The Saint Steps In

than any dramatics, so that it seemed as if it should have gone on for ever, and there should have been something permanent about it, and it should have spread out wherever the minds of those who listened would take it on.

Calvin Gray rubbed his rough white hair and said hazily: 'But when he goes into actual crime ——'

'Quennel,' said the Saint, 'never went into a crime in his life. If he tells Devan that you and your invention are a Bad Thing, and ought to be stopped, he's only giving his opinion. If things happen to you and stop you, he's naturally very pleased about it. If he tells Devan to try and talk me into for­getting you and taking a job with Quenco, that's entirely legit­imate. If Devan succeeds, fine. If he doesn't, but an unfor­tunate accident eliminates me, that's providential . . . It would have been the same with Imberline. I don't doubt that Quennel finally went off and left Devan to go on arguing. If Devan could talk Imberline around, that would be swell. If Imberline dropped dead in the bathroom before the argument was settled, that was too bad, but it saved a whole lot of trou­ble.'

'But he tried to tell you I was a fraud.'

'A diplomatic fiction. And very well done. If it hadn't been me, he might easily have put it over. And even if it didn't com­pletely go over, it might still have served—with the offer of a wonderful job to wash it down. I could have helped myself to believe it, if I'd wanted to: it would have been a fair enough excuse to stop worrying about you and put my conscience to sleep. But it was no crime.'

Calvin Gray shook his head helplessly.

'The man must be insane. It's such incredible hypocrisy.'

'It's not hypocrisy. And he's perfectly sane. He just doesn't ask what methods Devan uses, and therefore he doesn't know. He could probably justify them out of his philosophy if he had to, but his great mind is occupied with so many more impor­tant things that it's much simpler not to know. I don't sup­pose Hitler ever does any positive thinking about what hap­pens to prisoners in Dachau, either.'

There was silence for a little while, an odd calm silence that made it almost fantastic to think that this was a profoundly philosophical conversation in a bright and comfortable death cell.

It was the girl who brought it back to that.

'You don't think Devan is bluffing at all?' she said.

'Not for an instant,' said the Saint gently. 'Don't let's waste any effort kidding ourselves about that. Devan will arrange whatever he has to arrange, and he'll do as neat a job as I could do myself.'

Her brown eyes that smiled so easily were big and deep and unflinching.

'I feel so guilty,' she said, 'for dragging you into it.'

'Don't worry about it,' he answered carelessly. 'If it hadn't been this, it would have been something else.'

She looked around the room.

'Isn't there any way you could get out?'

He laughed a little, and got back on his feet.

'If there were, I wouldn't be here. I tell you, our Walter isn't an amateur.'

But he strolled over to the high embrasure like the one he had noticed in the other room. Standing on a chair, he saw that it sloped downwards towards the outside, and at the outside was a heavy steel Venetian shutter. He guessed that the shelter was built in the side of the hill running down to the Sound, and the embrasure peeped out through the hillside, providing natural ventilation but still safe from the blast of anything but a direct hit on the opening. The steel shutter was set solidly in the concrete, and he took one look at it and stepped down with a shrug.

'Why can't you tell Quennel that you'll accept his offer?' asked Gray. 'Then, later on, you'd have a chance——'

'Do you imagine they haven't thought of that?' Simon retorted patiently. 'I think Quennel meant every word of his offer, and I think he still means it in spite of everything, and I'm sure he'd live up to it to the letter; but I'm also sure that he'd want to be damn certain that I was the same. I don't know what proof or security he'd want—I can think of half a dozen devices—but it doesn't matter. You can take it that it would be good.'

He stood over Calvin Gray, poised and quiet and kindly implacable.

'This is your problem, not mine,' he said.

The girl sat beside her father again and held his hand.

'You mustn't think about me,' she said. 'You mustn't.'

'How can I help it?'

'If you were both tortured to death,' said the Saint inexora­bly, 'what good would it do?'

Calvin Gray covered his eyes.

'Devan talked to me all afternoon,' he said hoarsely. 'He told me ... If it was only myself, I could try ... But Madeline. I'm not big enough . . . And what good would it do? What difference would it make? They'll kill the invention anyway. So why should . . .' His voice broke, and then rose suddenly. 'I couldn't see it. Don't you understand? I couldn't!'

'Daddy,' said the girl.

The Saint watched for an instant, and then turned away.

On one of the side shelves, beside the playing cards, there was a score pad and a pencil. He picked them up. At the top of the first sheet he printed in bold capitals: WE MAY BE OVERHEARD. Then under that he wrote a few quick lines. He tore off the sheet and put the pad and pencil back.

Then he returned to Calvin Gray and put a hand on his shoulder, and the old man looked up at him hollow-eyed.

'Crying won't get you anywhere. This is still a war,' said the Saint, and handed him the paper he had written on.

The girl tried to lean over and see; but Simon took her arm and brought her up to her feet and led her a few steps away. He held her by both elbows, facing him, and gazed at her with all the strength that was in him.

'Some of this is my fault too,' he said. 'If I hadn't butted in, it might not have been so bad.'

Then the door opened, and Walter Devan came in.

He looked like a sales manager who had left a conference room at a crucial moment to answer a phone call.

'Well?' he inquired briskly.

The Saint detached himself leisuredly, and lighted another cigarette.

'So far as I'm concerned,' he said, without a flicker of emo­tion, 'the answer is still: Nuts.'

'So is mine,' said the girl clearly.

'I'm sorry,' said Devan; and it sounded like genuine regret.

But he looked at Calvin Gray.

Gray got up off the divan. He was unsteady and haggard, and his eyes burned.

'Mine isn't,' he said. 'Can you swear to me that if I do everything you want, nothing will ever happen to Madeline?'

'Daddy!' said the girl.

'I can,' said Devan.

The old man's hands twisted together.

'Then—I will.'

Devan studied him, not with cheap triumph, but with sturdy businesslike satisfaction.

'I'll get you some paper to write out your process,' he said, in quite a friendly way. 'Is there anything else you'd like?'

Gray shook his head.