"Been driving these trucks for long?"
"I bin drivin' 'em for a bit."
"Do pretty well out of it?"
The driver was silent again for a space, but this time his silence was not due to obstinacy. His frown probed at the Saint distrustfully; but Simon was blowing wisps of smoke at the ceiling.
"I don't do too bad."
"How much is that?"
"Ten quid a week."
"You know, you're quite a character, aren't you?" said the Saint. "There aren't many people who'd let Hoppy singe their tootsies for ten quid a week. How d'you work it out — a pound a toe?"
The man dragged jerkily at his cigarette without answering. The question was hardly answerable anyway — it was more of a gentle twitch at the driver's already overstrung nerves, a reminder of those unpleasant possibilities which were really so unthinkable.
"If I were you," said the Saint with an air of kindly interest, "I'd be looking for another job."
"Wot sort of job?"
"I think it'd be a kind of sideline," said the Saint meditatively. "I'd look round for some nice generous bloke who wouldn't let people toast my feet or anything like that but who'd just pay me an extra twenty quid a week for answering a few questions now and again. He might even put up fifty quid when I had anything special to tell him, and it wouldn't hurt me a bit."
"It's a waste of money, boss," said Mr Uniatz with conviction. "If de candles don't woik I got a new one I see in de movies de udder day. You mash de guy's shins wit' a hammer—"
"You won't pay too much attention to him, will you, Algernon?" said the Saint. "He gets a lot of these ideas, you know — it's the way he was brought up. It's not my idea of a spare-time job, though."
The driver shifted himself from one foot to the other. It wasn't his idea of a spare-time job either — or even a legitimate part of the job he had. He didn't need to have the balance of the alternatives emphasized to him. They were so clean cut that they made the palms of his hands feel clammy. But that lazily, frighteningly impersonal voice went on:
"Anyway, you don't have to make up your mind in a hurry if you don't want to. Hoppy '11 keep you company if you don't mind waiting till I come back, so you won't be lonely. It's rather a lonely place otherwise, you know. We were only saying the other day that a bloke could sit here and scream the skies down, and nobody would hear him. Not that you'd have anything to scream about of course…"
"Wot is this job?" asked the man hoarsely.
Simon flicked the ash from his cigarette and hid the sparkle of excitement in his eyes.
"Just telling us some of these odd things we want to know."
The man's lips clamped and relaxed spasmodically, and his broad chest moved with the strain of his breathing. He stood with his chin drawn in, and his eyes peered up from under a ledge of sullen shadow.
"Well," he said. "Go on."
"Who was the girl friend?"
"Why don't you ask her?"
The voice was soft and musical, startlingly unlike the harsh growl that Simon's ears had been attuned to, and it came from behind him.
The Saint spun round.
She stood in the open doorway, her feet astride with a hint of boyish swagger, still in her soiled overalls, one hand in the trouser pocket, with the yellow curls turn-Ming around her exquisitely moulded face, a slight smile on her red lips. Her eyes, he discovered, now that he saw them open for the first time, were a dark midnight grey — almost the same shade as the automatic he held steadily levelled at his chest.
For three seconds the Saint stood rigidly spellbound. And then a slow smile touched the corners of his mouth in response.
"Well, darling," he murmured, "what is your name?"
V
"You ought to be a detective, Mr Templar," she said. "I don't have to ask you yours."
"But you have an advantage. We've tried checking up on your lorries, but you always send them out with fake number plates and no other identification, so it's rather difficult. I have to suffer for being honest."
"Or for not being so careful," she said. "By the way, will you tell your friend to do something about his hands?"
Simon looked round. Mr Uniatz was still frozen as the interruption had caught him, with his mouth hanging open and his right hand arrested halfway to the armpit holster where his Betsy nestled close to his heart. His eyes welcomed the Saint with an agonized plea for guidance, and Simon took his wrist and put his hand gently down.
"Leave it alone for a minute, Hoppy," he said. "We don't want the lady to start shooting…" His gaze turned back to the girl. "That is, if she can shoot," he added thoughtfully.
"Don't worry," she said calmly. "I can shoot."
The Saint's glance measured the distance.
"It's about six yards," he observed. "And a lot of people have mistaken ideas about how easy it is to pot a moving target with an automatic at six yards."
"Would you like to try me?"
Simon poised his cigarette end between his forefinger and thumb and flipped it sideways. It struck Hoppy's discarded bottle, over by the settee, with a faint plunk! and sent up a tiny fountain of sparks.
"Hit that," he said.
The muzzle of the gun swung away from his body, but it was only for an instant. She fired without seeming to aim, and the automatic was aligned on the Saint's breastbone again before the crash of the explosion had stopped rattling in his ears, but the bottle was spattered in fragments over the carpet.
The Saint nodded to Hoppy.
"She can shoot," he remarked. "She's been practising."
"It's not much use having a gun if you don't."
"You've been reading some good books," said the Saint, and his smile was serene but watchful. "It looks as if you have what is known as the Bulge — for the time being anyway. So where do we go from here? Would you like us to sing and dance for you? Hoppy's just discovered that he can yodel, and he's dying for an audience."
"I'm afraid we haven't time for that. Jopley—"
The driver came out of his temporary stupor. He thrust himself forward and retrieved his gun from the Saint's pocket and shuffled crabwise around the room in the direction of the door, keeping well clear of the girl's line of fire. Remembering the stage at which their conversation had been interrupted, the Saint could understand why he had not been so quick to seize his opportunity as might have been expected, and a malicious twinkle came into his gaze.
"What — you don't want him, do you?" he said. "We thought we'd do you a good turn and take him off your hands."
"I came back for him," she said, "so I suppose I do want him."
Simon acknowledged the argument with a slight movement of his head.
"You didn't waste much time about it either," he said appreciatively. "How did you track him down — by smell?"
"I followed you. I pulled into a side turning in West Holme and waited to see if you'd go that way. Then I just kept behind you. It wasn't difficult."
It didn't sound very difficult when the trick was explained. The Saint sighed ruefully at the reflection of his own thoughtlessness.
"That's the worst of lorries," he complained. "It's so hard to notice what's behind you. Something ought to be done about it… But I hope you'll take care of Algernon if you're borrowing him. We were just starting to get matey."
"I heard you," she said.
"Yus." Jopley's voice was loud and grating. "Goin' ter burn me feet, that's 'ow they were goin' ter get matey. I've a good mind—"
"You haven't," said the girl evenly. "We'll leave things like that to gentlemen like Mr Templar."
The Saint smiled at her.
"We've got a secondhand rack and some thumbscrews in the cellar too," he said. "But I prefer boiling people down with onions and a dash of white wine. It makes quite a good clear soup, rather like madrilene."