"Not altogether," she said, without hesitation. "They didn't have to send me for that. I talked them into letting me come because I told them you'd probably talk to me for longer than you'd talk to them and anyhow you wouldn't be so likely to punch me on the nose. But I really did it because I wanted to see you myself."
The flicker that passed over Simon's face was almost imperceptible.
"I hope it's been worth it," he said flippantly; but he was watching her with a coolly reserved alertness.
"That's what you've got to tell me," she said. She looked away from him for a moment, stubbed out her cigarette nervously, looked back at him again with difficult frankness. Her hands moved uncertainly. She went on in a rush: "You see, I know Judd doesn't mean to give me my share. I could trust you. Whatever happens, they're going to give you trouble. I know you can take care of yourself, but I don't suppose you'd mind having it made easier for you. I could be on your side, without them knowing, and I wouldn't want much."
The Saint blew two smoke rings with leisured care, placing them side by side like the lenses of a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. They drifted towards the ceiling, enlarging languidly.
His face was inscrutable, but behind that pleasantly noncommittal mask he was thinking as quickly as he could.
He might have come to any decision. But before he could say anything there was an interruption.
The door was flung open, and Hoppy Uniatz crashed in.
Mr Uniatz's face was not at all inscrutable. It was as elementarily easy to read as an infant's primer. The ecstatic protrusion of his eyes, the lavish enthusiasm of his breathing, the broad beam that divided his physiognomy into two approximately equal halves, and the roseate glow which suffused his homely countenance, were all reminiscent of the symptoms of bliss that must have illuminated the features of Archimedes at the epochal moment of his life. He looked like a man who had just made the inspirational discovery of the century in his bath.
"It woiked, boss," he yawped exultantly, "it woiked I De dough is in Hogsbotham's bedroom!"
VIII
Simon Templar kept still. It cost him a heroic effort but he did it. He felt as if he were balanced on top of a thin glass flagpole in the middle of an earthquake, but he managed to keep the surface of his nonchalance intact. He kept Angela Lindsay's hands always within the radius of his field of vision, and said rather faintly: "What woiked?"
Mr Uniatz seemed slightly taken aback.
"Why, de idea you give me dis afternoon, boss," he explained, as though he saw little need for such childish elucidations. "You remember, you are saying why can't we sock dis guy de udder way an' knock his memory back. Well, I am t'inkin' about dat, an' it seems okay to me, an' I ain't got nut'n else to do on account of de door is locked an' I finished all de Scotch; so I haul off an' whop him on de toinip wit' de end of my Betsy. Well, he is out for a long time, an' when he comes round he still don't seem to know what it's all about, but he is talkin' about how dis guy Hogsbotham gives him a key to look after de house when he goes away, so he goes in an' parks de lettuce in Hogsbotham's bedroom. It is a swell idea, boss, an' it woiks," said Mr Uniatz, still marvelling at the genius which had conceived it.
The Saint felt a clutching contraction under his ribs which was not quite like the gastric hollowness of dismay and defensive tension which might reasonably have been there. It was a second or two before he could get a perspective on it; and when he did so, the realization of what it was made him feel slightly insane.
It was simply a wild desire to collapse into helpless laughter. The whole supernal essence of the situation was so immortally ludicrous that he was temporarily incapable of worrying about the fact that Angela Lindsay was a member of the audience. If she had taken a gun out of her bag and announced that she was going to lock them up while she went back to tell Kaskin and Dolf the glad news, which would have been the most obviously logical thing for her to do, he would probably have been too weak to lift a finger to prevent it.
Perhaps the very fact that she made no move to do so did more than anything else to restore him to sobriety. The ache in his chest died away, and his brain forced itself to start work again. He knew that she had a gun in her beg — he had looked for it and distinguished the outline of it when he first came into the room to meet her, and that was why he had never let himself completely lose sight of her hands. But her hands only moved to take another cigarette. She smiled at him as if she was sharing the joke, and struck a match.
"Well," he said dryly, "it looks like you've got your answer."
"To one question," she said. "You haven't answered the other. What shall I tell Judd?"
Simon studied her for the space of a couple of pulse-beats. In that time, he thought with a swiftness and clarity that was almost clairvoyant. He saw every angle and every prospect and every possible surprise.
He also saw Patricia standing aghast in the doorway behind the gorilla shoulders of Mr Uniatz, and grinned impudently at her.
He stood up, and put out his hand to Angela Lindsay.
"Go back and tell Morrie and Judd that we found out where the dough was last night," he said. "Verdean had buried it in a flowerbed. A couple of pals of mine dug it out in the small hours of this morning and took it to London. They're sitting over it with a pair of machine-guns in my apartment at Cornwall House now, and I dare anybody to take it away. That ought to hold 'em… Then you shake them off as soon as you can, and meet me at the Stag and Hounds opposite Weybridge Common in two hours from now. We'll take you along with us and show you Hogsbotham's nightshirts!"
She faced him steadily, but with a suppressed eagerness that played disturbing tricks with her moist lips.
"You mean that? You'll take me in with you?"
"Just as far as you want to be taken in, kid," said the Saint.
He escorted her to the front door. There was no car outside, but doubtless Messrs Kaskin and Dolf were waiting for her a little way up the road. He watched her start down the drive, and then he closed the door and turned back.
"You'd look better without the lipstick," said Patricia judicially.
He thumbed his nose at her and employed his handkerchief.
"Excuse me if I seem slightly scatterbrained," he remarked. "But all this is rather sudden. Too many things have happened in the last few minutes. What would you like to do with the change from fifteen thousand quid? There ought to be a few bob left after I've paid for my last lot of shirts and bought a new distillery for Hoppy."
"Have you fallen right off the edge," she asked interestedly, "or what is it?"
"At a rough guess, I should say it was probably 'What' ". The Saint's happy lunacy was too extravagant to cope with. "But who cares? Why should a little thing like this cause so much commotion? Have you no faith in human nature? The girl's better nature was revived. My pure and holy personality has done its work on her. It never fails. My shining example has made her soul pant for higher things. From now on, she is going to be on the side of the Saints. And she is going to take care of Judd and Morrie. She is going to lead them for us, by the nose, into the soup. Meanwhile, Professor Uniatz has shaken the scientific world to its foundations with bis new and startling treatment for cases of concussion. He has whopped Comrade Verdean on the turnip with the end of his Betsy and banged his memory back, and we are going to lay our hands on fifteen thousand smackers before we go to bed tonight, And we are going to find all this boodle in the bedroom of Ebenezer Hogsbotham, of all the superlative places in the world, I ask you, can life hold any more?"