The Saint turned on the terrace and looked back into the room. He was still debonair and smiling, and although the shrubbery had given the
'Comrade?'
'It might save you spending a sleepless night, and catching your death of cold,' observed Bittle, 'if I told you that the Tiger has already left. So you needn't bother to hang about outside.'
'Thanks,' said the Saint. 'I won't. And it might save you a longish walk and a lot of trouble if I told you that Orace and I sleep in watches, turn and turn about, so that any of your pals who call round in the hope of being able to catch us dapping will have to be very fly. ... S'long!'
He vanished into the darkness like a wraith, almost before the men in the library could have realized that he was gone. He went scraping through the shrubbery again to the wall, got his coat over the top as before, and was over like a cat.
He dropped lightly to the ground, pulled on the tattered coat, and struck off away from the wall after no more than a couple of seconds' pause to listen and scan the blackness in every direction. Guided by an innate bump of locality, he established his bearings at once and set off on a wide detour -that would bring him eventually into the grounds at the back of the Manor. He advanced in short rushes, stopping and crouching in cover every twenty yards or so, straining eyes and ears for sign of stalkers behind or an ambush before. Nothing happened. The night was quiet and peaceful.
He saw a light go on in an upper window of Bittle's house, and the distant hiss of the surf mingled with the rustle of grasses brushed by the breeze, but there was neither sight nor sound of any human being.
'Damned odd!' said Templar to himself, scratching his head, as he lay under a hedge, watching and listening like a frontiersman, after at least a dozen of these rushes. 'Flaming odd! Or did I slip them by going over the wall?'
He had fully expected to find some spicy parting gift waiting for him as soon as he had got far enough away from Bittle's vicinity, when they would be hoping to take him off his guard, but nothing had interfered with his departure, and there had been no trace of even the feeblest attempt to create trouble for him when he arrived in the narrow lane that ran between the Manor and Carn's house. ' .
'Hell!' said the Saint, almost indignantly. 'Now, why in blazes did they want to let me go?'
He had seen no lights in any of the Manor windows, and with a sudden apprehension he looked at the luminous dial of his watch. He was already a couple of minutes overdue. He swung round and sprinted up the path to Carn's cottage. The Saint literally fell on the bell.
Chapter VII
THE FUN CONTINUES
It was only a moment before Carn opened the door. Simon could have fallen on the detective's neck when he saw that Carn's features registered nothing more than a faint surprise, but he concealed his joy and assumed the slightly mocking smile that went with his Saintly pose.
'Thought I'd find you up,' murmured the Saint. “Mind if I split a small lemonade with you?'
He had sidled past Carn into the miniature hall before the detective could answer, and Carn closed the front door resignedly.
'I didn't expect to be honoured again so soon, Mr. Templar,' said the detective. 'As a matter of fact, I've a visitor with me....'
The last sentence was uttered in a tone that was intended to convey a gentle hint, as man of the world to man of the world, that the Saint should pause and consult his host before making himself at home, but the Saint had opened the door of the study before the detective had finished speaking.
'Why, it's Miss Holm!' exclaimed the Saint. 'Fancy meeting you!' He turned to Carn, who was reddening silently on the threshold. 'I hope I'm not interrupting a consultation, Doc? Throw me out of the window if I cramp your style, won't you? I mean, people never stand on ceremony with me. ...'
'As a matter of fact,' said Carn, on the defensive, 'Miss Holm simply came round for a chat.'
'No? Really?' said the Saint.
'Yes!' returned Carn loudly.
'Well, well!' said Simon, who was enjoying himself hugely. 'And how are we. Miss Holm?'
He was wondering just how much she had told Carn, and she read the unspoken question in his eyes, and answered it.
'In another minute — '
'I shall get my face smacked,' the Saint took her up swiftly. 'And quite right, too. Try to forgive me. I never could see an elastic leg without being irresistibly impelled to find out how far it would stretch.'
He cast a reproachful glance at Carn which made the detective take on an even deeper purple hue. Then he was smiling at Patricia with a message that was not for broadcasting. It showed his complete satisfaction with the way things had fallen out. There must have been a difference of a couple of minutes between their watches, and those two minutes had been just long enough to save the beans from being spilled all over the place. And the smile added: 'Well played, kid! I knew I could rely on you. And everything in the garden's lovely.. .. Which means, incidentally, that it's our job to lead Carn up the garden. Watch your step!' And the girl smiled back, to show that she understood — but there was rather more in her smile than that. It showed that she was very glad to see him again, and the Saint had a struggle to stop himself grabbing her up in his arms and kissing her on the strength of it.
'You seem to have been in the wars, Mr. Templar,' remarked Carn, and the Saint nodded tolerantly.
'Didn't Miss Holm tell you?' '1 didn't feel I could ask her.'
The Saint raised his eyebrows, for although the girl had made some effort to tidy herself it was still glaringly evident that she had not spent the evening playing dominoes in the drawing room. Carn explained.
'When I opened the door and saw her, I thought something had happened and she was coming to me for — er — first aid. But she said it was only for a 1 chat, so I overcame my — 'um — professional instincts, and said nothing. I rather think you were leading up to something when Mr. Templar came ' in, weren't you, Miss Holm? ... I see that you A were. But as a — er — um — ah — ' Carn caught the I Saint's accusing eye for the third time, and spluttered. 'As a doctor,' said Carn defiantly, 'I was trained to let my patients make the running. The old school, but a good one. And then you arrive-”
The detective broke off with a gesture that comprehended Patricia's ragamuffin appearance and the Saint's own tattered clothes, and Simon grinned.
'So sad!' he drawled. 'And now I suppose you'll be in agonies of curiosity for weeks.'
Carn shrugged.
'That depends.'
The detective was a passably good actor, but he was heavily handicapped by the suggestion of malicious glee that lurked in the Saint's twinkling eyes. And he dared not seem to notice that the Saint was quietly laughing at him because it was essential for him to maintain the role of Dr. Carn in the presence of a witness. Which goes some way to explain why his florid face remained more rubicund even. than it normally was, and why there was a certain unnatural restraint in his voice.
Patricia was perplexed. She had expected to find that the Saint and Carn were familiar friends: instead, she found two men fencing with innuendo. It was beyond her to follow the subtleties of the duel, but there was no doubt that Simon was quite happy and Carn was quite annoyed, for it was indisputably the Saint's game.
'Shall I tell you all about it, Doc?' asked the Saint insinuatingly, for it was a weakness of his to exaggerate his pose to the borders of farce.
'Do,' urged Carn, in an unguarded moment.
'Til tell you,' said Simon confidentially. 'It was like this. ...'
