'If you've any time to spare, Claud, you might like to get the man who shot your policeman. He's staying in Manson Place, and his present job is to murder me.'
'Whereabouts is he?' asked the detective eagerly, and Simon grinned into the mouthpiece.
'What's lighting-up time these days? About seven-thirty, isn't it? ... Well, why don't you blow down to Queen's Gate about then? Hang around the corner of Manson Place and watch for the excitement.'
Basher Tope had a boring afternoon, sitting in his window with a loaded rifle on his knee and his eyes glued to the green-painted door out of which he expected his target to emerge. The twilight came down while he watched, and a lamplighter went round the cul-de-sac to confirm the fact that it was getting near the time limit that Tex Goldman had given him.
And then, at seven-thirty exactly, a ground-floor window in the Saint's house suddenly sprang into a square of light.
Basher Tope leaned forward. He could see clearly into the room, which looked like a dining room. At one end of the table, with his back to the window, he could see the head and shoulders of a man in a grey suit who seemed to be absorbed in a book.
Basher Tope turned sideways and cuddled the stock of the gun slowly into his right shoulder.
A knock came on the door of his room. It made him jump, although he knew the door was locked.
' 'Oo's that? 'he grunted.
'A gentleman called Smith rang up, Mr. Schwarz,'. said his landlady's voice. 'He told me to ask you when's Mr. Brown going out.'
It was a prearranged message, and it showed that Tex Goldman was getting impatient. Basher Tope showed his teeth.
'Tell 'im 'e go out now.'
He listened to the woman's footsteps receding along the hall, and nestled his cheek once more against the stock of his rifle. Carefully he aligned the sights, the fore-sight exactly splitting the V of the back-sight, and the tip of it resting steadily at six o'clock on a point just below where the Saint's left shoulder blade should have been. His forefinger tightened on the trigger. . . .
Plop!
He could see the dark hole made by the bullet, and his target flopped forward. Even so he fired two more shots to make certain-one more to the heart, one to the back of the head. Then he unscrewed the silencer rapidly, folded the gun over its central hinge, and packed it away in a plain black handbag. He unlocked the door and went out to the waiting car. The engine answered the self-starter instantly.
Chief Inspector Teal idly watched the car turn into Queen's Gate; and then he found Simon Templar beside him.
'Well?' prompted the detective.
'That was Basher Tope,' said the Saint casually, jerking a thumb after the retreating car. 'He's just killed me.'
'What d'you mean-he's just killed you?' snapped the detective. 'Why didn't you --'
'I mean, he thinks he has. As a matter of fact, he's pumped three bullets into a tailor's dummy with an old coat of mine on, and it fell over when Pat pulled a string. It's too bad about Basher.'
Teal looked down towards the Saint's house and saw three splintery stars in the glass of the lighted window. It seemed as if he were about to say something, but he never said it. The crash of an explosion hit the left side of his face like a blow, and he turned quickly. Less than a hundred yards up Queen's Gate he saw the car that had carried the bearded man away swerving wildly across the road, and the whole of one shattered side of it seemed to be hanging loose.
The car jumped the curb, ran across the pavement, and piled itself up with a second crash against a strip of area railings that bent over like reeds under the impact. Passers-by began running towards it, but Teal stood where he was. His baby-blue eyes returned to the Saint's face.
'What does that mean?' he asked.
Simon slid out a cigarette case. His own eyes were just as steady as Teal's-perhaps even steadier-and he shook his head with a slow motion of great sorrow.
'The way I figure it out, Claud,' he said, 'I think you'll find he must have had some sort of bomb on board, in case the rifle didn't work. It must have short-circuited, or something, and gone off. It's just too bad about him.'
CHAPTER V SIMON took Patricia back to the hotel where he had booked a suite. They went there with the comforting feeling that they were not being followed, since at that moment there was no one available to follow them, and had a cocktail in the lounge with the knowledge that it would be sheer bad luck if any of the ungodly happened to come upon them there. Temporarily they had disappeared into the wide world, so far as Tex Goldman's information was concerned.
This hotel was the Dorchester, where the Saint had taken two small but luxurious rooms, with bath, overlooking Hyde Park. They were commended by the fact that they were faced by no other buildings from which shots might be fired; and although they cost twelve pounds a day Simon was untroubled by the thought of what the Sunday-night orators a short distance away at Marble Arch might say about his extravagance if they knew. The accommodation satisfied that instinct in him which demanded the best of everything at any price; and he was not proposing to pay for it himself.
'It is a fascinating thought,' said the Saint, nibbling a potato chip, 'that there are well over forty million living souls in this great England. If every one of them gave me sixpence, none of them would really miss it, and I should be a millionaire.'
''You'd better start collecting,' said Patricia.
