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switched off the engine and choked him gently but firmly off the wheel; after
which he could have dropped him in a ditch and taken the car away to dissect
it at his leisure. But he had to get Christine out of the house first. He had
to discipline himself, to make a virtue of spinning out the luscious
anticipation.
Always assuming that the ticket was still there....
He tried not to think too much about that; and he was still diligently keeping
his mind off such unwelcome complications when the car stopped outside the
house. Graner held out a key.
"Will you open the gates?"
"What about the dogs?" said the Saint dubiously.
"I left them chained up. If you stay out of their reach you will be quite
safe."
Simon went forward into the flare of the headlights, unlocked the big doors,
and pushed them back. The car turned into the drive and flowed past him. He
closed the gates again and rammed the bolts home with a series of thuds which
Graner would be able to hear. What Graner would not notice was that the thud
of each bolt sinking into its socket concealed the noise of another bolt being
withdrawn again.
The car had gone on around the house when he finished, and the Saint walked
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after it. Behind him he heard the sinister snuffling of the dogs straining
against the chains that held them to the electrically operated mooring post.
The lights were on in the living room which opened off the hall, and the door
was open, but any conversation that might have been going on was silenced at
the sound of their approaching footsteps. Simon sauntered in ahead of Graner
and cast his blithe and genial glance over the three men who were already
there.
"Good evening, boys," he murmured amicably. "It's nice to see all your smiling
faces gathered together again."
Their faces were not smiling. There was something about their silent and
menacing immobility which reminded him of the first time he had seen them, and
the impression was heightened by the fact that they were grouped around the
table in the same way as before. They sat facing the door, with their faces
turned towards him, watching him like wild beasts crouched for a spring. One
of Palermo's evil-smelling cigars polluted the atmosphere, and his one open
eye was fixed on the Saint in a steady stare of venomous hatred. The scenic
effects on his face had been augmented by a blackened bruise that spread over
his chin beyond the edges of a piece of sticking plaster and a pair of
painfully swollen lips for which the Saint was not really to blame. Aliston
drooped opposite him, in his flabby way, with the pallor of anxiety making his
aristocratic countenance look like a milky mask. Between them sat Lauber, with
his heavy brows drawn down in a vicious scowl. He was the only one who moved
as the Saint came in. He put a hand inside the breast of his coat and brought
out a gun to level it across the table.
"Put 'em high," he said harshly.
Simon put them high. Aliston got up and undulated round the table to get
behind him. His hands slid over the Saint's pockets.
The Saint grinned at Graner with conspiratorial glee.
"Is this the way you always receive your guests, Reuben?" he drawled.
Graner's eyes gave back no answering gleam of sympathy.
"I am not receiving a guest, Mr Tombs," he said, and there was just something
about the way he said it that made the Saint's heart stop beating.
Graner might have been going to say something more, but whatever might have
been on the tip of his tongue was cut off by Aliston's sudden exclamation.
The Saint looked round, and his heart started off again. It started so
violently that his pulses raced.
Aliston was backing away from him, and he held an envelope in his hand. Simon
recognised it at the first glance. It was the belated letter which had been
handed to him at the hotel, which he had stuffed carelessly into his pocket
and completely forgotten under the pressure of the other things that were on
his mind. Aliston was gaping at it with dilated eyes, and his face had gone
even whiter. With an abrupt jerky movement he flung it on the table in front
of the others.
"Tombs!" he said hoarsely. "His name isn't Tombs! Look at that. His name's
Simon Templar. You know what that means, don't you? He's the Saint!"
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