Simon looked at the weapon, a couple of yards away, and sank back further into his chair. He took another drink from his glass.
"Don't play cat-and-mouse, Fernack," he said. "It isn't worthy of you."
"It would be pretty tough," Fernack persisted, as if he had not heard the interruption. "Particularly after I brought Kestry as far as the door an' then sent him home. There wouldn't be anything much I could put up for an alibi. I didn't have to see you alone in my own apartment, without even a guy waitin' in the hall in case you gave any trouble, when I could 've taken you to any station house in the city or right down to Centre Street. If anything went wrong, I'd have a hell of a lot of questions to answer; an' Kestry wouldn't help me. He must be feelin' pretty sore at the way I bawled him out at the Waldorf. It'd give him a big kick if I slipped up an' gave him the laugh back at me. Yeah, it'd be pretty tough for me if you got away, Saint."
He scratched his chin ruminatively for a moment and then turned and walked heavily over to the far end of the room, where there was a side table with a box of cheap cigars. Simon's eyes were riveted, in weird fascination, on the pearl-handled revolver which the detective had left behind. It lay in solitary magnificence in the exact centre of the bare table— the Saint could have stood up and reached it in one step— but Fernack was not even looking at him. His back was still turned, and he was absorbed in rummaging through the cigar box.
"On the other hand," the deep voice boomed on abstractedly, "nobody would know before morning. An' a lot of things can happen in a few hours. Take the Big Fellow, for instance. There's a guy that this city is wantin' even worse than you. It'd be a great day for the copper that brought him in. I'm not sure that even the politicians could get him out again—because he's the man that runs them, an' if he was inside they'd be like a snake with its head cut off. We've got a new municipal election comin' along, and this old American public has a way of waking up sometimes, when the right thing starts 'em off. Yeah—if I lost you but I got the Big Fellow instead, Kestry'd have to think twice about where he laughed."
Fernack had found the cigar which he had been hunting down. He turned half round, bit off the end, and spat it through his teeth. Then he searched vaguely for matches.
"Yeah," he said thoughtfully, "there's a lot of responsibility wrapped up in a guy like you."
Simon cleared his throat. It was oddly difficult to speak distinctly.
"Suppose any of those things happened—if you did get the Big Fellow," he said jerkily. "Nobody's ever seen him. Nobody could prove anything. How would that help you so much?"
"I don't want proof," Fernack replied, with a flat arrogance of certitude that was more deadly than anything the Saint had ever heard. "If a guy like you, for instance, handed a guy to me and said he was the Big Fellow—I'd get my proof. That's what you don't understand about the third degree. When you know you're right, a full confession is more use than any amount of evidence that lawyers can twist around backwards. Don't worry. I'd get my proof."
Simon emptied his glass. His cigarette had gone out and he had not noticed it—he threw it away and lighted another. A new warmth was spreading over him, driving away the intolerable fatigue that gripped his limbs, crushing down pain; it might have been the quality of Fernack's brandy, or the dawn of a hope that had been dead for a long time. The unwonted hoarseness still clogged his throat.
But the fight was back in him. The hope and courage, the power and tie glory, were creeping back through his veins in a mighty tide that washed defeat and despondency away. The sound of trumpets echoed in his ears, faint and far away—how faint and far, perhaps no one but himself would ever know. But the sound was there. And if it was a deeper note, a little less brazen and flamboyant than it had ever been before, only the Saint knew how much that also meant.
He stood up and reached for the gun. Even then, he could scarcely believe that it was in his power to touch it—that it wouldn't vanish into thin air as soon as his fingers came within an inch of it, a derisive will-o'-the-wisp created by weariness and despair out of the fumes of unnatural stimulation. At least, there must be a string tied to it—it would be jerked suddenly out of his reach, while the detective jeered at him ghoulishly. . . . But Fernack wasn't even looking at him. He had turned away again and was fumbling with a box of matches as if he had forgotten what he had picked them up for.
Simon touched the gun. The steel was still warm from Fernack's pocket. His fingers closed round the butt, tightened round its solid contours; it fitted beautifully into his hand. He held it a moment, feeling the supremely balanced weight of it along the muscles of his arm; and then he put it away in his pocket
"Take care of it," Fernack said, striking his match. "I'm rather fond of that gun."
"Thanks, Fernack," said the Saint quietly. "I'll report to you by half-past nine—with or without the Big Fellow."
"You'd better wash and clean up a bit and get your coat on properly before you go," said Fernack casually. "The way you look now, any dumb cop would take you in on sight."
Ten minutes later Simon Templar left the house. Fernack did not even watch him go.
* * *
Chris Cellini himself appeared behind the bars of his basement door a few moments after Simon rang the bell. He recognized the Saint almost at once and let him in. In spite of the hour, his rich voice had not lost a fraction of its welcoming cordiality.
"Come in, Simon! I hope you don't want a steak now, but you can have a drink."
He was leading the way back towards the kitchen, but Simon hesitated in the corridor.
"Is anyone else here?"
Chris shook his head.
"Nobody but ourselves. The boys have only just gone—we had a late night tonight, or else you'd of found me in bed."
He sat the Saint down at the big centre table, stained with the relics of an evening's conviviality, and brought up a bottle and a couple of clean glasses. His alert brown eyes took in the pallor of Simon's face, the marks on his shirt which showed beyond the edge of his coat, and the stiffness of his right arm.
"You've been in the wars, Simon. Have you seen a doctor? Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm all right," said the Saint laconically.
Chris regarded him anxiously for a moment longer; and then his rich habitual laugh pealed out again—a big, meaningless, infectious laugh that was the ultimate expression of his sunny personality. If there was a trace of artificiality about it then, Simon understood the spirit of it.
"Say, one of these days you'll get into some serious trouble, and I shall have to go to your funeral. The last time I went to a funeral, it was a man who drank himself to death. I remember a couple of years ago ..."
He talked with genial inconsequence for nearly an hour, and Simon was unspeakably glad to have all effort taken out of his hands. Towards the end of that time Simon was watching the slow crawling of the hands of the clock on the wall till his vision blurred; the sudden jangle of the bell in the passage outside made him start. He downed the rest of his drink quickly.
"I think that's for me," he said.
Chris nodded, and the Saint went outside and picked up the receiver.
"Hullo," said a thick masculine voice. "Is dat Mabel?"
"No, this is not Mabel," said the Saint viciously. "And I hope she sticks a knife in you when you do find her."
Over in Brooklyn, a disconsolate Mr. Bungstatter jiggered the hook querulously and then squinted blearily at the dancing figures on his telephone dial and stabbed at them doggedly again.
The Saint went back to the kitchen and shrugged heavily in answer to Chris's unspoken question. Chris was silent for a short while and then went on talking again as if nothing had happened. In ten minutes the telephone rang again.