Follow the Saint

The girl didn't quite scream, but her voice tightened and rose to within a semitone of it. She backed against the wall, one hand to her mouth, with her face and her eyes dilated with horror. The man began to turn towards her, and then followed her wide and frozen stare. The muzzle of the gun he was holding swung slack from its aim on the Saint's chest as he did so, it was an error that in some situations would have cost him his life, but Simon let him live. The Saint's head was whirling with too many questions, just then, to have any interest in the opportunity. He was looking at the gun which the girl was still holding, and recognizing it as the property of Mr Uniatz.

'It's Nora,' she gasped. 'She's——'

He saw her gather herself with an effort, force herself to go forward and kneel beside the body. Then he stopped watching her. His eyes went to the gun that was still wavering in the young man's hand—

'Jim,' said the girl brokenly, 'she's dead!'

The man took a half step towards the Saint.

'You swine!' he grunted. 'You killed her——'

'Go on,' said the Saint gently. 'And then I took a pot at you. So you fired back in self-defence, and just happened to kill us. It'll make a swell story even if it isn't a very new one, and you'll find yourself quite a hero. But why all the play­acting for our benefit ? We know the gag.'

There was complete blankness behind the anger in the other's eyes. And all at once the Saint's somersaulting cosmos stabilized itself with a jolt—upside down, but solid.

He was looking at the gun which was pointing at his chest, and realizing that it was his own Luger.

And the girl had got Hoppy's gun. And there was no other artillery in sight.

The arithmetic of it smacked him between the eyes and made him dizzy. Of course there was an excuse for him, in the shape of the first shot and the bullet that had gone snarling past his ear. But even with all that, for him out of all people in the world, at his time of life—

'Run up to the house and call the police, Rosemary,' said the striped blazer in a brittle bark.

'Wait a minute,' said the Saint.

His brain was not fogged any longer. It was turning over as swiftly and smoothly as a hair-balanced flywheel, register­ing every item with the mechanical infallibility of an adding machine. His nerves were tingling.

His glance whipped from side to side. He was standing again approximately where he had been when the shot cracked out, but facing the opposite way. On his right quarter was the window that had been broken, with the shards of glass scattered on the floor below it—he ought to have understood everything when he heard them hit the floor. Turning the other way, he saw that the line from the window to himself continued on through the open door.

He took a long drag on his cigarette.

'It kind of spoils the scene,' he said quietly, 'but I'm afraid we've both been making the same mistake. You thought I fired at you——'

'I don't have——'

'All right, you don't have to think. You heard the bullet whizz past your head. You said that before. You're certain I shot at you. Okay. Well, I was just as certain that you shot at me. But I know now I was wrong. You never had a gun until you got mine. It was that shot that let you bluff me. I'd heard the bullet go past my head, and so it never occurred to me that you were bluffing. But we were both wrong. The shot came through that window—it just missed me, went on out through the door, and just missed you. And some­body else fired it!'

The other's face was stupid with stubborn incredulity.

'Who