Simon closed the windows and drew the curtain back across them.
“I’ll treat you to a repair job,” he said.
“Would you mind? I’m tired of hopping about like a human pogo stick, and as long as I have a man around I might as well make use of him.”
She was talking about the rope which still bound her ankles together. Simon knelt down to release her.
“A very wise attitude,” he agreed. “As a matter of fact, I was encouraged to come here to be useful. Finlay Hugoson and I were together at the premiere of your latest epic, and when we dropped by his flat we ran into a couple of uninvited guests who hadn’t expected him to come home till after the party. They were looking for your address, and they got away with it. Hugoson thought it would be a good idea if I got right down here to protect you... or keep you from signing up with some competitor of his.”
“Why didn’t he come?” she asked.
“He would have, but he was indisposed after being conked on the head by your fans.”
“Fans?”
“The ones who’re so anxious to find you.” Simon had finished untying the ropes, and he stood up. “You tie a good knot,” he said.
“Summer sailor.” She looked apologetically down at the tight-fitting faded jeans and the sloppy sweat shirt she was wearing. “Excuse me if I’m dressed like one, but I wasn’t expecting company, friendly or otherwise.”
“I’d planned to announce myself in a more conventional way,” the Saint told her, “but your little charade completely took me in.”
He went over to look at the dummy with the knife in its back.
“That’s Warlock,” Amos Klein explained as she began to straighten up the room.
“Warlock?” Simon repeated. “He’s the top villain in your books, right?”
“Right. He and his cohorts were keeping me prisoner in a cellar. And Dunlap Brodie... he’s the nice boy whose mother was killed by S.W.O.R.D... slips me this knife. So I’m going to kill Warlock when he comes to torture me. He’s sitting down at the console to turn up the hypnotic knob when I let him have it in the back... from ten paces, with my hands tied. And just then you come along and let me have it, right in the back door.”
“Well,” said Simon, “at least you can write the damage off to research.”
“You’re right. I like to try things out to see if they’re just barely possible. Every little experience adds realism.”
She was picking the dummy up off the floor and sitting him in an armchair. Suddenly she stopped, listening.
“Did you hear something?” she whispered.
“No. What?”
She was still frozen in her leaning position over the dummy.
“In the hall.”
Simon had not heard anything in the hall, and he did not believe his hostess had heard anything either, but he decided to play along and let her get out of her system whatever it was she had in mind. The knife in the dummy’s back had looked very long and very sharp, but Simon turned anyway, like a matador defying a bull with the mockery of his undefended back, and looked towards the hall door. Only a man of supreme confidence in his own luck and skill could have made the move; the Saint was as sure of himself as if he had been going through a routine judo exercise.
“Now,” said the girl, “don’t move.”
At the same time Simon felt the cold point of the knife touch his neck.
“Is that any way for a damsel in distress to treat her knight errant?” he asked coolly. “I’m tempted just to leave you to the wolves... but I won’t.”
The Saint’s last three words were accompanied by a move so sudden and so swift that even an attentive observer would have been hard put to say just how the long knife ended up in his hand and exactly what caused the girl who had been holding it only an instant before to be sitting with the wind knocked out of her on the floor.
“You look so surprised,” he said amiably. “Wasn’t that according to the script?”
“How am I supposed to know you’re the Saint?” the girl demanded.
“How am I supposed to know you’re Amos Klein?” he retorted. “At least I’m the right sex.”
Almost without so much as a glance to his right at the dummy in its chair, Simon carelessly flicked the knife from his fingertips and sent the sharp-pointed blade flying deep into the painted head directly between the eyes.
“I think,” the girl gulped, “that for the moment, anyway, I’ll just have to trust you.”
Simon took her by one hand and hoisted her to her feet.
“In that case, I’ll have another try at trusting you.”
“Another try?”
“Well I just showed you my good faith by turning my back on you, and look what it got me. And would you blame me for doubting that anything quite as gorgeous as you could be named Amos Klein?”
She gazed at him with a special kind of melting glow which only flattery can produce in the eyes of the human female.
“I not only may learn to trust you — I may learn to love you.”
“All things in their seasons,” said the Saint agreeably. “And if it makes you feel any more comfortable, I really don’t doubt your identity. I know now why Finlay Hugoson made what seemed like a very naughty suggestion that I might fall for you if I came out here.”
“He’s not supposed to tell anybody I’m a girl. It’s in our contract.”
She went over to a cabinet in the corner which yielded two glasses and a bottle of Old Curio. Simon looked at the pages of mansucript which lay beside the typewriter.
“How do you do it?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Write these tough, tough books.”
Amos Klein shrugged as she poured the whiskey.
“Something went wrong at the factory, I guess.”
“Factory?” the Saint asked.
“The people factory. They ran out of proper girlie ribbons.”
“Not from where I’m looking.”
She smiled with another glow of pure joy as she handed him his drink.
“You’re very sweet. Cheers... to trust.”
“To trust, Amos.” His mouth reacted to the pronunciation of the name as it would have reacted to a large bite of lemon peel. “I just can’t call you that, darling.”
“All right, call me darling.”
They both smiled and drank again.
“Now,” the girl said, “could you explain a little more about what’s going on — what brought you here? I mean, who’s behind all this?”
“First, I’d be much happier if you’d satisfy my curiosity,” Simon said. “What’s one of the most successful authors in the world doing hiding her light and gender under a bushel out here in the midst of the beech woods?”
“It was partly Finlay’s idea. He thought it would help sales — the mystery, you know. And he also thought that the public might not take my books so well if they knew they were written by a woman.”
“Maybe, but I doubt there would have been any problem. It didn’t hurt Agatha Christie. Hugoson seems very conservative, though.”
“He is, and I had personal reasons, too. My family’s even more conservative than Finlay, and if they dreamed I was ruining myself for marriage and a life among decent people by writing sex and sadism thrillers they’d cut me off without a penny.”
“Then Amos Klein isn’t your real name,” Simon deduced, with some relief.
“No... But when I began publishing these things I was completely dependent on them, and I may be adventurous in imagination but I wasn’t particularly willing to face starvation in person.”
“But I should think you’d have made a fortune by now, with royalties and movie rights and all that.”
“Amos Klein,” beamed.