11 The Brighter Buccaneer

then: 'What are you doing about the girl?'

'I don't know . . . She's a pretty little piece, but she's get­ting too serious. I'll have to ditch her in Paris.'

'She'll be sore.'

'Well, she ought to know how to take the breaks. I had to keep her going to get us in here, but it ain't my fault if she wants to make it a permanency.'

'What about her share?'

'Aw, I might send her a coupla hundred, just for conscience money. She ain't a bad kid. Too sentimental, that's all.'

A short pause, and then the second man again: 'Well, that's your business. It's just a quarter past eleven. Guess I better see Watkins and make sure he's ready to fix those lights.'

The leisured feet receded again; and Simon released the girl slowly. He saw that she was as white as a sheet, and there were strange tears in her eyes. He lighted a cigarette methodically. It was a tough life for women-always had been. They had to know how to take the breaks.

'Did you hear?' she asked, and he looked at her again.

'I couldn't very well help it. I'm sorry, kid . . . That was your prospective husband, I suppose?'

She nodded.

'Anyway, you'll know it wasn't an act.'

There was nothing he could do. She stood up, and he walked beside her back to the ballroom. She left him there, with a smile that never trembled; and the Saint turned and found Peter Quentin beside him.

'Must you keep all the fun to yourself, old boy?' pleaded Peter forlornly. 'I've been treading on the toes of the fattest dowager in the world. Who's your girl friend? She looks a stunner.'

'She stunned me once,' said the Saint reminiscently. 'Or some pals of hers did. She's passing here as Rosamund Armi­tage; but the police know her best as Kate Allfield, and her nickname is The Mug.'

Peter's eyes were following the girl yearningly across the room.

'There ought to be some hideous punishment for bestowing names like that,' he declared; and the Saint grinned absent-mindedly.

'I know. In a story-book she'd be Isabelle de la Fontaine; but her parents weren't thinking about her career when they christened her. That's real life in our low profession-and so is the nickname.'

'Does that mean there's competition in the field?'

'It means just that.' Simon's gaze was sweeping systematic­ally over the other guests; and at that moment he saw the men he was looking for. 'You see that dark bird who looks as if he might be a gigolo? Face like a pretty boy, till you see it's just a mask cut in granite. . . . That's Philip Carney. And the big fellow beside him-just offering the Dempster-Craven a cigarette. That's George Runce. They're two of the slickest jewel thieves in the business. Mostly they work the Riviera-I don't think they've been in England for years. Kate was talk­ing in the plural all the time, and I wondered who she meant.'

Peter's mouth shaped a silent whistle.

'What's going to happen?'

'I don't know definitely; but I should like to prophesy that at any moment the lights will go out --'

And as he spoke, with a promptness that seemed almost uncanny, the three enormous cut-glass chandeliers which illu­minated the ballroom simultaneously flicked out as if a magic wand had conjured them out of existence; and the room was plunged into inky blackness.

The buzz of conversation rose louder, mingled with sporadic laughter. After trying valiantly to carry on for a couple of bars, the orchestra faded out irregularly, and the dancers shuffled to a standstill. Over in one corner, a facetious party started singing, in unison: 'Where-was-moses-when-the-lights- went-out?' . . . And then, rising above every other sound, came Mrs. Dempster-Craven's hysterical shriek: 'Help!'

There was a momentary silence, broken by a few uncertain titters. And Mrs. Dempster-Craven's voice rang wildly through the room again.

'My pendant! My pendant! Put on the lights!'

Then came the sharp vicious smash of a fist against flesh and bone, a coughing grunt, and the thud of a fall. Peter Quentin felt around him, but the Saint had gone. He started across the room, plunging blindly among the crowd that was heaving helplessly in the darkness. Then one or two matches flared up, and the light grew as other matches and Lighters were struck to augment the illumination. And just as suddenly as they had gone out, the great chandeliers lighted up again.

Peter Quentin looked at the scene from the front rank of the circle of guests. George Runce was lying on the floor, with blood trickling from a cut in his chin; and a couple of yards from him sat Simon Templar, holding his jaw tenderly. Be­tween them lay Mrs. Dempster-Craven's priceless pendant, with the chain broken; and while Peter looked she snatched it up with a sob, and he saw that the Star of Mandalay was missing from its centre.

'My diamond!' she wailed. 'It's gone!'

Her private detective came elbowing through from the back of the crowd, pushing Peter aside, and grabbed the Saint's shoulder.

'Come on you!' he barked. 'What happened?'

'There's your man,' said the Saint, pointing to the unconscious figure beside him. 'As soon as the lights went out, he grabbed the pendant --'

'That's a lie!'