Manders:
An additional payment of 5000 for each recruit at Bahama meeting. Meeting to be held as scheduled.
Further delay in disposal of B. will result in the most serious consequences for you.
Simon appreciatively noted the second mention of five thousand pounds in two letters, which seemed to imply a handsome private income for Dr Manders beyond his legitimate earnings as a certified enlightener of the nation’s youth. He wished that the professor had been thoughtful enough to leave whatever part of the earlier sum that remained after the purchase of airplane tickets and such, lying about in the cabinet with his dirty pictures, but unfortunately he had not, and the other treasures that the cabinet yielded had a less immediately obvious value than would a nice stiff stack of ten-pound notes. Besides another letter from Manders’ sponsor — the first one seen and mentioned by Bill Bast — there were two stapled typewritten manuscripts of nine or ten pages each.
A closer inspection with the thin beam of his pocket light showed Simon that they were some sort of statistical reports. Had they been lying among other reports and papers in plain view it is probable that he would never have noticed them unless in the last painstaking minutes of a thorough search. But since they were so carefully hidden, he carefully noted their titles.
The first was called VARIETIES OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSE IN PLAYERS OF THE DEATH GAME. The second: DISTRIBUTION OF HOMICIDAL OBSESSION IN AGE GROUPS 18 TO 25, WESTERN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA.
It was not exactly the ideal moment to take up those psychological studies, so the Saint folded the reports and stowed them in his pocket along with the letters. By taking them into custody he would at least have an opportunity to study, them before the police did, and if it seemed best that they be discovered eventually in Dr Manders’ house, that could be arranged, too — perhaps with another brief visit like tonight’s.
Satisfied that he had found as much as he could hope for without completely ransacking the house, Simon closed the cabinet, shut off his small light, and left as he had come. By now he was expecting that Teal would have Manders safely tucked away for the night; there was not a soul in the foggy streets, and he had every reason to think his expedition had gone completely unobserved.
So it was more than a small surprise to him when he opened his car door and saw Jenny Turner huddled down in the corner of the passenger seat. “Hullo, Simon.”
The Saint, with considerable restraint, continued his interrupted movement of getting in, but not without first assuring himself that no one else was hiding down in the space behind the front seats.
“Either there’s more than one of you or you sure get around a lot,” he said quietly.
“I followed you. Or I should say I thought you might come here, so I came myself. I left my car around the corner when .. I saw yours.”
“You’re quite the little private eye.” He started the engine and let in the clutch. “The next corner on the right,” Jenny said, pointing. “I suppose,” the Saint said as he drove slowly in the indicated direction, “my intentions were a bit obvious when I asked about Manders’ address. But what made you come after me?”
Jenny shrugged, slipping her arm through his. “I wanted to be quite sure I wouldn’t be left out of whatever you’re going to do next. It isn’t every night a girl has the chance to play a real death game with the Saint.”
Simon drove up behind the red MG and stopped again. They were far enough beyond the turning to be out of the ordinary purview of any police posse that might belatedly arrive at Manders’ house.
“We’re not playing any more,” he told her firmly. “This thing has stopped being a game, and I think the sooner you get home and curl up with a good textbook the better off you’ll be. But first can you tell me what happened to Manders?”
“After that fat detective questioned me he sent us all away except Manders. I drove off around the block and came back where I could watch. An ambulance arrived, and another car with men in plain clothes. One of them was lugging a lot of gear...”
“The police photographer, no doubt.”
“Then one of the plain-clothes men came out with one of the bobbies and they were holding Dr Manders between them, it looked as if he was handcuffed, and they put him in the car and drove away. When I realized they must have arrested him I almost dropped my teeth, but I thought if you really did think he did it you’d probably have come straight here.”
“And are you sure Inspector Teal didn’t enlist you as his own personal little spy?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me little,” Jenny said indignantly. “I’m not a child. I’m over twenty-one!”
“Well?”
“Of course he didn’t. I told you...”
“Well,” the Saint mused, “maybe I’ll never know, but if dear old Claud did hand you some kind of a line and ask you to report back anything interesting I might do, he’s come up a bit on the evolutionary scale. Those bumbling bipeds he usually employs to follow me around could lose track of an egg in a teacup.”
“He really didn’t.”
Simon touched her lips with one finger.
“Never mind. No point forcing you to betray any confidences or tell any fibs. All I want to be sure of is that you’re not a deep-dyed member of the Other Side. And I think I’m convinced of that.”
“Other side?” she repeated.
He had leaned very near her — which did not take much leaning.
“Yes,” he said, and then he kissed her, very lightly. “Other side. There’s always an other side, and you and I are going to the Bahamas tomorrow to meet them. What do you think of that?”
She just stared at him, so he kissed her again.
“Now, off to bed with you. We’re going to have a long trip ahead of ,us, and there’s a lot of packing to do.”
“Are you really going to the Bahamas?” she asked a little desperately, suddenly getting her voice back.
“Don’t you recall that Sebastian Tombs, part-time lecturer in Egyptology, won the Death Game fourth prize and was moved up to take Bill Bast’s place?”
“Oh,” Jenny said, with no easily definable nuance of expression.
“Of course, Claud Eustace isn’t supposed to know that, or he might try to stop me. I don’t think he’ll find out till it’s too late, if you don’t tell him. And just so that Grey Wyler can’t spill it, don’t say anything to him either. Later I’m counting on you to help persuade him to go along with the scheme wheeze.”
He got out, and opened the door on her side and walked her to the MG. He leaned in the window for a farewell warning.
“Aside from helping me to crash the party, I hope you’ll just play dumb about everything. I can’t protect you every minute, and I’d like to see you live to blossom into the fullness of womanhood — if it’s humanly possible to blossom any further than you already have.”
“But Simon!” she wailed, as if the realization had only just dawned on her. “You still haven’t told me what you were looking for at Dr Manders’ house, or if you found anything!”
He kissed her once more, lightly, and said: “I’m not sure yet. Sleep tight, Jenny. I’ll see you at the airport.”
7
There was one important detail which the Saint had neglected to specify: the airport at which he expected to see her was not London, as she assumed, but Freeport, Grand Bahama Island.
To Simon Templar, the subterfuge was only a normal avoidance of unnecessary risks. Just in case Teal should have second thoughts — or even if Jenny’s allegiance was not as complete as it seemed — they would naturally expect the Saint to travel on the same plane as the Death Game party, leaving late the next afternoon. Whereas he intended to be well on his way before they even missed him.