel, and flung himself fiercely backwards.
X
He catapulted himself at the main electric light switches beside the door — without conscious decision, but knowing that his instinct must be right. More slowly, while he was moving, his mind reasoned it out: the unknown man who had broken the window had already beaten him to the draw, and in an open gun battle with the lights on, the unknown had a three-to-one edge in choice of targets… Then the Saint's shoulder hit the wall, and his hand sliced up over the switches just as the invader's revolver spoke once, deafeningly.
Blam!
Simon heard the spang of the bullet some distance from him, and more glass shattered. Quintus gasped deeply. The Saint's ears sang with the concussion, but through the buzzing he was trying to determine whether the gunman had come in.
He moved sideways, noiselessly, crouching, his Luger out in his hand. Nothing else seemed to move. His brain was working again in a cold fever of precision. Unless the pot-shot artist had hoped to settle everything with the first bullet, he would expect the Saint to rush the window. Therefore the Saint would not rush the window… The utter silence in the room was battering his brain with warnings.
His fingers touched the knob of the door, closed on it and turned it without a rattle until the latch disengaged. Gathering his muscles, he whipped it suddenly open, leapt through it out into the hall, and slammed it behind him. In the one red-hot instant when he was clearly outlined against the lights of the hall, a second shot blasted out of the dark behind him and splintered the woodwork close to his shoulder; but his exposure was too swift and unexpected for the sniper's marksmanship. Without even looking back, Simon dived across the hall and let himself out the front door.
He raced around the side of the house, and dropped to a crouch again as he reached the corner that would bring him in sight of the terrace outside the drawing-room windows. He slid an eye round the corner, prepared to yank it back on an instant's notice, and then left it there with the brow over it lowering in a frown.
It was dark on the terrace, but not too dark for him to see that there was no one standing there.
He scanned the darkness on his right, away from the house; but he could find nothing in it that resembled a lurking human shadow. And over the whole garden brooded the same eerie stillness, the same incredible absence of any hint of movement, that had sent feathery fingers creeping up his spine when he was out there before.
The Saint eased himself along the terrace, flat against the wall of the house, his forefinger tight on the trigger and his eyes probing the blackness of the grounds. No more shots came at him. He reached the french windows with the broken pane, and stretched out a hand to test the handle. They wouldn't open. They were still fastened on the inside — as he had fastened them.
He spoke close to the broken pane.
"All clear, souls. Don't put the lights on yet, but let me in."
Presently the window swung back. There were shutters outside, and he folded them across the opening and bolted them as he stepped in. Their hinges were stiff from long disuse. He did the same at the other window before he groped his way back to the door and relit the lights.
"We'll have this place looking like a fortress before we're through," he remarked cheerfully; and then the girl ran to him and caught his sleeve.
"Didn't you see anyone?"
He shook his head.
"Not a soul. The guy didn't even open the window — just stuck his gun through the broken glass and sighted from outside. I have an idea he was expecting me to charge through the window after him, and then he'd 've had me cold. But I fooled him. I guess he heard me coming round the house, and took his feet off the ground." He smiled at her reassuringly. "Excuse me a minute while I peep at Hoppy — he might be worried."
He should have known better than to succumb to that delusion. In the kitchen, a trio of white-faced women and one man who was not much more sanguine jumped round with panicky squeals and goggling eyes as he entered; but Mr Uniatz removed the bottle which he was holding to his lips with dawdling reluctance.
"Hi, boss," said Mr Uniatz, with as much phlegmatic cordiality as could be expected of a man who had been interrupted in the middle of some important business; and the Saint regarded him with new respect.
"Doesn't anything ever worry you, Hoppy?" he inquired mildly.
Mr Uniatz waved his bottle with liberal nonchalance.
"Sure, boss, I hear de firewoiks," he said. "But I figure if anyone is gettin' hoit it's some udder guy. How are t'ings?"
"T'ings will be swell, so long as I know you're on the job," said the Saint reverently, and withdrew again.
He went back to the drawing-room with his hands in his pockets, not hurrying; and in spite of what had happened he felt more composed than he had been all the evening. It was as if he sensed that the crescendo was coming to a climax beyond which it could go no further, while all the time his own unravellings were simplifying the tangled undercurrents towards one final resolving chord that would bind them all together. And the two must coincide and blend. All he wanted was a few more minutes, a few more answers… His smile was almost indecently carefree when he faced the girl again.
"All is well," he reported, "and I'm afraid Hoppy is ruining your cellar."
She came up to him, her eyes searching him anxiously.
"That shot when you ran out," she said. "You aren't hurt?"
"Not a bit. But it's depressing to feel so unpopular."
"What makes you think you're the only one who's unpopular?" asked the doctor dryly.
He was still sitting in the chair where Simon had left him, and Simon followed his glance as he screwed his neck round indicatively. Just over his left shoulder, a picture on the wall had a dark-edged hole drilled in it, and the few scraps of glass that still clung to the frame formed a jagged circle around it.
The Saint gazed at the bullet scar, and for a number of seconds he said nothing. He had heard the impact, of course, and heard the tinkle of glass; but since the shot had missed him he hadn't given it another thought. Now that its direction was pointed out to him, the whole sequence of riddles seemed to fall into focus.