He gave the Saint a long shot of brandy and proceeded to wash his hands methodically in a cracked basin.
"How've you been keeping, Fay?" he asked.
"Pretty well," she replied casually. "How about you?"
He grunted, drying his hands.
"I've been fairly busy. I haven't taken a vacation since I went to the Chicago exhibition."
The bullet had entered the Saint's back at an angle, pierced cleanly through the latissimus dorsi, ricochetted off a rib, and lodged a few inches lower down in the chest wall. Simon knew that the lung had not been touched—otherwise he would probably have been dead before that—but he was grateful for knowing the exact extent of the injury. The doctor worked with impersonal efficiency; and the girl took a cigarette and watched, passing him things when he asked for them. Simon looked at her face—it was impassive, untouched by her thoughts.
"Have another drink?" asked the doctor, when he had dressed the wound.
Simon nodded. His face was a trifle pale under his tan.
Fay Edwards poured it out, and the doctor went back to his cracked basin and washed his hands again.
"It was worth going to, that exhibition," he said. "I was too hot to enjoy it, but it was worth seeing. I don't know how they managed to put on some of those shows in the Streets of Paris."
He came back and peered at the Saint through his thick lenses, which made his eyes seem smaller than they were.
"That will cost you a thousand dollars," he said blandly.
The Saint felt in his pockets and remembered that he hadn't a nickel. Fortunately, he had deposited his ten-thousand-dollar bonus in a safe place before he went to interview Inselheim, but all his small change had been taken when he was searched after his capture. That was a broad departure from the underworld tradition which demands that a man who is taken for a ride shall be left with whatever money he has on him, but it was a tribute to the fear he had inspired which could transform even a couple of five-dollar bills and some silver into potential lethal weapons in his hands. He smiled crookedly.
"Is my credit good?"
"Certainly," said the surgeon without hesitation. "Send it to me tomorrow. In small bills, please. Leave the dressing on for a couple of days, and try to take things easy. You may have a touch of fever tomorrow. Take an aspirin."
He ushered them briskly down the hall, fondling the girl's hand unnecessarily.
"Come and see me any time you want anything, Fay. Goodnight."
Throughout their visit he bad not raised an eyebrow or asked a pertinent question: one gathered that a wounded man waking him up for attention in the small hours of the morning was nothing epoch-making in his practice, and that he had long since found it wise and profitable to mind his own business.
They sat in the car, and Simon lighted a cigarette. The doctor's brandy had taken off some of the deathly lassitude which had drained his vitality before; but he knew that the stimulation was only temporary, and he had work to do. Also there was still the enigma of Fay Edwards, which he would have to face before long. If only she would be merciful and leave the time to him, he would be easier in his mind: he had his normal share of the instinct to put off unpleasant problems. He didn't know what answer he could give her; he wanted time to think about it, although he knew that time and thought would bring him no nearer to an answer. But he knew she would not be merciful. The quality of mercy was rare enough in women, and in anyone like her it would be rarest of all. She would face his answer in the same way that she faced the fact of death, with the same aloof, impregnable detachment; he could only sense, in an indefinable intuitive way, what would lie behind that cold detachment; and the sensation was vaguely frightening.
"Where would you like to go?" she asked.
He smoked steadily, avoiding her eyes.
"Back to New York, I suppose. I haven't finished my job tonight. But you can drop me off anywhere it suits you."
"You're not fit to do any more today."
"I haven't finished," he said grimly.
She regarded him inscrutably; her mind was a thousand miles beyond his horizon, but the fresh sweetness of her body was too close for comfort.
"What did you come here to do?"
"I had a commission," he said.
He put his hand in his breast pocket, took out bis wallet, and opened it on his knee. She leaned towards him, looking over his shoulder at the scrap of paper that was exposed. His forefinger slid down the list of names written on it
"I came here to kill six men. I've killed three—Jack Irboll, Morrie Ualino, and Eddie Voelsang. Leaving three."
"Hunk is dead," she said, touching the list. "That was Jenson—the man who drove this car tonight."
"Leaving two," he amended quietly.
She nodded.
"I wouldn't know where to find Curly Ippolino. The last I heard of him, he was in Pittsburgh." Her golden-yellow eyes turned towards him impassively. ''But Dutch Kuhlmann is next."
The Saint forced himself to look at her. There was nothing else to be done. It had to be faced; and he was spellbound by a tremendous curiosity.
"What will you do? He's one of your friends, isn't he?"
"I have no ... friends," she said; and again he was disturbed by that queer haunting music in her voice. "I'll take you there. He'll just about be tired of waiting for Joe and Maxie by the time we arrive. You'll see him as he comes out."
Simon looked at the lighted panel of instruments on the dash. He didn't see them, but they were something to which he could turn his eyes. If they went back to find Dutch Kuhlmann, her challenge to himself would be in abeyance for a while longer. He might still escape. And his work remained: he had made a promise, and he had never yet failed to keep his word. He was certain that she was not leading him into a trap—it would have been fantastic to imagine any such complicated plan, when nothing could have been simpler than to allow Maxie to complete the job he had begun so well. On the other hand, she had offered the Saint no explanation of why she should help him, had asked him to give no reasons for his own grim mission. He felt that she would have had no interest in reasons. Hate, jealousy, revenge, a wager, even justice—any reasons that logic or ingenuity might devise would be only words to her. She was waiting, with her hand on the starting switch, for anything he cared to say.
The Saint bowed bis head slowly.
"I meant to go back to Charley's Place," he said.
A little more than one hour later Dutch Kuhlmann gulped down the dregs of his last drink, up-ended his glass, pulled out his large old-fashioned gold watch, yawned with Teutonic thoroughness, and shoved his high stool back from the bar.
"I'm goin' home," he said. "Hey, Toni—when Joe an' Maxie get here, you tell them to come und see me at my apartment"
The barman nodded, mechanically wiping invisible stains from the spotless mahogany.
"Very good, Mr. Kuhlmann."
Kuhlmann stood up and glanced towards the two sleek sphinx-faced young men who sat patiently at a strategic table. They finished their drinks hurriedly and rose to follow him like well-trained dogs as he waddled towards the door, exchanging gruff good-nights with friends and acquaintances as he went. In the foyer he waited for them to catch up with him. They passed him and stood between him and the door while it was opened. Also they went out first and inspected the street carefully before they nodded to him to follow. Kuhlmann came out and stood between them on the sidewalk—he was as thorough and methodical in his personal precautions as he was in everything else, which was one reason why his czardom had survived so long. He relighted his cigar and flicked the match sportively at one of his equerries.