Simon gazed morosely at the closed safe and wondered if it would relieve his emotions to weep tenderly over it for awhile. The occasion seemed to call for something of the sort. Within its unresponsive steel sides there was enough boodle to satisfy the most ambitious buccaneer, a collection of concentrated loot that deserved to be ranked with Vanlinden's lottery ticket; but for all the good it seemed likely to do him it might just as well have been a collection of empty beer bottles.
He went to the window and examined it. The bars were set solidly into the concrete of the walls-it might be possible to dig them out, but it would certainly take a good deal of time. And in any case he knew already that there was a sheer drop of thirty feet underneath it. Still, the road ran below. ... It was the first ray of hope he had seen since he entered the house. When he had been in Tenerife before he had made a number of incidental friends who might be useful; although if he met any of them when he was with Graner they might prove more dangerous than helpful. But that would have to be faced when the time came. . . .
He took a piece of paper from his pocket and tore it in half. On one piece he wrote rapidly, in English: Come and stand under the window of Las Mariposas on the La Laguna road at four o'clock. I will drop a message to you out of the window. If I'm unable to do this within half an hour, go away and come back at seven. Wait the same time. If nothing happens then, come back at nine-thirty and wait till you hear from me. This is a matter of life and death. Say nothing to anyone.
He read the message over again and grinned ruefully. It certainly read like something out of a melodrama; but that couldn't be helped. Maybe it was something out of a melodrama - his stay in Tenerife was beginning to look like that.
He signed his name to it; and on the second scrap of paper he wrote a translation in Spanish. He folded each piece of paper inside a twenty-five-peseta note and put the notes in separate pockets; he had just finished when he heard Graner's footstep again on the stairs.
Graner hardly glanced at his attempts to adjust the diamond in the copper cup under the machine.
"You can leave that for now," he said. "We will go down and collect your luggage."
His voice was sharper than it had been before, and Simon wondered what else had happened to put that grating timbre into it. There were things going on all the time that he knew nothing about, and the strain of trying to make sense of them took half the relief out of this second reprieve. Graner said nothing as they went downstairs; and all that the Saint could deduce of his state of mind had to be more intuitive than logical, which was not much satisfaction.
Through the door of the living room he had a glimpse of Aliston's boneless back while Graner stood in front of the mirror fitting on his purple hat like a woman. Presumably Aliston, and probably the natty Mr Palermo as well, had been out in the car that had returned a little while ago. Possibly it had been one or the other of them who had telephoned Graner during breakfast. It was a fairly obvious deduction that they had been scouring the town for a trace of Joris Vanlinden; and in that case the meaning of what he had overheard of the telephone conversation, and Graner's agitation, became easier to understand. But the Saint still had a queer feeling that there were gaps in the theory somewhere, a feeling that came from some kind of sixth sense for which he could not intelligently account, which told him that although the pieces of the jigsaw appeared to fit together so neatly there was something not quite right about the complete picture that they made up.
"Tombs!"
Graner's acrid voice jerked him out of the brown study, and they went outside to where the car was waiting. The chauffeur who stood beside it was unmistakably Spanish, and part of his villainous aspect might have been due to the fact that it was still only Saturday morning and the traditions of his country required him to shave only on Saturday afternoons; but the Saint doubted it. He wondered how many more of Graner's menagerie he had still to meet.
"What hotel did you go to?"
"The Orotava," answered Simon; and Graner's passionless black eyes rested on him a second or two longer before he passed the order on to the driver.
It was another of those puzzling rough edges in the smooth outline of the Saint's theory.
Simon pulled himself together with an abrupt effort. He told himself that his nerves must have been getting the better of him-he was beginning to imagine threats and suspicions in every trivial incident. After all, there were only about three hotels in Santa Cruz that could be called at all inviting, and the Orotava was the nearest to the harbour and the easiest choice for a man looking vaguely around for some place to stay. Why should the mention of it make any particular impression?
He knew that there could be only one reason, and felt as though a cold wind lapped his spine for a moment before he insisted to himself that it was absurd.
There was still a brace of guardias de asalto and a brace of guardias civiles mounting guard over the scene of the previous night's outbreak of gangsterismo, although they did not stop the car; and the Saint's mind switched back to the newspaper story he had read. That had at least explained a good many things to him without introducing any new riddles. It explained the way he had been stopped on the road when he was driving up to Graner's, and incidentally also explained the scattered volley which he had heard in the distance sometime earlier when he was driving away with Joris Vanlinden. What else it might lead to he had still to decide; but the humorous thought crossed his mind that he was probably even then riding in the very car for which the whole detective genius of Santa Cruz was at that moment searching. Only, of course, they were considerably handicapped by none of the guardias having remembered the number. . . .
The car stopped at the hotel, and they got out. As they went up to the desk, which was now in charge of a beautiful boy with the sweetest wave in his hair, Graner turned to the Saint.
"You will remember to cancel your luncheon engagement," he said.
"Of course," said the Saint, who had never forgotten it since they left the house. "Would you ask the Fairy Queen to see if he can get me room fifty?-I don't think he speaks English."
Graner interpreted; and Simon lounged quietly against the counter while the youth went to the telephone switchboard.
His pulses were ticking over like clockwork. Now, if only by some miracle he could make Hoppy grasp the idea . . . He would be able to say nothing that Reuben Graner didn't overhear, and Mr Uniatz' alertness to subtlety and innuendo was approximately as quick-witted as that of a slightly imbecile frog. It was a flimsy enough chance, but it was a chance. He wished he could have called Christine, but he dared not take the risk of drawing attention to a room so close to his own. . . . The youth seemed to be taking a long time. . . .
He came back at last, and what he said made the Saint feel as though he had been jolted under the chin.
"No contestan."
Simon didn't move. With every trace of emotion schooled out of his face, he looked enquiringly at Graner.
"They don't answer," Graner translated.
The Saint placed his cigarette between his lips and drew at it steadily. He knew that Graner was watching him, but for once he wasn't worried about his own reaction. He knew that he couldn't be giving anything away, for the simple reason that he had nothing to give. A dull haze seemed to have filled his brain, through which one or two futile questions could only rise blurrily into his consciousness. Could it only have been that Hoppy was sleeping his usual loglike sleep? But the boy must have been ringing the room for a long time. Besides, there was Joris Vanlinden; and there could hardly be two people in the world who slept as heavily as Hoppy Uniatz. What else could have happened? Graner had been agitated before, but none of it had looked for an instant like the kind of agitation that springs from an excess of rejoicing. Besides which, he hadn't batted an eyelid when the Saint mentioned the number of the room, which he would certainly have done if ... Besides which, there wasn't even a flickering indication of triumph in his attitude now. Besides which, there was the telephone call at breakfast time. Besides which . . .