'Let's get started.'
Morris Dolf pocketed his automatic and went out, with a last cold stare over the scene.
Kaskin went to the bed, closed the bulging valise, and picked it up. He put his arm round the girl again and drew her to the door.
'Have a good time,' he said.
The Saint looked out on to an empty landing. But what he saw was the last desperate glance that the girl flung at him as Kaskin led her out.
He tensed his arms for an instant, and his wrists separated. The scraps of cord scuffed on the floor behind him. He took a better grip on his knife. But he still made no other movement. He sat where he was, watching the slowly smouldering fuse, waiting and listening for two sounds that all his immobility was tuned for. One of them he knew he would hear, unless some disastrous accident had happened to cheat his calculations; the other he was only hoping for, and yet it was the one that his ears were most wishfully strained to catch.
Then he saw Angela Lindsay's bag lying on a corner of the dresser, and all his doubts were supremely set at rest.
He heard her voice, down on the stairs, only a second after his eyes had told him that he must hear it.
And he heard Kaskin's growling answer.
'Well, hurry up, you fool. . . The car's out in front of the house opposite.'
The Saint felt queerly content.
Angela Lindsay stood in the doorway again, looking at him.
She did not speak. She picked up her bag and tucked it under her arm. Then she went quickly over to the bed and took hold of the trailing length of fuse. She wound it round her hand and tore it loose from the bomb, and threw it still smouldering into a far corner.
Then she bent over the Saint and kissed him, very swiftly.
He did not move for a moment. And then, even more swiftly, his free hands came from behind him and caught her wrists.
She tried to snatch herself back in sudden panic, but his grip was too strong. And he smiled at her.
'Don't go for a minute,' he said softly.
She stood frozen.
Down on the ground floor, all at once, there were many sounds. The sounds of heavy feet, deep voices that were neither Dolf's nor Kaskin's, quick violent movements. . . .
Her eyes grew wide, afraid, uncomprehending, questioning. But those were the sounds that he had been sure of hearing. His face was unlined and unstartled. He still smiled. His head moved fractionally in answer to the question she had not found voice to ask.
'Yes,' he said evenly. 'It is the police. Do you still want to go?'
Her mouth moved.
'You knew they'd be here.'
'Of course,' he said. 'I arranged for it. I wanted them to catch Morrie and Judd with the goods on them. I knew you meant to double-cross me, all the time. So I pulled a double doublecross. That was before you kissed me—so you could find out where I kept my gun. . . . Then I was only hoping you'd make some excuse to come back and do what you just did. You see, everything had to be in your own hands.'
