3. How Madeline Gray was persuaded to eat,
and Mr. Angert gave it up
1
It was half-past eight when Simon Templar woke up. He lay in bed for a few minutes, watching fleecy white clouds drift across the blue sky outside the windows, and reviving the thoughts on which he had fallen asleep. They didn't look any different now.
He got up and put on a robe and went out into the corridor. It was nothing but a kind of last-ditch wishfulness that made him go quietly into Calvin Gray's bedroom. But the bed hadn't been slept in, and the room was exactly as he had last seen it. He knew all the time that it would be like that, of course. If Calvin Gray had come home with the milkman, the Saint was sure that he would have heard him — he. had been alert all night, even in his sleep, for much stealthier sounds than that would have been. But at least, he reflected wryly, he had forestalled a self-made charge of jumping to conclusions.
He went back to his own room, shaved, showered, and dressed, and went downstairs.
The table was laid with one place for breakfast in the dining room, and there were sounds of movement in the kitchen.
Simon pushed through the swing door, and stopped. A rosy-cheeked young woman with dark curly hair and an apron looked up at him with slightly startled eyes as he came in. She was small and nicely plump, in a way that would obviously become stout and matronly exactly when you would expect.
"Hullo," he said pleasantly. "Don't be scared. My name's Templar, and I came up from Washington with Miss Gray last night."
"Oh," she said. "I'm Mrs. Cook. I just work here. You did scare me for a minute, though."
He realised that since they had failed to talk to Calvin Gray there was no reason for anyone to expect them there. In fact, no one knew of their movement except Hamilton and the taxi driver who had brought them in from the airport. The driver might or might not talk or think anything of it. But at least it would take the Ungodly a little while to pick up the scent, which would be no disadvantage.
"I'm sorry," he said. "What are the chances for breakfast?"
"I'll set some more places."
"Miss Gray was pretty tired out last night. I'm hoping she'll sleep late."
"The Professor's usually up before this," she said. "He must have been working late."
The Saint had a friendly and engaging ease, whenever he wanted to use it, which made it seem the most natural thing in the world for anyone to keep on talking to him. He used that effortless receptiveness now, as a happy substitute for more tiresome and elaborate methods.
He said quite conversationally: "The Professor wasn't in last night."
"Wasn't he? He's nearly always in."
"We tried to phone him from Washington to say we were on our way, but the number didn't answer."
"Was that very late? I was here until about nine o'clock."
"It was later than that."
"I gave him his dinner at seven-thirty, and then I had to wash up. He was in the living-room, reading, when I went home."
"He didn't say anything about going out?"
"No. But I didn't ask him."
"He didn't have any visitors?"
"Not while I was here."
"Maybe he's been going out a bit while Miss Gray's been away."
"Oh, no, sir. The Professor's never been one for going out—"
It was only then that she began to be dimly aware of what his innocent questions were leading to. A trace of puzzlement crept into her eyes.
"Anyway," she said, almost defiantly, "he's sure to be down soon."
The Saint shook his head.
"I'm afraid he isn't, Mrs. Cook," he said quietly. "He didn't come in at all last night. His bed hasn't been slept in. And he's not in the house now."
She stopped on her way into the dining room with a handful of knives and forks and spoon, and stared at him blankly.
"You mean he isn't here at all?"
"That's right."
"Wasn't he expecting you?"
"No. I told you, we tried to phone, but we couldn't get him."
"Didn't he leave a note or anything?"
"No."
Her eyes began to get very wide.
"You don't think anything's happened to him, do you?"
"I don't know," said the Saint frankly. "It does look a little peculiar, doesn't it? The man just walks out of the house without a word or a message to anyone, and doesn't come back. Some people do things like that all the time, but you say he wasn't that type."
"Is Miss Gray worried about him? — I expect she is."
"Wouldn't you be?"
She began mechanically setting other places at the table, more as if she was going through a routine of habitual movements than as if she was thinking about what she was doing. "I expect somebody called him and had him go into New York on business after I'd left, and he was kept late and had to stay over," she said, seeming to reassure herself as much as her audience. "He'll probably be home before lunch-time, and if he isn't he'll phone. He wouldn't stay away without letting me know he wouldn't be back for dinner."
"Do you know where he usually stayed in New York?"
"He always stopped at the Algonquin. But he might have stayed with whoever he was with."
In a little while this mythical character would be as satisfactory as a real person.
"Maybe," said the Saint adaptively. "I'll have some eggs and bacon as soon as they're ready.'
He went out and found the telephone in the living room, and called New York. The Algonquin Hotel informed him that nobody of the name of Calvin Gray had registered there the night before.
He lighted a cigarette and strolled out of the house. Sunlight made crazy fretwork patterns through the leaves of the surrounding trees, and flowers in well-kept beds splashed daubs of gay color against the white of the house and the green of square-trimmed hedges. The landscape fulfilled all the promise of the flashlight glimpses he had had the night before. The air was still cool, and there were clean and slightly damp sweet smells in it. It was a very pleasant place — a place that had been created for and that still nursed its memories of a gracious way of living that the paranoia of an unsuccessful house-painter was trying to destroy.
It seemed a long way from there to the thunder and flame of slaughter and destruction that ringed the world. And yet while that war went on Simon Templar could only acknowledge the peace and beauty around him with his mind. He had no ease in his heart to give to the enjoyment of the things he loved like that. No man had, or could have, until the guns were silent and the droning wings soared on the errands of life instead of death…
And perhaps even the tranquil scene in which he stood was part of a battlefield that the history books would never mention, but where uncountable decisions in Europe and the Orient might be lost or won.
He walked slowly around the house, his hands in his pockets and his eyes ranging over the ground. He would have missed nothing that could have told him a story, but it was a fruitless trip. The gravel drive registered no tire prints; there were no footprints in flower beds, no conveniently dropped handkerchiefs or hats or wallets. Not even a button. The only consolation was that he wasn't disappointed. He hadn't hopefully expected anything. It would have been dangerously like a trite detective story if he had found anything. But he had made the effort.