The Saint Sees It Through

married. You could have so much fun.'

He smiled at her again, and left one final swallow in his glass.

'I've got to be running along. But I'm not fooling. I really wish to hell that nobody who had any connection with Cookie had seen me here. And now, to use your own words, you're stuck with it.'

She looked at him with all the superficial vivacity thrown off, seriously, from steady footholds of maturity. And like everything else she did that was unexpected, after she had done it it was impossible to have expected anything else.

'You mean it might be—unhealthy?'

'I don't want to sound scary, but . . . yes.'

'I'm not scared. But don't you think you might tell me why?'

He shook his head.

'I can't, right now. I've told you more than I should have already, as a matter of fact. But I had to warn you. Beyond that, the less you know, the safer you'll be. And I may. be exaggerating. You can probably brush it off. You recognised me from a picture you saw once, and you were good and mad, so you threw out that parting crack just to make trouble. Then I picked you up outside, and you thought I'd been nice, so you just bought me a drink. That's the only connection we have.'

'Well, so it is. But if this is something exciting, like the things I fell in love with you for, why can't I be in on it?'

'Because you sing much too nicely, and the ungodly are awful unmusical.'

'Oh, fish,' she said.

He grinned, and finished his drink, and put down the glass.

'Throw me out, Avalon,' he said. 'In another minute dawn is going to be breaking, and I'm going to shudder when I hear the crash.'

And this was it, this was the impossible and inevitable, and he knew all at once now that it could never have been any other way.

She said: 'Don't go.'

2.

How Dr. Zellermann used the Telephone

and Simon Templar went visiting.

Simon woke up with the squeal of the telephone bell splitting his eardrums. He reached out a blind hand for it and said: 'Hullo.'

'Hullo,' it said. 'Mr. Templar?'

The voice was quite familiar, although its inflection was totally different from the way he had heard it last. It was still excessively precise and perfectionist; but whereas before it had had the precision of a spray of machine- gun slugs, now it had the mellifluous authority of a mechanical unit in a production tine.

'Speaking,' said the Saint.

'I hope I didn't wake you up.'

'Oh, no.'

Simon glanced at his wrist watch. It was just after twelve.

'This is Dr. Ernst Zellermann,' said the telephone.

'So I gathered,' said the Saint. 'How are you?'

'Mr. Templar, I owe you an apology. I had too much to drink last night. I'm usually a good drinker, and I have no idea why it should have affected me that way. But my behavior was inexcusable. My language—I would prefer to forget. I de­served just what happened to me. In your place, I would have done exactly what you did.'

The voice was rich and crisp with candor. It was the kind of voice that knew what it was talking about, and automatically inspired respect. The professional voice. It was a voice which naturally invited you to bring it your troubles, on which it was naturally comfortable to lean.

Simon extracted a cigarette from the pack on the bedside table.

'I knew you wouldn't mind,' he said amiably. 'After all, I was only carrying out your own principles. You did what your instincts told you—and I let my instincts talk to me.'

'Exactly. You are perfectly adjusted. I congratulate you for it. And I can only say I am sorry that our acquaintance should have begun like that.'

'Think nothing of it, dear wart. Any other time you feel instinctive we'll try it out again.'

'Mr. Templar, I'm more sorry than I can tell you. Because I have a confession to make. I happen to be one of your greatest admirers. I have read a great deal about you, and I've always thought of you as the ideal exponent of those principles you were referring to. The man who never hesitated to defy con­vention when he knew he was right. I am as detached about my own encounter with you as if I were a chemist who had been blown up while he was experimenting with an explosive. Even at my own expense, I have proved myself right. That is the scientific attitude.'

'There should be more of it,' said the Saint gravely.

'Mr. Templar, if you could take that attitude yourself, I wish you would give me the privilege of meeting you in more normal circumstances.'

The Saint exhaled a long streamer of smoke towards the ceiling.

'I'm kind of busy,' he said.

'Of course, you would be. Let me see. This is Thursday. You are probably going away for the weekend.'

'I might be.'

'Of course, your plans would be indefinite. Why don't we leave it like this? My number is in the telephone book. If by chance you are still in town on Saturday, would you be generous enough to call me? If you are not too busy, we might have lunch together. How is that?'

Simon thought for a moment, and knew that there was only one answer.

'Okay,' he said. 'I'll call you.'

'I shall be at your disposal.'

'And by the way,' Simon said gently, 'how did you know my phone number?'

'Miss Dexter was kind enough to tell me where you were staying,' said the clipped persuasive voice. 'I called her first, of course, to apologise to her. . . . Mr. Templar, I shall enjoy resuming our acquaintance.'

'I hope you will,' said the Saint.

He put the handpiece back, and lay stretched out on his back for a while with his hands clasped behind his head and his cigarette cocked between his lips, staring uncritically at the opposite cornice.

He had several things to think about, and it was a queer way to be reminded of them—or some of them— item by item, while he was waking himself up and trying to focus his mind on something else.

He remembered everything about Cookie's Cellar, and Cookie, and Dr. Ernst Zellermann, and everything else that he had to remember; but beyond that there was Avalon Dexter, and with her the memory went into a strange separateness like a remembered dream, unreal and incredible and yet sharper than reality and belief. A tawny mane and straight eyes and soft lips. A voice singing. And a voice saying: 'I was singing for you . . . the things I fell in love with you for . . .'

And saying: 'Don't go. . . .'

No, that was the dream, and that hadn't happened.

He dragged the telephone book out from under the bedside table, and thumbed through it for a number.

The hotel operator said: 'Thank you, sir.'

He listened to the burr of dialling.

Avalon Dexter said: 'Hullo.'

'This is me,' he said.

'How nice for you.' Her voice was sleepy, but the warm laughter was still there. 'This is me, too,'

'I dreamed about you,' he said.

'What happened?'

'I woke up.'

'Why don't you go back to sleep?'

'I wish I could.'