18 The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

'Don't worry any more tonight, Christine,' he said. 'I know it's pretty hard to take your mind off it, but you've got to try. In the morning we'll do some more work on it.'

'Joris said it,' she answered; 'you've been very kind.'

'For only doing half a job?' Simon asked flip­pantly.

'For being so confident and practical. I needed pull­ing together. It seems quite different now, with you helping us. It must be something about you. . . .'

Her face was turned up to his, and she was So close that he could almost feel the warmth of her body. His pulses beat faster, irresistibly, but his mind was cool. He smiled at her; and suddenly she turned away and went out of the room without looking back.

The Saint took another cigarette and lighted it with elaborately unhurried precision. For quite half a min­ute he stood still where she had left him, before he strolled over to the wardrobe mirror and examined himself with dispassionate interest.

'You're being seduced,' he said.

Then he remembered that the Hirondel was still parked outside the hotel. It couldn't stay there all night; and a faint frown touched his forehead at the thought that perhaps it had stood out there too long already. But that couldn't be helped, he had had too many other things to think of before. Fortunately he had located a garage during the afternoon. He opened the door of his room very quietly and went downstairs again.

Already the square was almost deserted-Santa Cruz goes to bed early, for the convincing reason that there is nothing else to do. Simon got into the car and drove up the Calle Castillo. He drove slowly, feeling the effortless purr of the powerful engine soothing and smoothing out his mind, a cigarette slanting be­tween his lips and his finger tips lightly caressing the wheel. The deep hum of the machine distilled itself into his senses, taking possession of him until it was as if the car led him on without any direction of his will. He had had no such thoughts when he left the hotel to put the car away. . . . But there was a turn­ing on the right which he should have taken to go to the garage. . . . He passed it without a glance. The Hirondel droned on, up on to the La Laguna road- towards the house of Reuben Graner.

3 Simon Templar began to sing, a faint fragment of almost inaudible melody that harmonised with the soft undertones of the engine. The cool night air was refreshing on his face. He was smiling.

Possibly he was quite mad. If so, he always had been, and it was too late in life to worry about it. But it was his creed that adventure waited for no timetables, and everything he had ever done or ever would do was built up on that reckless faith. He was bound to visit Reuben Graner sometime. At the moment he felt as fresh and wide awake as if he had just got out of a cold bath; and the brief but breezy episode by the roadside a couple of hours before had only whet­ted his appetite. Why should he wait for some Spanish manana to carry on with the good work?

Not that he had a single plan of campaign in his head. His mind was a clean slate on which impulse or circumstance or destiny might write anything that happened to amuse them. The Saint was broadmindedly prepared to co-operate in the business of being amused. . . .

A gleam of reminiscent humour touched his eyes as he recognised the spot where Joris Vanlinden had introduced himself so appropriately into the general course of events; and then he trod suddenly on the brakes in time to save the lives of a pareja, or brace, of guardias de asalto who stepped out into the path of his headlights and waved to him to stop. Looking around him he discovered that the road was littered with guardias of all shapes and sizes. He saw the sheen of the black oilcloth napoleonic hats of guardias civiles and the dull glint of carbines. There are various species of guardias in Spain, intended between them to perform the various functions of police work; and it is popularity believed that the word has no singular, since they are only seen in parejas, or braces, as inevitably as grouse. Even allowing for that, it seemed an unusual concentration; and the Saint's gaze narrowed slightly as the pareja which had stopped him closed in on either side of the car. A torch flashed in his face.

'Where are you going?' asked half the brace curtly, in Spanish; and Simon answered in the same language: 'To visit a friend. He's expecting me.'

'Baje usted.'

Simon got out. The other guardia came round the car and attached himself again to his comrade. It was like a reunion of Siamese twins. Half the brace kept him covered while the other half searched him rapidly.

The Saint remembered that since he had left the hotel with no nefarious intent he had not even troubled to take a gun. He had only one weapon-the slim razor-edged throwing knife strapped to his left forearm under his sleeve which he would not have exchanged for all the firearms in the world-but the search was not thorough enough to discover that.

'z Su documentacion?'

Simon produced his passport. It was examined and returned to him.

'zTurista?'

'Si.'

'Bueno. Siga usted.'

The Saint scratched his head.

'What is this?' he inquired curiously.

'That does not concern you,' replied the talking half of the brace uncommunicatively and stepped back.

Simon got into the car again and drove on thoughtfully. Certainly, now that he recollected it, the rescue of Joris Vanlinden had not been accomplished in complete silence; in fact, he remembered that one or two shots had been fired in the later stages which would doubtless have been audible for some distance; but the convention of guardias gathered on the spot seemed somewhat disproportionate to the occasion, even under an administration which has always been convinced that posting a herd of police on the scene of a past crime is an infallible method of preventing another crime being committed somewhere else. He puzzled over it for a few moments, trying to recall some other factor which seemed to have slipped his memory; and then he saw the long white wall which he had been told to look out for, and the sight temporarily diverted his mind from other problems.

He drove slowly past it, and a hundred yards farther on he came to a narrow side turning into which he backed the car. He switched off the engine, turned out the lights and returned on foot. In the middle of the wall there was a