telephone was purely intuitive. But he had seen her face an instant after his knife had laid Ualino open from groin to breastbone, and there had been neither fear nor horror in it. Just for that instant the amber eyes had seemed to blaze with a savage light which he could not understand; and then he had smashed the electric bulb and was on his way. He might have thought that the whole thing was a moment's hallucination, but there was the metal of the automatic still between his teeth to be explained. His brain tangled with that ultimate amazing mystery while he warped himself along the edge of yawning nothingness; and he was no nearer a solution when the window that he was aiming for came vertically under his eyes.
At least there was nothing intangible or mysterious about that; and he knew that there was no prospect of the general tempo of whoopee and carnival slackening off before he got home to bed. With one searching glance over the ground below to make sure that there was no lurking sentinel waiting to catch him in midair, the Saint slid himself forward head first into space, neatly reversed his hands, and curled over into the precarious dark.
He hung at the full stretch of his arms, facing the window of his objective. It was closed; but a stealthily inquiring pressure of one toe told him that it was fastened only by a single catch in the centre.
There was no further opportunity for caution. The rest of his evening had to be taken on the run, and he knew it. Taking a deep breath, he swung himself backwards and outwards; and as his body swung in again towards the house on the returning pendulum he raised his legs and drove his feet squarely into the junction of the casements.
The flimsy fastening tore away like tissue paper under the impact, and the casements burst inwards and smacked against the inside wall with a crash of breaking glass. A treble wail of fright came out to him as he swung back again; then he came forward a second time and arched his back with a supple twist as his hands let go the gutter. He went through the window neatly, skidded on a loose rug, and fetched up against the bed.
The room was in darkness, but his eyes were accustomed to the dark. A small white-clad shape with dark curly hair stared back at him, big eyes dilated with terror, whimpering softly. From the floor below came the thud of heavy feet and the sound of hoarse voices, but the Saint might have had all the time in the world. He took the gun from between his teeth and pushed down the safety catch with his right hand; his left hand patted the girl's shoulder.
'Poor kid,' he said. 'I've come to take you home.'
There was a surprising tenderness in his voice, and all at once the child's whimpering died down.
'You want to go home, don't you?' asked the Saint.
She nodded violently; and with a soft comforting laugh he swung her up in the crook of his arm and crossed the room. The door was locked, as he had expected. Simon held her a little tighter.
'We're going to make some big bangs, Viola,' he said. 'You aren't frightened of big bangs, are you? Big bangs like fireworks? And every time we make a big bang we'll kill one of the wicked men who took you away.' She shook her head.
'I like big bangs,' she declared; and the Saint laughed again and put the muzzle of his gun against the lock.
The shot rocked the room like thunder, and a heavy thud sounded in the corridor. Simon flung open the door. It was the scrawny-necked individual on guard outside who had caused the thud: he was sprawled against the opposite wall in a grotesque huddle, and nothing was more certain than that he would never stand guard anywhere again. Apparently he had been peering through the keyhole, looking for an explanation of the disturbance, when the Saint shot out the lock; and what remained of his face was not pleasant to look at. The child in Simon's arms crowed gleefully.
'Make more bangs,' she commanded; and the Saint smiled.
'Shall we? I'll see what can be done.'
He raced down the passage to the stairs. The men below were on their way up but he gained the half-landing before them with one flying leap. The leading attacker died in his tracks and never knew it, and his lifeless body reared over backwards and went bumping down to the floor below. The others scuttled for cover; and Simon drew a calm bead on the single frosted bulb in the hall and left only the dim glow from the bar and the dance room for light.
A tongue of orange fire spat out of the dark,
