The two detectives started forward, roused abruptly from their trance; and in the eyes of the Rose of Peckham particularly Simon saw the
dawn of a sudden vengeful joy. He smiled and moved his raincoat a little to uncover the gun in his hand.
'Not just now, Snowdrop,' he said smoothly, and the two men stopped. 'I have a date, and you've kept me too long already. A little later, I think, you'll get your chance.' His gaze roved back to Lord Iveldown's sickly features, on which the fear was curdling to a terrible impotent malevolence; and the Saintly smile touched his lips again for a moment. 'I shall expect that two hundre( thousand pounds by Saturday midnight,' he said. 'I haven't the least doubt that you'll do your best to kill me before then, but I'm equally sure that you won't succeed. And I think you will pay your share. . . .'
IV
Simon Templar was not a light sleeper, by the ordinary definition. Neither was he a heavy one. He slept like a cat, with the complete and perfect relaxation of a wild animal, but with the same wild animal's gift of rousing into instant wakeful-ness at the slightest sound which might require investigation. A howling thunderstorm would not have made him stir, but the stealthy slither of a cautiously opened drawer brought him out of a dreamless untroubled slumber into tingling con-sciousness.
The first outward sign of awakening touched nothing more than his eyelids--it was a trick he had learned many years ago, and it had saved his life more than once. His body remained still and passive, and even a man standing close beside his bed could have detected no change in the regular rate of his breathing. He lay staring into the dark, with his ears strained to pick up and locate the next infinitesimal repetition of the noise which had awaked him.
After a few seconds he heard it again, a sound of the identical quality but from a different source --the faint scuff of a rubber sole moving over the carpet in his living room. The actual volume of sound was hardly greater than a mouse might have . made, but it brought him out of bed in a swift writhing movement that made no sound in response.
And thereafter the blackness of the bedroom swallowed him up like a ghost. His bare feet crossed the floor without the faintest whisper of disturbance, and his fingers closed on the doorknob as surely as if he could have seen it. He turned the knob without a rattle and moved noiselessly across the hall.
The door of the living room was ajar--he could see the blackness ahead of him broken by a vague nimbus of light that glowed from the gap and shifted its position erratically. He came up to the door softly and looked in.
The silhouette of a man showed against the darkened beam of an electric torch with the aid of which he was silently and systematically going through the contents of the desk; and the Saint showed his teeth for a moment as he sidled through the doorway and closed the door soundlessly behind him. His fingers found the switch beside the door, and he spoke at the same time.
'Good-morrow, Algernon,' he murmured.
The man swung round in the sudden blaze of light. At the very moment when he started to turn, Simon saw the gun in his hand, and thanked his immoral deities that he had not removed his fingers too promptly from the switch. In a split second he had clicked the lever up again, and the darkness fell again with blinding intensity after that one dazzling instant of luminance.
The Saint's voice floated once more out of the blackness.
'So you pack a rod, do you, Algernon? You must know that rods aren't allowed in this re-spectable city. I shall have to speak to you severely about that presently, Algernon--really I shall.'
The beam of the intruder's torch stabbed out again, printing a white circle of light on the door; but Simon was not inside the circle. The Saint had no rooted fear of being cold-bloodedly shot down in that apartment--the chances of a clean getaway for the shooter were too remote--but he had a very sound knowledge of what a startled burglar, amateur Or professional, may do in a moment of panic; and what had been visible of the intruder's masked face as he spun round had not been tender or sentimental.
Simon heard the man's heavy breathing as the ray of the flashlight moved to left and right of the door and then began with a wilder haste to dance over the other quarters of the room. For the space of about half a minute it was a game of deadly hide-and-seek: the door appeared to be unguarded, but something told the intruder that he would be walking into a trap if he attempted to make a dash for liberty that way. At the end of that time his nerve broke and he plunged desperately for the only visible path of escape, and in so doing found that his suspicions had been almost clairvoyantly accurate.
A weight of teaklike bone and muscle landed on his back with a catlike spring; steel fingers fastened on his gun hand, and another equally strong hand closed round his throat, driving him remorselessly to the floor. They wrestled voicelessly on the carpet, but not for long. Simon got the gun away without a single shot being fired and flung himself clear of his opponent with an acrobatic twist of his body. Then he found his way to the switch and turned on the lights again.
The burglar looked up at him from the floor, breathing painfully; and Simon permitted the muzzle of the captured gun to settle into a steady aim on the centre of the man's tightly tailored torso.
'You look miserable, Algernon,' he remarked affably. 'But you couldn't expect to have all the fun to yourself, could you? Come on, my lad--take that old sock off your head and let's see how your face is put together.'
The man did not answer or obey, and Simon stepped forward and whipped off the mask with a deft flick of his hand.
Having done which, he remained absolutely motionless for several ticks of the clock.
And then, softly, helplessly, he started to laugh.
'Suffering snakes,' he wailed. 'If it isn't good old Hoppy Uniatz!'
'For cryin' out loud,' gasped Mr. Uniatz. 'If it ain't de Saint!'
'You haven't forgotten that time when you took a dive through the window of Rudy's joint on Mott Street?'
'Say, an' dat night you shot up Angie Paletta an' Russ Kovari on Amsterdam Avenue.'
'And you got crowned with a chair and locked in the attic--you remember that?'
Mr. Uniatz fingered his neck gingerly, as though the aches in it brought back memories.
