wanted to himself, and he wondered if his instincts were starting to play tricks with him.
'I hung around the Calle San Francisco for a bit,' he said vaguely. 'Then our friend came out, and I followed him. He's a great walker-led me a chase all over the town. He went into three or four shops and bought things. Then he went into the Casino. I stayed outside for sometime, until I got scared there might be a back way out. I went in and made enquiries, and there was. I toured all over the place, but he'd gone.'
'Did you go back to Lauber after that?'
'Yes.'
'What happened there?'
The Saint gave himself another breather while he lighted a cigarette. He was beginning to feel as if all his co- ordinates of reality were giving way, as if he were wading in grotesque slow motion through a sea of thick and glutinous soup, like a man on a marijuana jag. But he had made up his mind that the safest thing was to let Graner give him the lead; and meanwhile he didn't see why he shouldn't play the same game as he assumed Lauber had been playing.
He said, with deliberately measured bluntness: 'It might have been the last job I could have done for you for a long time. If I hadn't been lucky you'd have been looking for a new diamond cutter.'
'Why?'
'Because in any case you're going to have to look for a new chauffeur. He was the only guy I found when I got there, and he was dead.'
'Manoel?'
The Saint nodded.
'Shot. Right between the eyes. He was still warm when I found him. The apartment was quite dark. I searched through it, but there wasn't anyone there, I couldn't do any more, because just then the police rolled up. I heard them coming and looked out of the window. Palermo's girl was with them, so I suppose she found Manoel and turned in the alarm. I climbed out of a back window as they came in the door, and beat it over the roofs.'
Graner's face registered no emotion. He gripped the amber holder between his teeth and drew the end of his cigar to an even red. His sharp snaky eyes watched Simon intently through the smoke.
'Would you be surprised to hear that Lauber said you had shot him?' he said.
'Su cambio, senior.'
The bootblack had returned. He laid five duros on the marble table in front of the Saint. Simon handed him a peseta and looked at him as he did so. Julian's smile was uncertain, and his eyes were troubled: it was enough to tell the Saint that the lad had found his message and read it. He was still afraid that Julian might try to say something to him. about it, and turned his shoulder on him quickly before that disaster could happen.
'No,' he answered Graner blandly. 'It wouldn't surprise me very much. But it would make me a little more sure that Lauber had done it himself.'
'You don't like Lauber?'
The Saint shrugged.
'I expect you've already made up your own mind who did it. I'm just telling you what I think. What was Lauber's story?'
'He told me that when Manoel arrived with the message you were so insistent on going to the Calle San Francisco yourself that he became suspicious. When he tried to prevent you going, you hit him and knocked him out; and then he thinks you shot Manoel when he tried to stop you.'
'It's a good story,' said the Saint unconcernedly, 'even if it is a god-damn lie. Lauber was the bloke who insisted that he wanted to wait there for Aliston. But if you believe him, why don't you call the police?'
'I'll talk about that in a minute,' said Graner. He inspected his cigar for a few seconds, then looked up from it to add: 'I have already seen Aliston.'
A ball of lead formed in the Saint's stomach and made his diaphragm feel as if it was being dragged down out of its rightful place. He had to check himself for a moment before he spoke, to make sure that his voice was under control.
'That's something, anyway,' he conceded coolly. 'Was he looking pretty fit?'
'He had Christine with him.'
Simon knew how Lauber must have felt when he received that shattering jolt in the solar plexus, having seen it coming and yet only having had time to realise that he couldn't possibly move fast enough to ward it off. He had had fair warning, but the shock was none the less deadly for that. He knew that he was hearing the truth-a fabrication that would have fitted so neatly into his own deductions would have been too wild a coincidence. The shock numbed every physical sense he commanded; but somehow it left his brain aloof and unshaken by the chaos of his nerves.
'Better and better,' he said, and was amazed at the naturalness of his own voice. 'Where was this?'
'At the house.'
The third shock was wasted-it had no reactions left to work on.
'When?'
'Aliston was there when I got back with Palermo.'
'And who did he say I'd killed?'
'I will tell you exactly what he told me. He told me that he traced your taxi back to the Calle San Francisco. He found Christine there-at the address where Joris' friend went to after you let him go.'
'That's impossible,' said the Saint, with unruffled assurance. 'Unless she got out of the place where I left her.
