The Saint Steps In

'Isn't it ever locked?'         

'Hardly ever. Daddy can't be bothered with keys—he's al­ways losing them. Besides why should we lock up? We haven't anything worth stealing, and who'd be prowling around here?'

'You said things had happened to the laboratory before.'

'Yes, but it's got so many windows that anybody could break in if they really wanted to.'

'So anybody could have walked in on your father at any time tonight.'

'Yes.'

There wasn't any more to say. They went back into the house, and into the comfortable living-room with the cold pipe in the ashtray, and passed the time. He strummed the piano, and parodied a song or two very quietly, and she sat in one chair after another and watched him. And all the time he knew that there wasn't anything to do. Or to say, at that moment.

It got to be later.

He took their bags upstairs, and put hers in her room and chose himself a guest room opposite, with a door directly fac­ing hers across the corridor. He opened his own bag before he came down again and fixed drinks for both of them. Into her drink he put a couple of drops from a phial that he brought down with him.

Very quickly the hot bright strain went out of her eyes, and she began yawning. In a little while she was fast asleep. He carried her upstairs and put her in her bed, and then he went across to his own room and took off most of his clothes and lay down on the bed with his automatic tucked under the edge of the mattress close to his right hand, and switched off the lights. He didn't think it was at all likely that the Ungodly could get around to organising another routine so soon, but he always preferred to overrate the opposition rather than underrate them. He was awake for a long time; and when he finally let himself sink into a light doze the first pallor of dawn was creeping into the room, and he knew that he had been wrong about the bush-league skullduggery and that Calvin Gray was not coming home unless somebody fetched him.

3. How Madeline Gray was Persuaded to Eat,

and Mr. Angert gave it Up.

It was half-past eight when Simon Templar woke up. He lay in bed for a few minutes, watching fleecy white clouds drift across the blue sky outside the windows, and reviving the thoughts on which he had fallen asleep. They didn't look any different now.

He got up and put on a robe and went out into the corridor. It was nothing but a kind of last-ditch wishfulness that made him go quietly into Calvin Gray's bedroom. But the bed hadn't been slept in, and the room was exactly as he had last seen it. He knew all the time that it would be like that, of course. If Calvin Gray had come home with the milkman, the Saint was sure that he would have heard him—he. had been alert all night, even in his sleep, for much stealthier sounds than that would have been. But at least, he reflected wryly, he had forestalled a self-made charge of jumping to conclusions.

He went back to his own room, shaved, showered, and dressed, and went downstairs.

The table was laid with one place for breakfast in the din­ing room, and there were sounds of movement in the kitchen.

Simon pushed through the swing door, and stopped. A rosy-cheeked young woman with dark curly hair and an apron looked up at him with slightly startled eyes as he came in. She was small and nicely plump, in a way that would obviously be­come stout and matronly exactly when you would expect.

'Hullo,' he said pleasantly. 'Don't be scared. My name's Templar, and I came up from Washington with Miss Gray last night.'

'Oh,' she said. 'I'm Mrs. Cook. I just work here. You did scare me for a minute, though.'

He realised that since they had failed to talk to Calvin Gray there was no reason for anyone to expect them there. In fact, no one knew of their movement except Hamilton and the taxi driver who had brought them in from the airport. The driver might or might not talk or think anything of it. But at least it would take the Ungodly a little while to pick up the scent, which would be no disadvantage.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'What are the chances for breakfast?'

'I'll set some more places.'

'Miss Gray was pretty tired out last night. I'm hoping she'll sleep late.'

'The Professor's usually up before this,' she said. 'He must have been working late.'

The Saint had a friendly and engaging ease, whenever he wanted to use it, which made it seem the most natural thing in the world for anyone to keep on talking to him. He used that effortless receptiveness now, as a happy substitute for more tiresome and elaborate methods.

He said quite conversationally: 'The Professor wasn't in last night.'

'Wasn't he? He's nearly always in.'

'We tried to phone him from Washington to say we were on our way, but the number didn't answer.'

'Was that very late? I was here until about nine o'clock.'

'It was later than that.'

'I gave him his dinner at seven-thirty, and then I had to wash up. He was in the living-room, reading, when I went home.'

'He didn't say anything about going out?'

'No. But I didn't ask him.'

'He didn't have any visitors?'

'Not while I was here.'

'Maybe he's been going out a bit while Miss Gray's been away.'

'Oh, no, sir. The Professor's never been one for going out——'

It was only then that she began to be dimly aware of what his innocent questions were leading to. A trace of puzzlement crept into her eyes.

'Anyway,' she said, almost defiantly, 'he's sure to be down soon.'

The Saint shook his head.

'I'm afraid he isn't, Mrs. Cook,' he said quietly. 'He didn't come in at all last night. His bed hasn't been slept in. And he's not in the house now.'

She stopped on her way into the dining room with a handful of knives and forks and spoon, and stared at him blankly.

'You mean he isn't here at all?'

'That's right.'

'Wasn't he expecting you?'

'No. I told you, we tried to phone, but we couldn't get him.'

'Didn't he leave a note or anything?'

'No.'

Her eyes began to get very wide.

'You don't think anything's happened to him, do you?'

'I don't know,' said the Saint frankly. 'It does look a little peculiar, doesn't it? The man just walks out of the house with­out a word or a message to anyone, and doesn't come back. Some people do things like that all the time, but you say he wasn't that type.'

'Is Miss Gray worried about him?—I expect she is.'

'Wouldn't you be?'

She began mechanically setting other places at the table, more as if she was going through a