Papulos had frantically tried to turn aside were germinating, growing up, in that slow, methodical Teutonic brain; Papulos could watch them creeping up to the surface of speech, inexorably as a rising flood, and felt a sick emptiness in his stomach. His own words had shifted the focus to himself; but he knew that even without that rash intervention he could not have been passed over.
He picked up his glass, trying to control his hand. A blob of whisky fell from it and formed a shining pool on the table—to his fear-poisoned mind the spilt liquid was suddenly crimson, like a drop of blood from a bullet-torn chest
'Dot is right,' Kuhlmann was saying deliberately. 'You're a goot boy too, Pappy. Vhy did you send der Saint straight avay to see Morrie?'
Papulos caught his breath sharply. With a swift movement he tossed the drink down his throat and heard the other's soft-spoken words hammering into his brain like bullets.
'Vhy did you send der Saint straight avay to see Morrie, as if he had been searched, und let him take a knife and a gun mit him?'
'You're crazy!' Papulos blurted harshly. 'Of course I sent him to Morrie—I knew Morrie wanted to see him. He didn't have a knife an' a gun when he left me. Heimie'll tell you that. Heimie searched him——'
Felder started up.
'Why you——'
'Sit down!' Papulos snarled. For one wild moment he saw hope opening out before him, and his voice rose: 'I'm sayin' nothing about you. I'm sayin' Dutch is crazy. He'll want to put you on the spot next. An' how d'you know he'll stop there? He'll be calling every guy who's ever been near the Saint a double-crosser—he'll be trying to put the finger on the rest of you before he's through——'
His voice broke off on one high, rasping note; and he sat with his mouth half open, saying nothing more.
He looked into the muzzle of Dutch Kuhlmann's gun, levelled at him across the table; and the warmth of the whisky he had drunk evaporated on the cold weight in his stomach.
'You talk too much, Pappy,' said Kuhlmann amiably. 'It's a goot job you don't mean everything you say.'
The other essayed a smile.
'Don't get me wrong, Dutch,' he pleaded weakly. 'What I mean is, if we got to knock somebody off, why not knock off the Saint?'
'Dat's right,' chimed in Heimie Felder. 'We'll knock off de Saint. Why didn't any of youse mugs t'ink of dat before? I'll knock him off myself, poissonal.'
Dutch Kuhlmann smiled, without moving his gun.
'Dot is right,' he said. 'Ve'll knock off der Saint, und not have nobody making any more mistakes. You're a goot boy, Pappy. Go outside and vait for us, Pappy—we have a little business to talk about.'
The thumping died down in the Greek's chest, and suddenly he was quite still and strengthless. He sighed wearily, knowing all too well the futility of further argument. Too often he had heard Kuhlmann pronouncing sentence of death in those very words, smiling blandly and genially as he spoke: 'You're a goot boy. Go outside and vait for us. . . .'
He stood up, with a feeble attempt to muster the stoical jauntiness that was expected of him.
'Okay, Dutch,' he said. 'Be seein' ya.'
There was an utter silence while he left the room; and as he closed the door behind him his brief display of poise drained out of him. Simon Templar would scarcely have recognized him as the same sleek, self-possessed bully that he had encountered twelve hours ago.
The doorkeeper sat in a far corner, turning the pages of a tabloid. He looked up with a start as Papulos came through but the Greek ignored him. Under sentence of death himself, probably to die on the same one-way ride, a crude pride held him aloof. He walked up to the bar and rapped on the counter, and Toni came up with his smooth expressionless face.
'Brandy,' said Papulos.
