Simon tried leaning on his horn, which only stirred the aged pilot of the Fiat to greater excesses of caution. By now the car and the van were moving a scant ten miles an hour... and they continued at that pace for five minutes. At last the Saint saw an opening and pushed his way past to the sound of indignant beeps from the Fiat. He then had to steer the van through a series of bends so sharp that having passed the other car proved to have done him almost no good at all.
It was quarter past three and he was not halfway to Warlock’s estate. He came at last on to a straight stretch, gathered speed, and swept around a broad curve, only to come face to face with two hundred sheep. The sheep were on a nocturnal stroll of obscure motivation which required that they cross the road en masse in order to get from one identical field to another. Simon tried to push his way through them without killing any, and soon was awash in a sea of angry baas. It was like riding a wave of sheep. For a while it seemed there were sheep in every direction as far as the eye could see. To run over them would soon have either capsized the van or brought it to a halt. There was nothing to do but press on with grimly slow persistence.
When Simon finally broke out of the mass of sheep and got up to speed again it was twenty-five minutes after three. There were no more delays, but even so he was doomed to be late. The hands of his watch indicated three-thirty when he was still a mile from Warlock’s house. He swerved around the last bend in the road and tore through the newly repaired gate of Warlock’s grounds without slowing down. Ignoring the driveway, he steered a direct path across the lawn to the front door and all but drove up the steps. A short blast from the tommy gun opened the locked door. He kicked it open and ran across the big reception room to the planning room, and then down the stairs to the cellar. To his horror, he could smell something like electricity in the air, then a high-pitched whine and hiss. He burst into the laboratory with his gun ready.
Amity Little turned from the control panel by the wall, where she had been standing adjusting some knobs.
“Oh, Simon!” she beamed, as if she were welcoming him to a cocktail party. “I’m so glad to see you!”
The whine from the electronic equipment dwindled to silence. The Saint’s powers of speech dwindled into the same state. He could only stare. Amity came towards him.
“And I was so glad to hear you’d messed things up for Warlock. I knew you would, of course.” She looked at him, pretending to be puzzled. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Yes,” Simon managed. He pointed numbly to some ash on the metal slab to which Amity had been clamped when he left. “Is that...”
Amity frowned, then burst into laughter.
“Galaxy? Oh, no. I just used her sweater to try the thing out on. There she is.”
Simon looked. Galaxy Rose, looking as voluptuous as ever in spite of mussed hair, a gag in her mouth, and ropes binding her ankles and wrists, was sitting in the corner.
She said “Mump, mump,” and glared.
“I’ve been wanting to shut her up ever since we got here,” Amity said. “And I’ve been wanting to do this, too — right in front of her.” She had come up to Simon now, and she put her arms around his neck. “Well?” she murmured. “Aren’t you going to thank me for writing you into such lovely adventures?”
He kissed her somewhat hastily.
“And for all the loot we’re going to collect from Warlock’s safe before the police get here?” she persisted.
He kissed her again, thinking that to thank her properly just for being herself would take considerably more than that.
“But please,” said the Saint, with almost frantic restraint, “how did you get off that table?”
Her dazzlingly ingenuous smile would have been absolute justification for homicide.
“Oh, that,” she said carelessly. “Well, to find that out, I’m afraid you’ll just have to buy my next book.”