V
THE MAN who had been bending over Lady Valerie straightened up. He was slim and sallow, with black hair plastered down over his head until it looked as if it had been waxed. He had quick darting eyes and a sly slinking manner; his movements were abrupt and silent, like those of a lizard. One could imagine him lurking in dark corners for sinister purposes.
The Saint smiled at Lady Valerie as the lizardlike man withdrew his hand and her face became visible. The first expression on her face was a light of joy and relief; and then when she saw that he kept his hands up and saw the ape-faced man follow him in with the silenced revolver screwed into his back, it changed through stark unbelief to hopeless dejection.
'Hullo, darling,' he said. 'You do have some nice friends, don't you?'
She didn't respond. She sat there and stared at him reproachfully: she seemed to be deeply disappointed in him. Simon realized that there was some excuse for her, but she would have to endure.her unfounded disappointment for a little while longer.
He transferred his smile to the automatic and the cigarette.
'Nice weather we've been having, haven't we?' he murmured, keeping the conversational ball rolling single--handed.
This other man was bigger, and there was an air of conscious arrogance about him. He had the cold, intolerant eyes and haughty moustache of a Prussian guardsman. He gazed back at Simon with fishlike incuriosity and made a gesture with his cigarette at the sallow man.
'Disarm and search him, Dumaire.'
'So your name is Dumaire, is it?' said the Saint politely. 'May I compliment you on your coiffure? I've never seen floor polish used on the head before. And while this is going on, won't you introduce me to your uncle?'
Dumaire said nothing; he simply proceeded to do what he was told and run through the Saint's pockets. Keys, cigarette case, lighter, money, handkerchief, wallet, fountain pen—he took out the commonplace articles one by one and laid them on a small table in front of the man who appeared to be in charge. While he was waiting for the collection to be assembled the latter answered Simon's question.
'If it is of any interest to you,' he said, 'I am Major Bravache, a divisional commander of the Sons of France, about whom I think you said something just now.'
He spoke English excellently, with only a trace of native accent.
'How perfectly splendid,' said the Saint slowly. 'But do you know what bad company you're in ? This bird behind me, for instance, with the peashooter boring into my backbone, whatever he may have told you, I happen to know that his real name is Sam Pietri and he has done three sentences for robbery with violence.'
He felt the harmless gun quiver involuntarily against his spine and chuckled inwardly over the awful anguish that must have been twinging through the tissues of the ape-faced man, not only compelled to be an impotent accomplice in snaring fresh victims into the net of his own downfall, but suffering the aftermath of a maltreated skull as well. Simon would have given much for a glimpse of his guardian's face, but he hoped that it was not betraying anything to the opposition.
