The Saint Steps In

this was what he was there for anyway, and he took what it was, and his arms slipped around her, and he wanted it to be as good as it could be; but his mind stood aside and watched. And perhaps it didn't stand so far aside, because her lips were soft and yielding and taking and her breath was warm and sweet in his nostrils and her hair in his eyes and all the richness of her pressed against him and moulding hungrily against him; and he wasn't made out of wood even if he knew that he must be.

So after a long time he let her go, and he was much too sure that his pulses were running faster no matter what his mind did.

She looked smug and angry at the same time.

'You've exciting, too, and you know it, which makes it four times worse,' she said petulantly.

'I'm sorry,' he murmured. 'I always seem to be apologizing, but it isn't my fault, really.'

'I hate you,' she said broodingly.

She picked up the bottle, poured herself some more brandy, and put the bottle down again after an accusing glance at his glass.

'You aren't even polite enough to drown it in drink.'

'I'm afraid you took my mind off that.'

He absorbed half the glass while she finished hers.

'All you're concerned with is your damned mysteries,' she said. 'I think you're the most exciting thing that ever hap­pened, but I can't make a mystery out of that. So you're all set to turn me down before we start. I suppose if I were some stupid little ingenue like Madeline Gray I wouldn't be able to fight you off.'

He raised satirical eyebrows.

'Darling, you couldn't be jealous, could you?'

'Jealous? I'm just mad. I don't like being turned down. I must have done something wrong, and I want to know what it is. Damn it, I'm not going to fall for you.'

'Now I am going to be careful.'

'You won't even let me help you with this job you're work­ing on. You told me once I might be able to do something for you one day, but you still haven't asked me. You won't even tell me anything.'

'I can't tell you what I don't know.'

'You know more than you've told me. But you keep me at arm's length all the time. Anyone would think you still thought I was an Axis agent, or whatever you said.'

His pulses were all quiet again. This was what he was there for, too; and it couldn't wait forever. It was like fencing on a tightrope in the dark, with nothing to guide him but intui­tion and audacity and a sense of timing that had to balance on knife edges.

He said: 'What about that German baron?'

'That frozen pain in the neck? He wasn't a Nazi. At least, I don't think so. But that was before the war anyway.' Then her eyes turned back to him curiously. 'How did you know about him?'

'I asked a few questions.'

'What else did you find out about me?'

'I found out that you were quite often interested in people that your father has been interested in.'

'Why shouldn't I be?'

'I didn't mean that kind of interest.'

She poured herself another drink, but this time she only drank half of it at the first try. She put the glass down and gazed at it somberly.

'I help Daddy out sometimes,' she said. 'It's the least a girl can do, isn't it? And I have a lot of fun. I go to nice places and I hear some intelligent conversation. I can't live with young squirts and playboys all the time.'

'After all,' he agreed, 'there are the Better Things in Life.'

'You're still sneering at me. At least Daddy doesn't think I'm too dumb to help him.'

He nodded.

'The one thing I've been wondering about is—doesn't he think you're too dumb, or does he think you're just dumb enough?'

Her eyes dwelt on him with that bafflingly vacant candor.

'I don't ask all those questions. What I don't know won't do me any harm, will it? And it isn't any of my business, espe­cially if I have a good time. I don't want to be a genius. I just want you to pay some attention to me.'

'Like you wanted me to pay some attention to you when your father sent you to talk to me at the Shoreham?'

'There wasn't any harm in that. He only wanted to know more about you and find out what you'd been doing.'

'And what did he want you to find out tonight?' asked the Saint amiably.

His voice didn't have a point in it anywhere; it was the same gentle and faintly bantering sound that it had been all the time; but he was waiting.

She didn't try to escape his innocuous half-smiling glance. Her stare was blue and blind and limpid and babyishly sad.

'I told him all about our running into each other, of course, and what we talked about; and I said I was going to meet you for dinner. But this was all my own idea. I wish I did know what there was between you and Daddy. I don't think you like him any more than you like me.'

'I've never met him, if you remember.'

'If you had, you wouldn't be so suspicious. He said the nic­est things about you.'

'I love my public.'

'You're impossible.'

She took up her glass again and finished it, and made a grimace.

She said: 'I don't know why I'm wasting my time. You aren't worth it. But you can't get away with this. You stink. And I'm going to get stinking. Make me some more brandy. I have to Go,' she said abruptly.

She got up and went.

The Saint sat where he was and lighted a cigarette. He sat with it smouldering between his fingers. After a little while he lifted the brandy bottle and topped up her glass.

He faced it, that he didn't know whether he was getting everywhere or nowhere. There were factors that still didn't tie in. And he had to be as light with his foil as if he had been combing cobwebs. He could still be so irremediably wrong. He had been wrong about Imberline. He still didn't know whether one of his later passes had found any crevice. She could be dumb. How much would Quennel tell her? Or she could be brightly dumb, as she had said, asking no questions because they might only create problems. He didn't know how much the brandy would speak for her either. He was only sure that it could be a weapon on his side, if it was on any side.

He heard water running in the bathroom, and then a door opening, and then she was in the bedroom.

She was moving about in there for what seemed like a long time. He didn't turn his head. He took a very light sip from his glass. But there were no frightening effects. He had been making it last, cautiously; but he could be positive by now that there was nothing illegal creeping up from it.

He smoked meditatively. She didn't come back.

Then her voice reached him peevishly: 'What about my drink?'

'Did you want it?'

'What do you think?'

He stood up, garnered the glass he had filled for her, and sauntered into the bedroom.