The Saint Sees It Through

The Saint blinked at him blearily, swaying another step and two steps nearer.

It looked fine and perfect until the doctor's glance suddenly switched and hardened on a point beyond the Saint's shoulder, and the whole calm patronising balance of his body hardened with it as if it had been nipped in an interstellar frost.

And even then, only one precise unit of him moved—the hand that still rested in his coat pocket. But that movement was still as adequate and eloquent as it had been the first time.

Simon didn't need any manuals or blueprints to work it out. He knew, with that endless impersonality of comprehension, that Avalon Dexter had started to follow him into the room, and that Zellermann had seen her, and that the shining wheels that ran in Zellermann's brain had spun an instantaneous web together, and that rightly or wrongly the web had enough tensile strength in Zellermann's mind for Zellermann to walk on it.

The Saint's own movement actually followed and resulted from Zellermann's; and yet it was like the clicking of a switch and the awakening of a light, so that it was almost simultaneous.

He heard the splitting blast of Zellermann's gun in the same quantum as he was aware of stumbling sideways and straight­ening his left arm so that the bone handle of the carving knife dropped into the curved fingers of his waiting left hand, and then he was aware of a searing pang in his left arm and a shocking blow that spun him half around, but he had his bal­ance again in the same transposition, and his right hand took the haft of the knife as it dropped and drew it clear of the sleeve and turned it and drove it straight with the same continued gesture into Zellermann's chest, just a little to one side of the breastbone and a hand's breadth below the carnation in his buttonhole.

Then he left the knife there where it stuck and took Zeller­mann's automatic away as the doctor's fingers loosened on it, ripping it clear of the pocket at about the moment when Zellermann's shoulders rolled on the floor, and fired again and again while he was still rising and Cookie was starting towards him with her broad muscular hands reaching out and Natello was still swinging back the hot curling-iron that she had been playing with.

They were the first women that Simon Templar had ever killed, and he did it rather carefully and conscientiously, in the pellucid knowledge of what they were and what they had done, and to his own absolute judicial satisfaction, shooting Kay Natello three inches above her hollow navel and Cookie in the same umbilical bullseye, as closely as he could estimate it through her adipose camouflage.

4

Hamilton said almost plaintively: 'Couldn't you arrange to leave more than one prisoner, just once in a while?'

'Could you arrange to have people stop attacking me?' asked the Saint. 'Self-defense is so tempting. Besides, think how much I save the country on trials and attorneys. I ought to get a rebate on my income tax for it.'

'I'll speak to the President about it right away.'

'Anyway, I left you the kingpin—and I think he's got the kind of imagination that'll do some real suffering while he's waiting for his turn in the death house. I feel rather happy about that—which is why I left him.'

'Before your tender heart gets you into any more trouble,' Hamilton said, 'you'd better get out of there if you can. I'll talk to you again in New York. I've got another job for you.'

'You always have,' said the Saint. 'I'll get out. Hogan can hold the fort long enough.'

He cradled the telephone and looked at the federal man again. He said: 'It's all yours, Patrick. Washington wants me out of the limelight. As usual. ... By the way, is the name really Hogan?'

The other nodded. Simon had done all that he could for him: he would be able to hold the fort. And other forts again. His face was still pale and drawn and shiny, but there was no uncertainty in it. It was a good face, moulded on real founda­tions, and durable.

'Sure,' he said. 'Hogan's the name. But I was born in New Jersey, and I have to work like hell on the brogue.' He was studying the Saint while he talked, quite frankly and openly, but with a quiet respect that was a natural part of his reversion from the character part he had been playing, sitting very laxly but squarely in an armchair with the glass of brandy that Simon had poured for him, conserving and gathering his strength. He said: 'You had me fooled. Your cockney's a lot better. And that make-up—it is a make-up, isn't it?'

'I hope so,' said the Saint with a smile. 'I'd hate to look like this for the rest of my life.'

'I didn't expect anything like this when I left my badge in your pocket. I was just clutching at a straw. I figured it was a thousand to one it wouldn't do me any good. I thought you were just another drunken sailor—in fact, I let you pick me up just for that, so I could watch what this gang would do with you.'

The Saint laughed a little.

Avalon Dexter finished binding up his arm with torn strips of another of Cookie's expensive sheets. She was very cool and efficient about it. He moved his arm and tested the bandage approvingly; then he began to wriggle into his jacket again. Zellermann's one shot had missed the bone: the bullet had passed clean through, and the flesh wound would take care of itself.

He said: 'Thanks, darling.'

She helped him with his coat.

He said: 'Go on quoting me as just another drunken sailor, Pat. You don't even have to bring me into this finale. The witnesses won't talk. So Tom Simons woke up, and was drunk and sore and scared, and scrammed the hell out. He went back to his ship, and nobody cares about him anyway. Let him go. Because I am going anyway, while you take the phone and start calling your squads to take care of the bodies.'

'What about Miss Dexter?' Hogan asked practically.

'She was scared too, and she scrammed independently. You know about her and how they were trying to use her. Leave her out of it if you can; but if you need her we've got her address in New York. I'll steal one of the cars and take her back with me. Hamilton will okay it. The police in New York were warned long ago, it seems—when Zellermann tried to frame me at 21, they went through a performance to make Zellermann think he'd gotten me out of the way, but they turned me loose at once.'

'Okay, Saint. When you call that Imperative exchange in Washington, I say Uncle anyhow. But I can look after this. And—thank you.'

They shook hands around. Hogan stayed seated in his chair. He could keep going. He was still full of questions, but he was too well trained to ask them.

'Let's get together one day,' said the Saint, and meant it just like that.

He went out with Avalon.

They talked very ordinarily and quietly on the drive back, as if they had known each other for a long while, which they had, while the dawn lightened slowly around them and drew out the cool sweetness of the dew on the peaceful fields. The red-gold casque of her hair was pillowed on his shoulder as they slipped into the rousing murmur of Manhattan in the bright sunlight of another day.

WATCH FOR THE SIGN OF THE SAINT. HE WILL BE BACK.