A part of the Saint's mind felt quite detached and indeнpendent of him, like an adding machine clicking over in a different room. The machine tapped out: She should have known that the pro would be booked up. And of course he'd say that he'd be glad to fit her in if he had a cancellation. And the odds are about eight to one that he wouldn't have a canнcellation. So she could make him and several other people believe that she'd been waiting all the time. She could alнways find a chance to slip out of the entrance when there was no one in the office for a moment-she might even arrange to clear the way without much difficulty. She only had to get out. Coming back, she could say she just went to get something from her car. No one would think about it. And if there had been a cancellation, and the pro had been looking for her- well, she'd been in the johnny, or the showers, or at the botнtom of the pool. He just hadn't found her. She'd been there all the time, A very passable casual alibi, with only a trivial percentage of risk.
But she isn't dressed to have done what must have been done.
She could have changed.
She couldn't have done it anyway.
Why not? She looks athletic. There are good muscles under that soft golden skin. She might have been sniping revenooers in the mountains of Kentucky since she was five years old, for all you know. What makes you so sure what she could do and couldn't do?
Well, what were Angelo and his pal, and Louis the Italian chef, doing at the same time? You can't rule them out.
Any good reader would rule them out. The mysterious murнderer just doesn't turn out to be the cook or the butler any more. That was worked to death twenty years ago.
So of course no cook or butler in real life would ever dream of murdering anyone any more, because they'd know it was just too corny.
'What's the matter with you all?' Lissa asked. 'Wasn't the ride any good?'
'It was fine,' said the Saint. 'Except when your last night's boy friend started shooting at Freddie.'
Then they all began to talk at once.
It was Freddie, of course, who finally got the floor. He did it principally by saying the same things louder and oftener than anyone else. When the competition had been crushed he told the story again, challenging different people to subнstantiate his statements one by one. He was thus able to leave a definite impression that he had been walking up the canyon when somebody shot at him.
Simon signalled a waiter for another round of drinks and put himself into a self-preservative trance until the peak of the verbal flood had passed. He wondered whether he should ask Freddie for another thousand dollars. He felt that he was definitely earning his salary as he went along.
'... Then that proves it must be one of the servants,' Lissa said. 'So if we can find out which of them went out this afternoon--'
'Why does it prove that?' Simon inquired.
'Well, it couldn't have been Ginny, because she was talking to you. It couldn't have been me--'
'Couldn't it?'
She looked at him blankly. But her brain worked. He could almost see it. She might have been reading everything that had been traced through his mind, a few minutes ago, line by line.
'It couldn't have been me,' Esther insisted plaintively. 'I didn't have a stitch on. Where could I have hidden a gun?'
Ginny gazed at her speculatively.
'It'll be interesting to see how the servants can account for their time,' Simon said hastily. 'But I'm not going to get optimistic too quickly. I don't think anything about this business is very dumb and straightforward. It's quite the opposite. Somebody is being so frantically cunning that he must be practically tying himself-or herself-in a knot. So if it is one of the servants, I bet he has an alibi too.'
'I still think you ought to tell the police,' Ginny said.
The drinks arrived. Simon lighted a cigarette and waited until the waiter had gone away again.
'What for?' he asked. 'There was a guy in Lissa's room last night. Nobody saw him. He didn't leave any muddy footprints or any of that stuff. He used one of our own kitchen knives. If there ever were any fingerprints on it, they've been ruined. So-nothing . . . This afternoon someнbody shot at Freddie. Nobody saw him. He didn't leave his gun, and nobody could ever find the bullet. So nothing again. What are the police going to do? They aren't magicians . . . However, that's up to you, Freddie.'
'They could ask people questions,' Esther said hopefully.
'So can we. We've been asking each other questions all the time. If anybody's lying, they aren't going to stop lying just because a guy with a badge is listening. What are they going to do-torture everybody and see what they get?'
'They'd put a man on guard, or something,' said Ginny.
'So what? Our friend has waited quite a while already. I'm sure he could wait some more. He could wait longer than any police department is going to detail a private cop to nurseнmaid Freddie. So the scare blows over, and everybody settles down, and sometime later, maybe somewhere else, Freddie gets it. Well, personally I'd rather take our chance now while we're all warmed up.'
'That's right,' Freddie gave his verdict. 'If we scare whoнever it is off with the police, they'll only come back another time when we aren't watching for them. I'd rather let them get on with it while we're ready for them.'
He looked rather proud of himself for having produced this penetrating reasoning all on his own.
And then his mind appeared to wander, and his eyes changed their focus.
'Hey,' he said in an awed voice. 'Look at that, will you?' They looked, as he pointed. 'The babe down by the pool. In the sarong effect. Boy, is that a chassis! Look at her!'
She was, Simon admitted, something to look at. The three girls with them seemed to admit the same thing by their rather strained and intent silence. Simon could feel an almost tangible heaviness thicken into the air.
Then Ginny sighed, as if relief had reached her rather late.
'A blonde,' she said. 'Well, Lissa, it's nice to have known you.'
Freddie didn't even seem to hear it. He picked up his glass, still staring raptly at the vision. He put the glass to his lips.
It barely touched, and he stiffened. He took it away and stared at it frozenly. Then he pushed it across the table toнwards the Saint.
'Smell that,' he said.
Simon put it to his nostrils. The hackneyed odor of bitter almonds was as strong and unmistakable as any mystery-story fan could have desired.
'It doesn't smell like prussic acid,' he said, with comнmendable mildness. He put the glass down and drew on his cigarette again, regarding the exhibit moodily. He was quite sure now that he was going to collect his day's wages without much more delay. And probably the next day's pay in adнvance, as well. At that, he thought that the job was poorly paid for what it was. He could see nothing in it at all to make him happy. But being a philosopher, he had to cast around for one little ray of sunshine. Being persistent, he found it. 'So anyway,' he said, 'at least we don't have to bother about the servants any more.'
7
IT WAS a pretty slender consolation, he reflected, even after they had returned to the house and he had perfunctorily questioned the servants, only to have them jointly and severнally corroborate each other's statements that none of them had left the place that afternoon.
After which, they had all firmly but respectfully announced that they were not used to being under suspicion, that they did not feel comfortable in a household where people were frequently getting stabbed at, shot at, and poisoned at; that in any case they would prefer a less exacting job with more regнular hours; that they had already packed their bags; and that they would like to catch the evening bus back to Los Angeles, if Mr. Pellman would kindly pay them up to date.
Freddie had obliged them with a good deal of nonchalance, being apparently not unaccustomed to the transience of doнmestic help.
After which the Saint went to his room, stripped off his riding clothes, took a shower, wrapped himself in bath robe, and lay down on the bed with a cigarette to contemplate the extreme sterility of the whole problem.
'This ought to learn you,' he told himself, 'to just say NO when you don't want to do anything, instead of
