and on the whole he preferred his chances with the illicit sentence. It would not be the first time that he had sat in a game of life and death and played the cards out with a steady hand no matter how the luck ran; and now he would do it again, though at that precise moment he hadn't the faintest idea what method he would use. Yet for the first time in many years he wondered if he had not taken on too much.
But no hint of what passed in his mind showed on his face. He leaned back, calm-eyed and nonchalant, as if he were one of a party of friends on their way home; and even when they stopped at the driveway of a ferry he did not move. He cocked one quizzical blue eye at Maxie.
'So it's to be Jersey this time, is it?'
'Yeah,' said the gunman, with a callous twist of humour. 'We thought ye might like a change.'
An efficient-looking blue-coated patrolman stood no more than four yards away; but no sixth sense, no clairvoyant flash of prescience, warned him to single out the gleaming black sedan from the line of other vehicles which were waiting their turn to go on board. He dreamed his dreams of an inspectorship in a division well populated with citizens who would be unselfishly eager to dissuade him with cash and credit from the obvious perils of overworking himself at his job; and the Saint made no attempt to interrupt him. The driver paid their fares, and they settled into their place on the ferry to wait until it chose to sail.
Simon gazed out at the inky waters of the Hudson and wondered idly why it should be that the departure of a ferry was always accompanied by twice as much fuss and anxiety as the sailing of an ocean liner; and he derived a rather morbid exhilaration even from that vivid detail of his experience. He had heard much, and speculated more, about that effective American method of removing an appointed victim; but in spite of his flippant remarks to Valcross he had not expected that he would have this unique opportunity of learning at first hand the sensations of the man who played the leading role in the drama. He felt that in this instance the country, which had adopted the 'ride' as a native sport for wet week-ends was rather overdoing itself in its eagerness to show him the works so quickly and comprehensively, but the tightness of his corner was not capable of damping a keen professional interest in the proceedings. And yet, all the time, he missed the reassuring pressure of the knife blade that should have been cuddling snugly along his forearm; and his eyes were very cold and bright as he flicked his cigarette end through the open front window and watched it spring like a red tracer bullet across the dark. . . .
Maxie rummaged in his pockets with his free hand, drew forth a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and extended it politely.
'Have another?'
'A last smoke for the condemned man, eh?'
Equally courteous and unruffled, the Saint thumbed a Chesterfield from the package and carefully straightened it out. Maxie passed him the cigar lighter from the arm rest and then lighted a smoke for himself; but in none of the motions of this studious observance of the rules of etiquette was there an opening for a surprise attack from the victim. Simon felt Joe's automatic harden against his side almost imperceptibly while the exchange of courtesies was going on, and knew that his companions had explored all the possibilities of such situations before they began to shave. He signed and leaned back again, exhaling twin streams of smoke from his nostrils.
'What is that girl Fay?' he asked casually, taking up a natural train of thought from the gunman's penultimate remark.
Maxie tilted back his hat.
'Whaddaya mean, what is she? She's a doll.'
Simon reviewed the difficulties of reaching Maxie's intellect with the argument that was occupying his own mind. He knew better than anyone else that the glamorous woman of mystery whose feminine charms rule hard-boiled desperadoes as with a rod of iron, and whose brilliant brain outwits criminals and detectives with equal ease, belonged only in the pages of highly spiced fictional romance, and that in the underworld of New York she was the most singular curiosity of all. To the American hoodlum and racketeer the female of the species has only one function, reserved for his hours of relaxation, and requiring neither intelligence nor outstanding personality. When he calls her a 'doll,' his vocabulary is an accurate psychological revelation. She is a toy for his diversion, on which he can squander his easily won dollars to the advertisement of his own wealth, to whom he can boast and in boasting expand his own ego and feel himself a great guy; but she has no place in the machinery of his profession except as a spy, a stringer of suckers, or a dumb instrument for putting a rival on the spot, and she has no place in his councils at all.
The Saint saw no easy approach to Maxie from
