'Are you Lemuel's man?'
Simon nodded.
'Extraordinary how I get about, isn't it?' he murmured.
'Is this a joke?'
He shook his head.
'Anything but, as far as I'm concerned, old dear. Now, can you imagine anyone getting up at this hour of the morning to be funny?' He grinned at her puzzled doubts. 'Call it coincidence, sweetheart, and lead me to your luggage.'
At the foot of the stairs he paused and looked thoughtfully round the courtyard.
'They seem to have scraped Cuthbert off the concrete,' he said; and then, abruptly: 'How did you get this job?'
'Lemuel was in front the other night,' she answered. 'He sent his card round in the interval--'
'Told you he was struck with your dancing, bought you out, signed you up--'
'How did you know?'
'I didn't. But it fits in so beautifully. And to make me the accessory-oh, it's just too splendiferous for words! I didn't know Francis had such a sense of humour.'
'What do you mean?'
'I'm right, am I? Listen. He said: 'It's one of the worst shows I've ever seen, but your dancing, Old Man'-no, I suppose he'd vary that-'but your dancing, Old Woman, is the elephant's uvula.' Or words to that effect. What?'
'He certainly said he liked my dancing--'
'Joke,' said the Saint sardonically.
She caught him up when he was loading her two suitcases into the back of his car.
'Mr. Templar--'
'My name.'
'I don't understand your sense of humour.'
'Sorry about that.'
'I'd be obliged if you'd leave my dancing alone.'
'Darling,' said the Saint kindly, 'I'd like to maroon it on a desert island. After I'd met you for the first time I made a point of seeing your show; and I must say that I decided that you are beautiful and energetic and well- meaning, and your figure is a dream-but if your dancing is the elephant's uvula, then I think the R. S. P. C. A. ought to do something about it.'
Pale with fury, she entered the car, and there was silence until they were speeding down the Great West Road.
Then Simon added, as if there had been no break in his speech: 'If I were you, old dear, I'd be inclined to think very kindly of that nice boy in the bank.'
'I don't think I want your advice, Mr. Templar,' she said coldly. 'Your job is to take me to Berlin-and I only wish I could get there in time without your help.'
All the instinctive antagonism that had come up between them like barbed wire at their first meeting was back again. After the accident to the amateur mountaineer there had been a truce; but the Saint had foreseen renewed hostilities from the moment he had read the name and address on the paper which Lemuel had given him, and he had been at no pains to avert the outbreak. Patricia Holm used to say that the Saint had less than no idea of the art of handling women. That is a statement which other historians may be left to judge; the Saint himself would have been the smiling first to subscribe to the charge, but there were times when Simon Templar's vanity went to strange extremes. If he thought he had any particular accomplishment, he would either boast about it or disclaim it altogether, so you always knew where you were with him. So far as the handling of women was concerned, his methods were usually of the this-is-your-label-and-if-you-don't-like-it-you-can-get-the-hell-out-of-here school-when they were not exactly the reverse-and in this case, at least, he knew precisely what he was doing. Otherwise, he might have had a more entertaining journey to Berlin than he did; but he had developed a soft spot in his heart for the unknown nice boy who used to take Stella Dornford to the movies-and, bless him, probably used to hold her hand in the same. Now, Jacob Einsmann would never have thought of doing a thing like that. . . .
There was another reason-a subsidiary reason-for the Saint's aloofness. He wanted to be free to figure out the exact difference that had been made in the situation by the discovery of the identity of his charge. A new factor had been introduced which was likely to alter a lot of things. And it was necessary to find out a little more about it-a very little more.
So they travelled between Hanworth and the Tempelhof in a frostbitten silence which the Saint made no attempt to alleviate; and in the same spirit he took Stella Dornford by taxi to the address that Lemuel had given him.
This was a huge, gloomy house nearly two miles away from the centre of fashionable gaiety, and anything less like a night club Simon Templar had rarely seen.
He did not immediately open the door of the taxi. Instead, he surveyed the house interestedly through a window of the cab; and then he turned to the girl.
'I'm sure Jacob Einsmann isn't a very nice man,' he said. 'In fact, he and I are definitely going to have words. But I'm ready to leave you at a hotel before I go in.'
She tossed her head and opened the door herself.
The Saint followed her up the steps of the house. She had rang the bell while he was paying off the taxi, and the door was unbarred as he reached her side.
'Herr Einsmann wishes to see you also, sir.'
The Saint nodded and passed in. The butler-he, like the porter at the Calumet Club, of hallowed memory, looked as if he had been other things in his time-led them down a bare, sombre hall, and opened a door.
The girl passed through it first, and Simon heard her exclamation before he saw Einsmann.
Then her hand gripped his arm.
'I don't like this,' she said.
Simon smiled. He had read the doubt in her eyes when she first saw the house, and had liked the dam'-fool obstinacy that had marched her into it against his advice and her better judgment. But, while he approved her spirit, he had deliberately taken advantage of it to make sure that she should have her lesson.
'So!' Jacob Einsmann rose from his chair, rubbing his hands gently together. His eyes were fixed upon the girl. 'You vould not listen to it vot I say in London, no, you vere so prrroud, but now you yourself to me hof come, aind't it?'
6
'Aye, laad, we've coom,' drawled the Saint.
'So you hof got it vot you vanted, yes, no, aind't it?'
Einsmann turned his head.
'Ach! I remember you.'
'And I you,' said the Saint comfortably. 'In fact, I spent a considerable time on the trip over composing a little song about you, in the form of a nursery rhyme for the instruction of small children, which, with your permission, I will now proceed to sing. It goes like this: ' 'Dear Jacob is an unwashed mamser, We like not his effluvium, sir; If we can tread on Jacob's graft, Das wird jja wirklich fabelhaft.'
For that effort in trilingual verse I have already awarded myself the Swaffer Biscuit.' Einsmann leered.
'For vonce, Herr Saint, you hof a misdake made.'
'Saint?'
The girl spoke, at Simon's shoulder, startled, half incredulous. He smiled round at her.
'That's right, old dear. I am that well-known institution. Is this the Boche you mentioned at the Cri-the bird who got fresh at the Calumet?'
She nodded.
'I didn't know--'
