18 The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

side.'

Again that intense silence settled on the room. Palermo moved slightly in his chair, and the creak of the leather sounded deafening in the stillness. Simon could feel the eyes boring into him from four directions, rigid and unwinking in their sockets; but he filtered a streamer of smoke through his lips with languid unconcern.

'We also missed some stones,' Graner said evenly. 'Your predecessor had been becoming-difficult. It was necessary to deal with him.'

Simon surveyed the other three again and raised his eyebrows admiringly.

'He must have been pretty useful with his hands, anyway,' he murmured. 'He seems to have done a spot of dealing on his own.'

Aliston's pink face became a shade pinker, but none of the men moved or answered. They just sat there, watching him steadily in silence.

Graner refolded his handkerchief, tucked it back into his pocket and occupied himself with arranging for just too much of it to peep out. Presently he spoke as if he hadn't noticed the Saint's comment: 'You had better leave your hotel, Tombs. There is quite enough room for you here.'

'That's very hospitable,' Simon said dubiously. 'But---'

'We need not discuss the matter. It is simply an elementary and advisable precaution. If you are staying in a hotel you are obliged to register with the police, which for our purposes may be an inconvenience. The police call for lists of all the guests staying in the hotels here, and if you're not registered you can get into trouble. But nobody can call for a list of my guests, so nobody knows whether they have registered or not.'

The Saint nodded comprehendingly, and the movement was quite spontaneous. A few hours ago he would have said that he knew everything there was to know about the world of crime, but this was an aspect of it. that had never occurred to him. Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the last place on earth to which he would have set out on a blind search for boodle, if it had not been for the clue that had fallen accidentally into his hands. And yet the more he thought of it, now, the more perfect a location it seemed to be. A free port, where anything the gang brought with them from their expeditions in Europe could be disembarked without any of the attendant risks of a customs examination. A Spanish province that was nevertheless a long way from Spain and on the routes of some of the main seaways of the world, where anyone coming from the peninsula could land without even being asked to show identification papers at the time of landing. A place where such police as there were not only shared all the characteristic inertia and incompetence of their brethren on the mainland, but combined with them some original Canarian fatuities of their own. And, finally, the last spot on the globe where anyone would think of even starting to look for the headquarters of a gang of international thieves-even as the Saint himself had never thought of looking there before.

'You certainly have thought of everything, haven't you?' he said lightly. 'All the same, if I beetle up herefirst thing in the morning --'

'You will stay here tonight.' The Saint frowned.

'A couple of girls that I met on the boat are staying at the hotel, and I made a date to give them lunch tomorrow,' he pointed out. 'They'll think it odd if I don't turn up.'

'You can make your excuses.'

'But --'

'You will stay here tonight.'

Graner's tone was flat and expressionless, and yet it had a smug insolence that brought the blood to the Saint's head. He stood up, and Graner stood up also.

'That's all very well, dear old bird,' Simon said gently. 'But what is this-a job or a prison? Even with your beauty --'

Without the flicker of an eyelash, Graner brought up his left hand and slapped the Saint sharply across the face. Almost in the same movement a gun appeared in his right, levelled quite steadily at the centre of the Saint's chest.

Simon felt as if a sudden torrent of liquid fire poured along his veins, and every muscle in his body went tense. The fingernails cut into his palms with the vio­lent contraction of his fists. How he ever managed to hold himself in check was a miracle beyond his understanding.

'There are one or two things you had better make up your mind to understand, Tombs,' Graner was say­ing, in the same flatly arrogant tone. 'In the first place, I dislike flippancy-and familiarity.'

He made a slight movement with the automatic.

'Also-apart from this-it is impossible for any­body to leave this house without my permission.'

His gaze did not shift from the Saint's face, where the marks of his fingers were printed in dark red on the tanned skin.

'If you intend to work for me, you will accept any orders I give-without question.'

Simon looked down at the gun. Without knowing how quick the other was with the trigger, he estimated that he had a sporting chance of knocking the gun aside and landing an iron, fist where it would obliterate the last traces of any beauty that Graner might ever have had, before anyone else could move. But there were still the other three men who were behind him now-besides the dogs outside, and however many more discouraging gadgets there might be outside the house.

That moment's swift and instinctive reckoning of his chances was probably what helped to save him. And in that time he also forced himself to realise that the fleeting pleasure of pushing Graner's front teeth through the back of his neck would ring down the curtain on his only hope of doing what he had come there to do.

The liquid fire cooled down in his veins-cooled down below normal until it was like liquid ice. The red mist cleared from before his eyes and was absorbed invisibily but indelibly by the deepest wellsprings of his will. Reuben Graner would live long enough to be dealt with. The Saint could wait; and the waiting would only make the reckoning more enjoyable when the time came.

'If you put it like that,' he said, with as much sheepishness as he could infuse into his voice, 'I guess you're probably right.'