her to the ground as lightly as if she were landing in cotton wool. She heard his voice in a blithe whisper: 'Isn't this the life?'
Above her, on her right, towered the cubical black bulk of the old pub—the Hotel Konigshof, hugest and most palatial of all the hotels in Tirol, which the Saint had chosen just twelve hours ago for their headquarters. There, with a strategic eye for possible emergencies of a rather different kind, he had selected a suite on the ground floor with tall casement windows opening directly onto the ornamental gardens; and the fact that it was the only suite of its kind in the building and cost above five pounds a minute could not outweigh its equally unique advantages.
'Straight along in, old dear,' spoke the Saint's whisper, 'and I'll be right after you with Stanislaus.'
She started off, feeling her way uncertainly between confusedly remembered flower beds; but he was beside her again in a moment, steering her with an unerring instinct over clear, level turf. The windows of their sitting room were already open, and he found them faultlessly. Inside the room, she heard him opening a door; and when she had found the switch and clicked on the lights the room was empty.
And then he came back through the communicating door of the bedroom, closing it behind him, and gazed at her reproachfully.
'Pat, was that the way I raised you—to let loose all the limes and invite the whole world to gape at us?'
He went over and drew the curtains; and then he turned back, and her rueful excuses were swept away into thin air with his gay laugh.
'In spite of which,' he observed soberly, 'it's better to be too careful than too optimistic. The results are likely to be less permanently distressing.' He smiled again, and slid an arm along her shoulders. 'And now what do you think we could do with a cigarette?'
He pulled out his case and sank luxuriously into a chair. Patricia ranged herself on the arm.
'Are you leaving Stanislaus in the bedroom to cool off?'
Simon nodded.
'He's there. You can go in and kiss him goodnight if you like—he sleeps the sleep of the just. I handcuffed him to the bed and left him to his dreams while we decide what to do with him.'
'And what happens if he wakes up and starts yelling his head off?'
The Saint blew out a long, complacent wisp of smoke.
'Stanislaus won't yell,' he said. 'If there's one thing that Stanislaus won't do when he wakes up, it's yell. He may utter a few subdued bleating cries, but he'll do nothing noisier than that. I've been doing a lot of cerebration over Stanislaus recently, and I'm willing to bet that the din he'll make will be so deafening that you could use it for the synchronized accompaniment of a film illustrating a chess tournament in a monastery of dumb Trappists. Take that from me.'
A gentle knock sounded from the outer door of the suite; and the Saint peeped at his watch as he unrolled himself from his chair and sauntered across the room. It was five minutes to three—just thirty-five clocked minutes since they had detached themselves from the Breinossl and set out to ventilate their lungs before turning in, on that idle stroll beside the river which was to lead them into such strange and perilous paths. The night had wasted no time. And yet, if Simon Templar had had any inkling of the landslide of skylarking and song that was destined to be poured into his young life before that night's work had been fully accounted for, even he might have hesitated.
But he did not know. He opened the door three inches, checked up the pleasantly familiar features that surrounded Monty Hayward's small and sanitary moustache, and pulled him through. Then he slid the bolts cautiously into their sockets and filtered back into the sitting room with his cigarette tilting buoyantly up between his lips.
'What-ho, troops!' he murmured breezily. 'And how do we all feel after our
'I
The Saint's eyebrows slanted at him mockingly.
'Scarface Al Hayward will now tell us
