18 The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

'When I put her to sleep I was talking about double-crossing you and joining up with her party. When she wakes up I can go on with the same line. I can tell her I put her to sleep just to get a chance to talk to you. In fact, I can tell her everything we've said-with the explanation that all my side of it was just a fairy tale to keep you happy and get you out of here.'

The words came from the Saint's lips without the waver of an inflection, without a falter, without a flicker of doubt in the level candour of his gaze. And all the time he was holding on to himself with both hands and feeling his heart leaping up and down just behind his tonsils. He had bluffed as much as any living man in his time; but he was inclined to doubt whether he had ever in his career of hairbreadth adventure gambled on such a magnificent impudence as that. Even the bluff with which he had used Christine's presence in his room to turn the tables on Graner in the first place paled beside it.

And yet he knew that it must work again, simply because Graner or anybody else couldn't have helped being convinced that a man who was afraid of that suspicion could never have found the nerve to bring it out before anyone else had evolved it. Things like that simply didn't happen-they were outside the limit of human psychology and human insolence. What the Saint's opponents could never realise was that the Saint himself was just as far outside those rules and limitations. He was the one adventurer of his age to whom no audacity was too fantastic; and nine times out of ten his audacities went unchallenged because no one with a less daring imagination could credit them.

Graner said, quite mildly: 'All the same, we don't know that you might not be tempted if she did agree to the proposition you were making.'

'You know it for any amount of reasons. What's the difference between a fifth of two million dollars and an eighth? A hundred and fifty thousand. Well, you showed me the inside of your safe. If that's the scale you do business on, would I be mug enough to throw in my share of your prospects for a hundred and fifty thousand? How far should I get on my own, without anyone to help me? I don't know the town and I don't know the people and I don't speak the language. And how should I get away with it if I did double-cross you? There's only one way out of Tenerife as far as I know-that harbour down there. And am I sap enough to think that I'd ever get on board a boat if I'd double-crossed you and your outfit was looking for me?'

Graner inspected the end of his cigar-it was burn­ing a trifle unevenly, and he moistened the tip of one finger to damp the part that was burning too fast.

'I'm on the level with you,' said the Saint, 'and I'm ready to stay that way, because I know you've got more to offer than a share in a lottery ticket.

But after the way you've started, I want to be sure that you're on the level with me before I take any more chances. If this turns out all right, we'll call it quits and keep going. All of which is aside from the fact that I can get a hell of a lot more out of this girl by making love to her and kidding her that I'm on her side than you ever will with your ideas of per­suading. . . . Anyway, that's the deal I'm offering; and if you don't like it you can have the key and walk out just as soon as it suits you.'

Outside the window, the locomotive announced its return journey with a fresh outburst of hideous brain-searing shrieks. An unsilenced motorcycle crackled and spluttered like an inexhaustible machine gun while its rider howled his greetings to some friends two blocks away, who howled back with no less enthusiasm at him. A couple of ancient buses groaned through the square with a noise like a thousand tin cans being rattled together in a riveting yard. About forty taxis sustained an intermittent blasting on their peculiarly obnoxious horns. A tram ground and thundered up the slope, ringing a bell continuously. A knife grinder blew his mournful whistle. A donkey threw up its head and let out its sobbing asthmatic song. Apart from those echoes of the Elysian tranquillity of Santa Cruz, there was absolute silence in the room for some time.

Simon didn't try to hurry the decision. Actually, there was only one way it could possibly be made. But what really mattered was the atmosphere.

Graner looked at him again.

'If you still want to be satisfied about me, I take it that you would have no objection to satisfying me about yourself.'

'How?'

'By letting me look after your passport.'

Without a second's hesitation, the Saint took it out of his pocket. It was a perfectly good passport, and it was made out in the name of Sebastian Tombs.

Graner glanced at it and placed it carefuly in his wallet. The possession of it made a subtle difference to his manner; and the Saint knew that for that mo­ment at any rate Graner was convinced. The immortal gorgeousness of the reversal made his ribs ache. It must have been years since anyone had stood up to Graner like that, since anyone had taken him apart and flattened him out with such sublime completeness; and when Simon thought about how he had done it he wanted to roll on the bed in a rapture of cosmic mirth that was too deep and soul-shaking for ordinary laughter. But he didn't. Instead, he crowned the peak of his inspiration with the last and most superb auda­city of all.

He produced Graner's automatic and held it care­lessly out to him, butt foremost.

'You'd better have this too,' he said gravely.

It was the climax. The man who could have re­mained unimpressed by a gesture like that would have been superhuman. It left Graner stripped of every other argument.

Graner put the gun away and picked up his cane. He looked down at Christine again for another moment.

'How long will that keep her quiet?'

'I gave her enough for about half an hour.' Simon took the key and unlocked the door. 'You'd better be on your way.'

He accompanied Graner down the stairs. There was still the hall to be passed, and the wavy-haired boy who might smash everything again with two or three words; and the Saint sent up a silent prayer as they descended the last flight.

As his foot came off the last step he said: 'Directly anything breaks, I'll call you. Is your phone number in the directory?'

'Yes.'

'And if you or any of the boys think of anything brilliant, you'll find me here.' The Saint's lazy stride was