16 The Saint Overboard

disturbing attempts,' said Vogel genially. 'We couldn't have met more fortunately—in every way. And now, naturally, you'll join us for dinner?'

The great hook of his nose curved at the Saint like a poised scimitar, the heavy black brows arched over it with the merest hint of challenge.

'I'd like to,' said the Saint easily. And as they started to stroll on: 'What about the Professor?'

'He refuses to be tempted. He will be working on the bathy­stol for half the night—you couldn't drag him away from it on the eve of a descent.'

They had dinner at the Old Government House. To Simon Templar the evening became fantastic, almost frighteningly un­real. Not once did he catch Vogel or Arnheim watching him, not once did he catch the subtle edge of an innuendo thrust in to prick a guilty ear; and yet he knew, by pure reason, that they were watching. The brand of his fist on Arnheim's chin caught his eyes every time they turned that way. Did Arnheim guess— did he even know?—whose knuckles had hung that pocket earth­quake on his jaw? Did Vogel know? There was no answer to be read in the smooth colourless face or the black unwinking eyes. What did they know of Loretta, and what were their plans for her? If Murdoch had been identified while they had him on the Falkenberg she must have been condemned already; and it seemed too much to hope that Murdoch had not been seen by the sleuth who had observed his blatant arrival at the Hotel de la Mer the day before. How much had Loretta suffered al­ready? ... He could only guess at the answers.

It was an uncanny feeling to be eating and drinking on terms of almost saccharine cordiality with two men who might even then be plotting his funeral—and whose own funerals he himself would plot without compunction in certain circumstances—with every warning of antagonism utterly suppressed on both sides. If he had not had last night's experience of Vogel's methods to acclimatise him, he would have suffered the same sensation of nightmare futility again, doubled in intensity because Loretta was now with them; but his nerves had been through as much of that cat-and-mouse ordeal as they were capable of tolerating, and the normal reaction was setting in. Somehow he knew that that game could not be played much longer, and when the show­down came he would have his compensation.

But meanwhile Loretta was there, beside him—and he could give her no more than the polite interest called for by their re­cent introduction . . . when every desire in his mind was taking both her hands and laughing breathlessly with her and talking the quick sparkling nonsense which was the measure of their predestined understanding. He saw the shifting gold in her hair and the softness of her lips when she spoke, and was tormented with a hunger that was harder to fight than all Vogel's inhuman patience.

And then he was dancing with her.

They had discovered that there was a dance at the hotel, and after the coffee and liqueurs they had gone into the ballroom. Even so, he had waited while first Vogel and then Arnheim danced, before he had looked at her and stood up as if only to discharge his duty to a fellow-guest.

But he had her alone. He had her hand in his, and his arm round her; and they were moving quietly in their own world, like one person, to music that neither of them heard.

'It's a long time since I've seen you-all, Mary Jane,' he said.

'Wasn't it before I put my hair up?'

'I think it was the Sunday School treat when you ate too many cream buns and had to give them up again in the rhodo­dendrons.'

'You would remember that. And now you're such a big man, doing such big and wonderful things. I'm so proud of you, El­mer.'

'George,' Simon corrected her, 'is the name. By the way, did I ever give you the inside dope on that dragon business? This dragon, which was closely related to a female poet, a dowager duchess, and a prominent social reformer and purity hound, was actually a most mild and charitable beast, except when it felt that the morals of the community were being endangered. On those occasions it would become quite transformed, turning red in the face and breathing smoke and fire and uttering ferocious gobbling sounds like those of a turkey which has been wished a merry Christmas. The misguided inhabitants of the country, however, mistaking these symptoms for those of sadistic dyspep­sia, endeavoured to appease the animal—whose name, by the way, was Angelica—by selecting their fairest damsels and leaving them as sacrifices, stripped naked and tied to trees and shrub­bery in its path. Angelica, on the other hand, mistook these friendly offerings for further evidence of the depravity which had overtaken her friends, and was only raised to higher trans­ports of indignation and gobbling. The misunderstanding was rapidly denuding the country in every