Simon grasped the scene in one vivid flash and flung himself down into the body of the car. In another instant the staccato stammer of the guns was rattling in his ears, and the steel was drumming round him like a storm of death.
* * *
The window on his right shattered in the blast and spilled fragments of glass over him; but he was unhurt. He was aware that the car was swerving dizzily; and a moment later there was a terrific crashing impact that flung him into a bruised heap under the dashboard, with his head singing as if a dozen vicious mosquitoes were imprisoned inside his skull. And after that there was silence.
Some seconds passed before other sounds reached him as if they came out of a fog. He heard the rumble of invisible traffic and the screeching of brakes, the shrilling of a police whistle and the scream of a woman close by. It took another second or two for his battered brain to grasp the fundamental reason for that strange impression of stillness: the ear-splitting crackle of the machine guns had stopped. It was as if a tropical squall had struck a small boat, smashed it in one savage instant, and whirled on.
The Saint struggled up. The car was listing over to starboard, and he saw that the front of it was inextricably entangled with a lamppost at the edge of the sidewalk. A crowd was already beginning to gather; and the woman who had screamed before screamed again when she saw him move. The car which had attacked them had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
He looked for Papulos. After that one abruptly strangled shriek the man had not made a sound. In another moment Simon understood why. The impact had hurled the Greek halfway through the windscreen: he lay sprawled over the scuttle with one arm limply spread out, but it was quite clear that he had been dead long before that happened. And the Saint gazed at him for an instant in silence.
'I was wrong, my lad,' he said softly. 'Maybe they were after you.'
There was scarcely room for any further apologies to the deceased. In the far distance Simon could see a blue-clad figure lumbering towards him, blowing its whistle as it ran; and the crowd was swelling. They were on 57th Street, near the corner of Fifth Avenue, and there was plenty of material around to develop an audience far larger than the Saint would have desired. A rapid departure from those regions struck him as being one of the most immediate requirements of the day.
He got the nearest door open and stepped out. The crowd hesitated: most of them had been reading newspapers long enough to gather that standing in the way of escaping gunmen is a pastime that is severely frowned upon by the majority of insurance companies: and the Saint dropped a hand to his coat pocket in the hope of reminding them of the fact. The gesture had its desired effect. The crowd melted away before him; and he raced round the corner and sprinted southwards down Fifth Avenue without a soul attempting to hinder him.
A cruising taxi went by, and he leapt onto the running board and opened the door before the driver could accelerate. In another second the partition behind the driver was open, and the unmistakable cold circle of a gun-muzzle pressed gently into the back of the man's neck.
'Keep right on your way, Sebastian,' advised the Saint, coolly reading the chauffeur's name off the license card inside, 'and nothing will happen to you.'
The driver kept right on his way. He had been driving taxis in New York for a considerable number of years and had developed a fatalistic philosophy.
'Where to, buddy?' he inquired stolidly.
'Grand Central,' ordered Simon. 'And don't worry about the lights.'
They cut away to the left on 50th Street under the very nose of a speeding limousine; and the chauffeur half turned his head.
'You're de Saint, aintcha, pal?' he said.
'How did you know?' Simon answered carefully.
'I t'ought I reckernized ya,' said the driver, with some satisfaction. 'I seen pictures of ya in de papers.'
Simon steadied his gun.
'So what?' he prompted caressingly.
'So nut'n. I'm pleased ta meetcha, dat's all. Say, dat job ya pulled on Long Island last night was a honey!'
