'He has not been in touch with the house.'
'Well, what do we do?' asked the Saint. 'Why did you want someone to chase this other guy, anyway?'
'I thought it would be safer to watch him. Where are you telephoning from?'
'I'm in a shop near by.'
'What is the number?'
'Three nine eight six,' said the Saint, hoping that Graner didn't know anyone with that number.
'You had better wait for a while-say half an hour. If he comes out, follow him. If he has not come out in that time, try to enter the apartments and see what you can find out. If there is no trace of him, go back to Lauber. If I have any other instructions I will call you. You will tell the shop that you are expecting a call.'
'Okay.'
Simon replaced the telephone with a slight shrug. He was not much further on than he had been before. If Graner's share in the dialogue could be taken on trust, neither Lauber nor the chauffeur had yet been in touch with him. If any reliance could be placed on his tone of voice, Graner's suspicions were still at rest. It was flimsy enough material on which to build vital decisions, but it was all there was. And even if it was tentatively accepted as sound, it still left Lauber's next move to be prophesied.
Mechanically the Saint took out his cigarette case for the indispensable auxiliary to thought. The case was empty.
'Damn,' he said, and got up off the bed. 'Have you got a cigarette, Hoppy?'
'I got a zepp,' said Mr Uniatz generously.
Simon looked at the cigar and shook his head tactfully.
'I'll go out and buy some,' he said, and remembered something else he could do at the same time.
'Maybe we could get a drink de same place,' assented Mr Uniatz, brightening.
A firm veto to that sociable idea was on the tip of the Saint's tongue when another angle on it crossed his mind. He peeped through the communicating door again. Joris was still sleeping the relaxed and utterly forgetful sleep of a child.
Simon closed the door silently.
'You can get a drink,' he said. 'But we can't be seen drinking together. Give me a couple of minutes, and go out on your own. You'd better go to the German Bar-it's just over the other side of the square, where you see the awning. I'll come in there myself in-let's see-in an hour and a half at the very outside. If I don't pay any attention to you, don't come and talk with me. And if I haven't shown up by half past six, come back here and hold the fort. Have you got that, or shall I say it again?'
'I got it, boss,' said Mr Uniatz intelligently. 'But do I bop de nex' guy who comes in or don't I?'
'I suppose you bop him,' said the Saint fatalistically.
On his way down the stairs he became more convinced of the soundness of his plan. Soon enough, whatever else developed out of the situation, some one or other would be investigating the report that Joris was back at the hotel; and anything that would confuse them and add to their difficulties would be an advantage on the side of righteousness and Saintly living. It was rather like using Hoppy for live bait, but at the same time it probably made very little actual addition to the danger he was already in.
The wavy-haired boy looked up with a pleased and optimistic smile as Simon approached the desk. He was beginning to regard those approaches as a continually recurring miracle.
Simon glanced around him before he spoke, but there was nobody in the lounge.
'You remember the old man who came in with my friend a little while ago?'
'Si, senor.'
'Has anyone been enquiring for him?'
'No, senor. Nadie me ha preguntado.'
'Good. Now listen. In a few minutes my friend will go out again-alone. But if anyone inquires for the old man, you will say that he went out with him. If they want to know what room he was in, you will give them the number of one of your empty rooms on the second floor. But you will be quite definite that he has left the hotel. You will also say that I have not been back here. Is that understood?'
'Si, senor,' said the boy expectantly.
He was not disappointed. Another hundred-peseta note unfurled itself under his eyes. If this went on for a few more days, he thought, he would be able to give up his job as conserje and purchase the banana plantation which, is every good Canary Islander's dream of independence and prosperity.
'And if you go off duty, see that the night man has the same orders,' were the Saint's parting instructions.
He was on his way out when the boy remembered something and ran after him.
'Ha llegado una carta para usted.'
Simon took the letter and examined it with a puzzled frown-he could think of no one in England who knew where he was just then. And then the postmarks gave him the explanation. It was a letter which had been addressed to him by air mail when he was in Tenerife on his last brief visit a little more than two months previously, which the unfathomable bowels of the Spanish postal system had finally decided to disgorge, having triumphantly demonstrated their ability to rise supreme over the efforts of Progress to speed up communications.
'Thank you,' said the Saint, when he had recovered a little from his emotion. 'There was a parcel sent to me about the same time; but that was by ordinary mail. It should be getting here any week now. Will you look out for it?'
