18 The Saint Bids Diamonds (Thieves' Picnic)

'Your passport?'

'Yes. He asked for it, just for insurance, so I gave it to him to keep him happy. It's quite a good one, but I've got plenty more-only he doesn't know that. . . . Maybe he has some suspicions about me-I don't know-but the worst you can call them is suspicions. So long as he hasn't any proof, it doesn't make much odds. I've got the bulge.'

She said: 'Do you think I believe you?'

He moved his shoulders in the faintest sketch of a shrug.

'I'm waiting for you to tell me, Christine.'

She turned her cigarette in the ash tray, making random patterns in the ash. For a while she didn't give him an answer.

Then she looked at him again, and he realised that the detachment had gone from her eyes. He would have liked a brush and palette and canvas, and the time and talent to capture the tilt of her chin and the expressive arch of her brows. He had been aware of her beauty from the first moment he saw her, but he had not felt it so deeply before now. And yet her conscious parade of it had some of the pathetic simplicity of a child; and it was with the same childish simplicity that she said: 'Don't you think I could give you more than Graner ever could?'

He tried not to look too much at the soft curve of her lips and the elusive temptation of her eyes.

'He's not very beautiful, is he?' he said lightly.

'I'm beautiful.'

The sheer silk of her dress brought out the lines of her long slender legs as she swung them off the bed. She stood over him, her hands resting on her hips; the silk clung to her waist and moulded the pattern of her firm young breasts. She was all young desire, infinitely desirable. . . . He did not want to think about that.

'I must be,' she said, with the same innocent sober­ness. 'Do you know I was only sixteen when they brought me here? I've seen them watching me as I grew up. I've seen them wanting me. Sometimes they've tried; but Joris could still help me a little. I learnt to keep them away. But I knew I couldn't keep them away always. You may be the same as they are, but you don't seem the same. I shouldn't mind so much if it was you. And if it would help Joris ... if you helped him, I would give you anything you want. . . .'

'That isn't necessary,' he said roughly.

He got up quickly, without looking at her, and went to the window. He stood there for a time, without speaking, looking down into the square without seeing anything, until he felt he could trust himself to face her again. When he turned round at last, he had taken everything out of his eyes but the preoccupation of the adventure.

'The first thing you've got to do is to get out of here,' he said. 'Graner's been sent home for the moment, but we don't know what's going to happen next. And I'd rather you weren't around when it does happen.'

'But where else can I go?'

'That's what I'm trying to figure out.' He thoughtfor a moment. 'Last time I was here, there was a fellow -- Wait a minute.'

He skimmed rapidly through the telephone direc­tory; and some time later, after he had managed to get the attention of the hotel operator, and the hotel operator had managed to wake the exchange out of its peaceful slumbers, and the exchange had made careful investigations to assure itself that there was such a number, he secured his connection.

'Oiga-zesta alli el senor Keena? . . . David? Well, the Lord's name be praised. This is Simon. . . . Yes indeed. . . . Yes, I know I said you'd never see me again in this God-awful hole while there was any other place left on earth to go to, but we haven't time to go into that now. Listen. I want you to do some­thing for me. Have you still got your apartment? . . . Well, how'd you like to turn out of it for a lady? . . . Yes, I'm sure you can't see why, but how d'you know she'd like you ? . . . Anyway, it's just one of those things, David. And it is important. I'll tell you all about it later. She can't go to a hotel. . . . That's grand of you. . . . Will you meet us there in about five minutes? . . . Okay, fella. Be seein' ya!'

He hung up the telephone and turned round cheer­fully.

'Well, that's settled. Now if we can find some way to smuggle you out-Joris and Hoppy went out in trunks, so I suppose that's ruled out. Wait another minute . . .'

'Are they watching the hotel?'

'Graner left Manoel outside-he was shining the back of his coat on the Casino when I saw him last. But we can fix that. Are you ready to move?'

'When you are.'

She put a hand on his arm, and for a moment he hesitated. There were so many other things he would rather have done just then. . . . And then, with a quick soft laugh, he touched her lips with his own and opened the door at once.

Downstairs, he beckoned the wavy-haired boy away from the desk, where there were some repulsive specimens of the young blood of England wearing their old school blazers and giggling over the priceless joke that Spaniards had a language of their own which was quite different from English.

'Have you got a back way out?' he asked.

'A back way out, senor?' repeated the boy dubiously.

'A back way out,' said the Saint firmly.

The boy considered the problem and cautiously admitted that there was a back door somewhere through which garbage cans were removed.

'We want to be garbage cans,' said the Saint.

He emphasised the fact with another hundred-peseta note.

They passed through stranger and stranger doors, groped their way through dark passages, circumnavigated a kitchen and finally reached another door which opened on to a mean back street. An idle waiter whom they brushed