She really did look like something out of a fairy tale, he thought, or like a moment of musical comedy dropped miraculously into the comfortable masculine furnishings of the Old Barn, with the perfect proportions of her slender body triumphing even over that shabby suit of dungarees and her face framed in its setting of spun gold; but there was nothing illusory about the unfaltering alertness of those dark grey eyes or the experienced handling of the gun she held. The only uncertain thing about her was the smile that lingered about her lips.
She said: "I'm glad you didn't get me here."
"But you're here now," said the Saint. "So couldn't we make up for lost time?"
His hand moved towards his breast pocket, but the two guns that covered him moved more quickly. Simon raised his eyebrows.
"Can't I have a cigarette?"
"Take them out slowly."
Simon took out his case slowly, as he was ordered, and opened it.
"Can I offer you one?"
"We haven't got time."
"You're not going?"
"I'm afraid we've got to." Her acting was as light and polished as his own. "But you're coming with us."
The Saint was still for a moment, with the flame of his lighter burning without a quiver under the end of his cigarette. He drew the end of the cigarette to a bright red and extinguished the flame with a measured jet of smoke.
"But what about Algernon?" he said. "Are you sure he won't be jealous?"
"You're not coming as far as that. We've got to get back to your car, and we don't want any trouble. As long as your friend stays here and doesn't interfere we shan't have any trouble. I just want you to come down and see us off."
"You hear that, Hoppy?" said the Saint. "Any fancy work from you, and I get bumped off."
"That," said the girl grimly, "is the idea."
Simon weighed his prospects realistically. He hadn't exaggerated the solitude of their surroundings: a pitched battle with machine guns at the Old Barn would have caused less local commotion than letting off a handful of squibs in the deepest wastes of the Sahara. There was nothing to neutralize the value of those two automatics by the door if the fingers on their triggers chose to become dictatorial — and the experience of a lifetime had taught the Saint to be highly conservative about the chances he took in calling a bluff from the wrong side of a gun. Apart from which, he was wondering whether he wanted to make any change in the arrangements…
As if he were trying to find arguments for accepting the bitterness of defeat his eyes turned a little away from the girl to a point in space where they would include a glimpse of the face of the lorry driver. He had sown good seed there, he knew, even if he had been ' balked of the quick harvest he had hoped for… And on the outskirts of his vision, removing all doubt, he saw Jopley's sullen features screwed up in a grotesque wink…
"We always see our visitors off the premises," said the Saint virtuously. "Are you sure you won't have one for the road?"
"Not tonight."
Either he was setting new records in immortal imbecility, Simon realized as he led the way down the steep winding lane, or the threads that had baffled him for the past three weeks were on the point of coming into his reach; and some irrational instinct seemed to tell him that it was not the former. He had no inkling then of how gruesomely and from what an unexpected angle his hunch was to be vindicated.
The beam of his own torch, held in the girl's hand, shone steadily on his back as he walked and cast his elongated shadow in a long oval of light down the track. The decision was taken now — whatever he might have done to turn the tables back in the Old Barn, out there in the empty night with the torchlight against him and two guns at his back there was no trick he could play that would fall far short of attempted suicide.
They came down to the road, and he saw the lights of his car parked a little way past the turning. Jopley got in first and took the wheel; and then the girl slipped into the seat beside him, still holding the Saint in the centre of the flashlight's ring of luminance. Simon stood by the side of the car and smiled into the light.
"You still haven't told me your name, darling," he said.
"Perhaps that's because I don't want you to know it."
"But how shall I know who it is when you call me up? You are going to call me up, aren't you? I'm in the London telephone directory, and the number here is Lyndhurst 9965." He lingered imperceptibly over the figures — but that was for Jopley's benefit. "Sometime when you're not so busy I'd like to take you out in the moonlight and tell you how beautiful you are."
"There's no moon tonight," she said, "so you'll want the torch to get home with."
The light spun towards him, and he grabbed for it automatically. By the time he had fumbled it into his hands the lights of the car were vanishing round the next bend in the road.
The Saint made his way slowly back up the hill. So that was that, and his wisdom or folly would be proved one way or the other before long. He grinned faintly at the thought of the expression that would come over Peter Quentin's face when he heard the news. She really would be worth a stroll in the moonlight, too, if they weren't so busy…
There was someone in the porch by the front door.
The Saint stopped motionless, with a flitter of impalpable hailstones sweeping up his spine. As he walked with the torch swinging loosely in his hand, its arc of light had passed over a pair of feet, cutting them out of the darkness at the ankles. The glimpse had only been instantaneous, before the moving splash of light lost it again; but Simon knew that he had not been mistaken. He had switched out the torch instinctively before he grasped the full significance of what he had seen.
After a moment he took three soundless steps to the side and switched the light on again, holding it well away from his body. And for a second time he experienced that ghostly tingle of nerves.
For the man was sitting, not standing, on a low bench in the alcove beside the door, with his hands hanging down by his sides and his body hunched forward so that his face was buried in his knees. But although his features were hidden, there was something about the general appearance of the man that struck Simon with a sudden shock of recognition.
"Pargo!" said the Saint sharply.
The figure did not move, and Simon stepped quickly forward and raised its head. One look was enough to tell him that Ernie Pargo was dead.
VI
About the manner of his dying Simon preferred not to speculate too profoundly. He had actually been strangled by the cord that was still knotted around his throat so tightly that it was almost buried in the flesh of his neck, but other things had happened to him before that.
"I see anudder guy like dis once," said Mr Uniatz chattily. "He is one of Dutch Kuhlmann's mob, an' de Brooklyn mob takes him over to Bensenhoist one night to ask him who squealed on Ike Izolsky. Well, when dey get t'ru wit' him he is like hamboiger wit'out de onions—"
"You have such fascinating reminiscences, Hoppy," said the Saint.
He was laying Pargo's limp body on the settee and arranging the relaxed limbs for the rough examination which he felt had to be made. It was not a pleasant task, and for all the Saint's hardened cynicism it made his mouth set in a stony line as he went on.
In the brightness of the living room the dead man looked even more ghastly than he had looked outside — and that had been enough to make the darkness around the house suddenly seem to be peopled with ugly shadows and to make the soft stir of the leaves sound like cackles of ghoulish laughter. The Brooklyn mob could have learnt very little from whoever had worked on Pargo — Simon did not have to ask himself how they had known where to leave his body.