The Saint Steps In

'Let's get our chins up and take it,' he said. 'You have got something to worry about. But we're going to try and do things about it. So far, the Ungodly have had practically all the initiative. Now we've got to have some of our own.'

'But who are the---the Ungodly? If we only knew——'

That was as much as he needed. He talked, ramblingly and glibly, while he finished his plate, and then through coffee and cigarettes while the girl picked at the omelette that Mrs. Cook brought in to her. He discussed all the dramatis personae again, and an assortment of speculations about them. He said absolutely nothing that was new or worth recording here; but it sounded good at the time. And gradually he saw a trace of color creep into her face, and a shade of expression stir in her occasional replies, as he forced her mind to move and coaxed her with infinite subtlety out of the supine listlessness that had threatened to lock her in a stupor of inert despair. She even ate most of the omelette.

So that an hour later she was smoking a cigarette and listening to him quite actively, while he was saying: 'There's one thing you'll notice about this. Every single person we've mentioned has been a good solid citizen with lots of background—except perhaps the quaint little Angert body. There hasn't been one grunt of a gutteral accent, or one hint of the good old Gestapo clumping around in its great big boots. And yet if all these things have been going on, that'd be the first automatic thing to look for. Now if the Awful Aryans have got any ——'

He stopped talking at the change in her face. But she was not looking at him. Her eyes were directed past his shoulder, towards the window behind him.

'Simon,' she said, 'I saw somebody moving out there among the trees, towards the laboratory. And it looked like someone I know.'

2

The Saint turned and looked, but he could see nothing now ---only a fragment of a roof and a glimpse of white walls be­tween layers of leafy branches.

'A friend of yours?' he said sharply.

'No. It looked like—Karl.'

'And who's Karl?'

'He was Daddy's assistant for a while, until we let him go.'

'Where did he come from?'

'He was a refugee from somewhere—Czechoslovakia, I think. But he speaks perfect English. He was raised here, and then he went home after he was grown up, but he didn't like it so much so he came back.'

'How long ago was this?'

'Oh, about a month ago. I mean when he left . . . But it's funny, I was thinking about him last night.'

The Saint was still watching through the window, but he had seen no movement.

'Why?' he asked.

'Well, it seems silly, but . . . One of those men who tried to kidnap me last night—the tall one— there was something about his eyes, and the way he carried himself. It reminded me of someone. I couldn't think who it was, and it was both­ering me. When I woke up this morning it came to me in a flash. He reminded me of Karl.'

'That,' said the Saint, 'is really interesting.'

He turned and glanced at her again. She was still looking past him, half frowning, perplexed and uncertain of herself.

'What was the rest of his name?' he asked.

'Morgen.'

Simon put out his cigarette.

'I think,' he said, 'it might be fun to talk to Comrade Mor­gen.'

She stood up when he did and started to go with him, but he checked her with a hand on her arm.

'No, darling,' he said. 'For one thing, I'd rather surprise him. For another thing, if it really is Karl, and not just Karl on your mind, there may be a little horseplay when we meet. And lastly, I'd rather keep you out of sight as much as possible —for all purposes. In fact, I don't even want you to answer the telephone again. And if anyone does call except your fa­ther, tell Mrs. Cook to say you're still in Washington.' He smiled at her confusion. 'You forget that at this moment the Ungodly don't know where you are. And the longer that lasts, the longer it'll be before I have to worry about your health again.'

He went out of the house, crossed the driveway, and moved off among the trees.

The laboratory was on the other side of the house and in the opposite direction from the way he set off; and he made a wide circle to approach it from the far side—the side from which no intruder would be expecting an interruption.

His feet made no sound on the grass, and he slipped through shrubbery and woodland with the phantom stealth of an In­dian scout. He had an instinct for cover and terrain that was faultless and effortless: not once after he merged into the land­scape was he exposed from any angle from which he could anticipate being watched for.

And under the cool efficiency of his movements he could feel a faint tingle along his veins that was his prescience of the disintegration of inaction and the promise of pursuit and fight. If Madeline Gray hadn't imagined what she saw, and there actually was an uninvited visitor out there, he would certainly be an interesting character to hold converse with— wherever he came from. And if the visitor really was a man with the dubious name and history of Karl Morgen, he might be the one missing quantity that Simon had just been idly complaining about. If, wildly and gorgeously beyond that, he crowned everything by proving to be one of the frustrated kidnapers of the night before—then indeed there would be moments of great joy in store. Anything so perfect as that seemed almost too much to expect; and yet, if even a fraction of those exquisite possibilities came true, it would still be more than enough to justify the tentative rapture that was stealing along the Saint's relaxed and tranquil nerves. He had always hated fighting in the dark, waiting to be shot at, the whole negative and passive rigamarole of puzzling and guessing and weighing of abstractions: if there was an end of that now, even for a little while, it would be a beautiful interlude . . .

Towards the end of his excursion, a tall cypress hedge of­fered perfect invisibility. He went along the edge, of a field of oat hay for a hundred yards, and squeezed through another gap in the hedge into the concealment of a clump of rhodo­dendron bushes. The laboratory building was so close then that he could see the roof over the top of his shelter.

Working around to the limit of his cover, he was finally able to sight one of the windows through the thinning fringe of leaves.

He saw more than the window. He saw through it. And all the inside of him became blissfully quiet as he saw that at least a part of his prayers had been granted.

There was a man in the laboratory.

And more than that, it wasn't just any man.

Simon couldn't see any details clearly in the darker interior, but he was able to distinguish a rough triangle of solid color where the lower part of the man's face should have been. Per­haps that crude disguise even helped the identification, by re­peating a remembered pattern. The man's silhouette was clear enough. He looked tall, and the outlines and carriage of his broad square shoulders were freshly etched on the Saint's mem­ ory.

It was one of the ambitious abductors of Washington.

'So after all,' said the Saint reverently, to his immortal soul, 'sanctity does have its rewards.'

The man seemed to be searching, methodically and without haste, as if he felt reasonably confident that he was not likely to be disturbed.

Simon drew back, and circled the other way around the rhododendrons, towards the corner of the