The hoodlum who never spoke came around from behind the Saint’s chair and crossed the big room to disappear through one of the doors at the other end. Unciello smoked his cigar impassively. There was no idle conversation.
Presently the man who had left came back, and with him he brought Sue Inverest.
She was so exactly like Simon had seen her last, and as he remembered her, that for a moment it felt as if they were back in the Colosseum. Only in a strange dislocation of time they now seemed to belong rather with the expendables who had once stood on the floor of the arena, while a modern but no less vicious Nero squatted like a toad on his brocaded throne and held their lives in his hands. But the girl still carried her curly fair head high, and Simon smiled into her shocked gray eyes.
“Your father sent me to see if you were all right, Sue,” he said gently. “Have they hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“No, not yet. Are they going to let me go?”
“Quite soon, I hope.”
“Write that letter,” Unciello said.
The taciturn thug brought a pad and pencil from a side table and thrust them at the Saint.
Simon balanced the pad on his knee and wrote, taking his time:
Dear Mr Inverest,
I’ve seen Sue, and she’s still as good as new. So you’d better hurry up and meet Tony’s terms, even if it isn’t exactly “for the public good.” Perhaps that would sound better to you in Latin, but it all comes to the homo sequendum. Will report again as arranged.
He held out the pad. The man who had brought it carried it across to Unciello.
Unciello read it through slowly, and looked up again at the Saint.
“What’s that homo sequendum deal?” he demanded.
“Homo means ‘same,’ as in ‘homosexual,’ ” Simon explained patiently. “Sequendum is the same root as our words ‘sequel’ or ‘consequences.’ It just means ‘the same result.’ Inverest goes for that Latin stuff.”
Unciello’s eyes swiveled up to the girl.
“That’s right,” she said in a low voice. “He does.”
“Guys like you with your education give me a pain,” Unciello said. His cold stare was on the Saint again. “And what’s that about reporting again?”
“I’m not stupid enough to expect you to turn me loose now,” Simon said. “And anyhow, Inverest is going to want another report on Sue — authenticated with our password — from me, before they finally let your brother go.”
The gang chieftain held out the pad towards his errand-boy.
“Have somebody downstairs send it,” he ordered.
He continued to study the Saint emotionlessly, but with deep curiosity.
“You’re a real smart fellow,” he said. “But you’re taking a lot of chances. What’s in it for you?”
Simon raised his eyebrows a fraction.
“Hudson Inverest is a rich man in his own right,” he said. “He’s offered a reward of a hundred thousand dollars to anyone who helps get his daughter back. Didn’t your pal Buono tell you that? Even he looked interested!”
The messenger returned and resumed his position behind the Saint’s chair, but Unciello did not even appear to notice him for several seconds. He remained sunk in an implacable and frightening immobility of meditation. And then at last his saurian eyes flicked up.
Tell Mario to serve dinner,” he said. “We’ll all eat together. And send word to Buono I want to see him — subito.”
6
They ate in a palatial dining room that was almost over-poweringly ornate with gilt and frescoes, Sue and the Saint on either side of Tony Unciello at the head of a long table. One of the guards stood behind each of the involuntary guests like an attendant footman, but their function was not to serve. They kept their hands in the side pockets of their coats and their eyes on every movement that was made, particularly by the Saint.
The meal, in spite of the lavish surroundings, was only spaghetti, though with an excellent sauce. Apparently that was what Unciello liked, for he tackled a huge plate of it with a practically uninterrupted series of engulfing motions, almost inhaling it in a continuous stream. Sue Inverest could only toy with hers, but the Saint ate with reasonable appetite, although the grotesque silence broken only by the clink of silverware and the voracious slurping of the host would have unnerved most other men.
“Tony doesn’t like small talk at meals,” Simon tried to encourage her, “but don’t let him put you off your feed. You’ve got to keep in good shape to go home.”
Unciello stuffed the last remnants from his plate into his mouth until his cheeks bulged, then washed them down with a draught of Chianti from a Venetian goblet. He wiped his face with the napkin tucked under his chin.
“Now I got it,” he announced, and the Saint looked at him inquiringly.
Unciello said, “I got that homo sequendum business. That’s gotta be the password you fixed up with Inverest. It’s the only phony-sounding thing in your letter. So now I don’t need you anymore. I got boys who can copy any handwriting. And with that password, now they can write letters to Inverest and tell him his daughter’s okay.”
“You mean I can go, Tony?” Simon asked hopefully.
“Yeah — to the morgue. You never was going anywhere else, because you know too much about this place. Like I told you. But now I don’t have to keep you around until they let Mick go. I guess you ain’t so smart, after all.”
Simon Templar had no argument. It would have done no good to point out that this was one occasion when he had never figured himself very smart, so far as his own personal survival was concerned. He felt lucky enough to have achieved as much as he had done. Now, if he was not going to live to see the finish, he could still hope that the gamble had not been altogether lost. As for himself, it had to come someday, and this way was as worthwhile as any.
He smiled at the girl’s comprehending horror, and his eyes were very gay and blue.
“Don’t worry, Sue,” he said. “Don’t think about it, ever. I just hope everything works out all right for you.”
“I’ll take care of her myself, personally,” Unciello said, and only then, for the first time, Simon felt ice in his heart.
The door from the living room opened abruptly, and Inspector Buono came in.
He looked very cool and elegant, and if he had any nervousness, it might only have been found in his eyes. They merely glanced at the girl and Simon, and went quickly back to Unciello.
“Eccomi arrato,” he said obsequiously. “Cosa desidera?”
“Talk English,” Unciello growled. “The Saint wants to know what’s going on. It’s his funeral we’re talking about. I sent for you because you’re just the boy to take charge of it. You got the perfect set-up. You make it look like he was shot resisting arrest. You do it yourself, and maybe get yourself a medal.”
“But—”
“I’m sending a couple of the boys along to watch you.” Unciello poured another glass of wine, and his broad face was malevolently bland. “I hear some of our people are worried that one of these days you might get too interested in a reward, if it was big enough. Now, if they see you do something like this, so they can feel they’ve got something on you, it’ll give ’em a lot more confidence.”
“Sì, Signor,” Buono said whitely.
Then the door behind him burst open again and the room suddenly filled with armed police.
Through their midst stepped a large elderly perspiring man with a superb black handlebar moustache, who surveyed the scene with somewhat pompous satisfaction.