bed, and then I knew I was wide awake and it wasn't just a bad dream, and then I screamed the first time and tried to wriggle out of bed on the other side from where he was, to get away from him, and he actually touched my shoulder, and then there was a sort of thump right beside me-that must have been the knife-and then he ran away and I heard him rush through one of the doors, and I lay there and screamed again beнcause I thought that would bring you or somebody, and beнsides if I made enough noise it would help to scare him and make him so busy trying to get away that he wouldn't wait to have another try at me.'
'So you never actually saw him at all?' She shook her head.
'I had the shades drawn, so it was quite dark. I couldn't see anything. That's what made it more like a nightmare. It was like being blind.'
'But when he opened one of these doors to rush out- there might have been a little dim light on the other side-'
'Well, I could just barely see something, but it was so quick, it was just a blurred shadow and then he was gone. I don't think I've even got the vaguest idea how big he was.'
'But you call him 'he',' said the Saint easily, 'so you saw that much, anyway.'
She stared at him with big round blue eyes. 'I didn't,' she said blankly. 'No, I didn't. I just naturally thought it was 'he'. Of course it was 'he'. It had to be.' She swallowed, and added almost pleadingly: 'didn't it?'
'I don't know,' said the Saint, flatly and dispassionately.
'Now wait a minute,' said Freddie Pellman, breaking one of the longest periods of plain listening that Simon had yet known him to maintain. 'What is this?'
The Saint took a cigarette from a package on the bedside table and lighted it with care and deliberation. He knew that their eyes were all riveted on him now, but he figured that a few seconds' suspense would do them no harm.
'I've walked around outside,' he said, 'and I didn't see anyone making a getaway. That wasn't conclusive, of course, but it was an interesting start. Since then I've been through the whole house. I've checked every door and window in the place. Angelo did it first, but I did it again to make sure. Nothнing's been touched. There isn't an opening anywhere where even a cat could have got in and got out again. And I looked in all the closets and under the beds too, and I didn't find any strangers hiding around.'
'But somebody was here!' Freddie protested. 'There's the knife. You can see it with your own eyes. That proves that Lissa wasn't dreaming.'
Simon nodded, and his blue eyes were crisp and sardonic.
'Sure it does,' he agreed conversationally. 'So it's a comнfort to know that we don't have to pick a prospective murderer out of a hundred and thirty million people outside. We know that this is strictly a family affair, and you're going to be killed by somebody who's living here now.'
4 IT WAS nearly nine o'clock when the Saint woke up again, and the sun, which had been bleaching the sky before he got back to bed, was slicing brilliantly through the Venetian blinds. He felt a lot better than he had expected to. In fact, he decided, after a few minutes of lazy rolling and stretching, he felt surprisingly good. He got up, sluiced himself under a cold shower, brushed his hair, pulled on a pair of swimming trunks and a bath robe, and went out in search of breakfast.
Through the trench windows of the living-room he saw Ginny sitting alone at the long table in the patio beside the barbecue. He went out and stood over her.
'Hullo,' she said.
'Hullo,' he agreed. 'You don't mind if I join you?'
'Not a bit,' she said. 'Why should I?'
'We could step right into a Van Druten play,' he observed.
She looked at him rather vaguely. He sat down, and in a moment Angelo was at his elbow, immaculate and impassive now in a white jacket and a black bow tie.
'Yes, sir?'
'Tomato juice,' said the Saint. 'With Worcestershire sauce. Scrambled eggs, and ham. And coffee.'
'Yes, sir.'
The Filipino departed; and Simon lighted a cigarette and slipped the robe off his shoulders.
'Isn't this early for you to be up?'
'I didn't sleep so well.' She pouted. 'Esther does snore. You'll find out.'
Before the part broke up for the second time, there had been some complex but uninhibited arguments about how the rest of the night should be organized with a view to mutual protection, which Simon did not want revived at that hour.
'I'll have to thank her,' he said tactfully. 'She's saved me from having to eat breakfast alone. Maybe she'll do it for us again.'
'You could wake me up yourself just as well,' said Ginny.
The Saint kept his face noncommittal and tried again.
'Aren't you eating?'
She was playing with a glass of orange juice as if it were a medicine that she didn't want to take.
'I don't know. I sort of don't have any appetite.'
'Why?'
'Well... you are sure that it was someone in the house last night, aren't you?'
'Quite sure.'
'I meanннone of us. Or the servants, or somebody.'
'Yes.'
'So why couldn't we just as well be poisoned?'
He thought for a moment, and chuckled.
'Poison isn't so easy. In the first place, you have to buy it. And there are problems about that. Then, you have to put it in something. And there aren't so many people handling food that you can do that just like blowing out a match. It's an awfully dangerous way of killing people. I think probably more poisoners get caught than any other kind of murderer. And any smart killer knows it.'
'How do you know this one is smart?'
'It follows. You don't send warnings to your victims unless you think you're pretty smart--ннyou have to be quite an egotist and a show-off to get that far--ннand anyone who thinks he's really smart usually has at least enough smartness to be able to kid himself. Besides, nobody threatened to kill you.'
'Nobody threatened to kill Lissa.'
'Nobody did kill her.'
'But they tried.'
'I don't think we know that they were trying for Lissa.'
'Then if they were so halfway smart, how did they get in the wrong room?'
'They might have thought Freddie would be with her.'
'Yeah?' she scoffed. 'If they knew anything, they'd know he'd be in his own room. He doesn't visit. He has visitors.'
Simon felt that he was at some disadvantage. He said with a grin: 'You can tie me up, Ginny, but that doesn't alter anything. Freddie is the guy that the beef is about. The inнtended murderer has very kindly told us the motive. And that automatically establishes that there's no motive for killing anyone else. I'll admit that the attack on Lissa last night is pretty confusing, and I just haven't got any theories about it yet that I'd want to bet on; but I still know damn well that nobody except Freddie is going to be in much danger unless they accidentally find out who the murderer is, and personally I'm not going to starve myself until that happens.'
He proved it by taking a healthy sip from the glass of tomato juice which Angelo set in front of him, and a couple of minutes later he was carving into his ham and eggs with healthy enthusiasm.
The girl watched him moodily.
'Anyway,' she said, 'I never can eat anything much for breakfast. I have to watch my figure.'
'It looks very nice to me,' he said, and was able to say it without the slightest effort.
'Yes, but it has to stay that way. There's always competiнtion.'
Simon could appreciate that. He was curious. He had been very casual all the time about the whole organisation and mechanics of the mщnage, as casual as Pellman himself, but there just wasn't any way to stop
