past gaped at them.
'You're learning,' said the Saint appreciatively, and the boy began to grin. Simon turned back to him grimly. 'But just understand this,' he added. 'If that waiter or anyone else says a word about our going out this way, it's your head that I'll knock off. You've got a hundred pesetas. Use them.'
'Claro,' said the boy, less enthusiastically; and Simon ruffled his nice wavy hair and left him to it.
David Keena was waiting for them when their taxi drew up at the building where he lived.
'There is some excitement in Tenerife, after all,' he said when the Saint got out.
'You don't know the half of it.' Simon waited until they were inside the house to introduce the girl. 'This is playing hell with your peaceful life, I know, but I'll do the same for you one day.'
They went up to the apartment. Simon scanned it approvingly. If by any chance the Graner organisation, either corporately or individually, started to search for Christine, they would draw the hotels first. She might be secure in that apartment for an indefinite time.
He took Christine's hand.
'Hasta luego,' he said, and smiled at her.
She looked at him, not quite understanding.
'Are you going?'
'I must, darling. I daren't be away from the hotel a moment longer than I have to, in case Graner calls me back. But I'll be on the job. Now that I know you're safe, I'll have all my time to look for Joris and Hoppy. Just sit tight and don't worry. It won't be long before I find them.'
'You'll tell me what happens?'
'Of course. There's a telephone here, and I'll call you the minute I've got anything to say. Or any other time I've got a few seconds to spare for a chat. I only wish I had the time to spare now, Christine.'
He held her hand for a moment longer; and there was something in his smile which seemed quite apart from the only life in which she had ever known him. The gay zest of adventure was still there, the half-humorous welcome to danger, the careless confidence -in his own lawless ways that made up so much of his fascination; but there was something else, something like a curious regret that she was too young to understand. And before she could ask him anything else he was gone.
'Why the rush?' asked Keena, as Simon drew him down the stairs.
'For fifteen million reasons which I can't stop to tell you about now. But you know something about me, and you know the sort of troubles I get into. If you don't know any more than that it may be healthier for you.'
'I read something in the Prensa about an outbreak of gangsterismo --'
'So did I, but that was the first I'd heard of it.' Simon stopped at the foot of the stairs and grinned at him. 'Now you'll have to be content with that until I've got time to give you the whole story. You can go back upstairs for just long enough to settle the girl in and see that she knows where everything is. Then you hustle back to your office and carry on as if nothing had happened. She's not to show her face outside this place, and you're not to behave as if you'd got anyone here; so you can stop wondering where you're going to take her to dinner. You find yourself a nice respectable hotel, and if there are any questions you can say your apartment's being painted. You don't say a word about Christine, or about me for that matter. Do you get the idea?'
'I think it's a lousy idea,' Keena said gloomily.
The Saint chuckled and opened the front door.
'It 'll grow on you when you get to know it better,' he said. 'We'll get together later and talk it over.'
He had kept his taxi waiting, and a moment later he was on his way again. As they approached the Casino building he slid down in the seat until he was invisible to anyone who might have been lounging about the square, and told the driver to take him round to the corner of the Calle Doctor Allart-he had taken note of the name of the street behind the hotel when he went out with Christine.
The driver looked round at him blankly, narrowly missing a collision with a tram in the process.
'zDonde esta?'
Simon explained the position of the street at length, and comprehension gradually brightened the chauffeur's face.
'Ah!' he said. 'You mean the Calle el Sol.'
'It has Calle Doctor Allart written on it,' said the Saint.
'That is possible,' said the driver phlegmatically. 'But we call it the Calle el Sol.'
He stopped at the required corner, and Simon got out and paid him off. He walked on towards the rear entrance of the hotel. There was a car parked in front of it, on the opposite side of the road; otherwise the street was deserted. The car seemed to be empty, and he knew at once that it bore no resemblance to Graner's gleaming Buick. It was curious that he should have overlooked the possibility of there being two cars in Graner's garage. The Saint had just put his hand on the door when he heard a step behind him, and before he could turn he felt the firm pressure of a gun barrel under his left shoulder blade.
'Don't do anything silly,' said a soft voice. The Saint turned his head.
It was the elegant Mr Palermo.
VI How Simon Templar Ate without Enthusiasm, and Mr Uniatz Was Also Troubled about His Breakfast
THE RAIN which had been threatening all the morning was starting to come down in a steady miserable drizzle; and under its depressing influence the street, which could never in its existence have been a busy
