"They don't offer a reward to the thieves who stole it.'
"Even that has been known to happen."
The Saint squirted soda into the glasses and picked up two of them. He carried one of them over to Graner, and as he gave it to him he winked again. He handed the other to Christine. Then he went back to the table and picked up his own.
"In any case," he resumed, "the question doesn't arise. I didn't steal your ticket-if I'd got it, I shouldn't be messing around here. Surely you're not going to say that if I got it back for you I shouldn't be entitled to a commission?"
She took another drink from her glass, watching him rather perplexedly.
"Now if you've been listening to my recent chat with Reuben," Simon went on, "you'll have gathered that he hasn't been playing ball with me. So if he's ready to double-cross me, I'm quite ready to do some double-crossing on my own. From what I've made out, there are Reuben and three other guys up at the house waiting for a split in this ticket. Then there are a couple more in Madrid who'll probably expect to be cut in. And at least a couple of minor thugs who may be worth one share between them. So the best I can hope for is to come in for an eighth, even if they don't try to gyp me out of that. And you don't get anything."
He moved a little towards her. She drank again, and leaned her head back against the end of the bed. Once or twice her eyes closed, and she seemed to make an effort to open them.
"You're a nice kid, Christine, and I wouldn't mind doing something for you-if it doesn't cost me anything. From what I hear, there are only three other people in your outfit: Joris and his two pals. Well, if you cut me in there, including yourself, I'd be due for a fifth, which looks a whole lot better to me. If that looks like a proposition to you, you just say the word and I'll wring this bum Graner's neck. . . ."
The girl's head slid suddenly sideways, and Simon Caught the glass from her hand before it fell.
He put it on the table and eased her gently down until she was lying on the bed. She lay there limp and relaxed, breathing evenly and peacefully, with her eyes closed, as if she were in a natural sleep. Simon studied her for a few moments; and then he turned round to Graner with a flash of triumph in his eyes.
"What you've been needing in your outfit all along, Reuben," he said kindly, "is a little less melodrama and a lot more of my brains."
V How Reuben Graner Took Back His Gun, and a Taxi Driver Was Unconvinced REUBEN GRANER stepped delicately up to the bed and gazed down at the girl for a while without expression, tapping his mouth with the chased gold knob of his cane.
Presently he looked at the Saint.
"Yes, that was good," he said complacently. "Otherwise we might have had some trouble."
He reached over for the telephone.
"What d'you think you're doing now?" asked the Saint.
"Sending for the others to come down and fetch her."
Simon stretched out a long arm and put his finger on the hook.
"Ixnay," he said succinctly. "D'you still want to turn the hotel upside down, or are you just daft?"
"There will be no excitement," said Graner, "When I sent Palermo and Aliston down this morning, they had two large trunks to carry the luggage they expected to bring back. They can bring one of the trunks down again. You have told the hotel you are leaving, and one extra trunk will not disturb them unduly."
So that was how it had been done, Simon reflected. He had been wondering about that point-it was hardly conceivable that two unconscious men could have been dragged out of the Hotel Orotava into the main square of Santa Cruz in broad daylight without starting a train of gossip that Palermo and Aliston would have been the last to desire. He didn't know about Joris, but he would have bet that Hoppy Uniatz would never have gone out on his own feet. Graner's explanation had cleared up another minor mystery.
The Saint kept his satisfaction to himself. He took the telephone out of Graner's hand and hung it up again.
"As I was saying," he remarked, "you still need a lot more of my brains."
Graner's stony eyes settled on his face.
"Why?"
"What d'you think would happen if you took her back to the house?"
"She would be persuaded to tell us what she knew."
"That's what you think."
"I can assure you there would be no question about that," Graner said significantly.
Simon's gaze dissected him contemptuously.
"If I'm right about what you're thinking," he said, "you can forget it again. That's something I don't stand for. But in any case you're talking like a fool as well as a louse. Did you ever invent any way of proving whether anyone was telling the truth when they were being what you call persuaded?"
"It would be proved eventually."
"Now you're talking like a spick, on top of everything else. Why wait for 'eventually'-whenever that is? Hasn't it occurred to you that Joris wouldn't have ditched his daughter here? If there's anything in this party that looks certain to me, it's that Joris will get in touch with her again, sooner or later. Maybe he'd have done it already if he hadn't seen your car outside."
Graner's face hardened with concentration. The thoughts that were going on under the mask were unreadable, but the Saint didn't need to read them. He could make a pretty good guess about Graner's next reaction; and he was perfectly right.
"There is something in what you say. Perhaps it would be better to leave her here for the present. I will tell Palermo to come down and watch her, and we can go back to the house."
He reached out again for the telephone; but the Saint laughed amicably and put his arm aside.
"Not so quickly, Reuben," he murmured. "You seem to have forgotten that you and I still have a few things to settle."
Graner's stare fastened rigidly on him again. The Saint felt it without looking up to meet it. He was engaged in tapping a cigarette on his thumbnail.
"I thought they had been settled," Graner said at length.
"By your admitting that you've been double-crossing me?"
"That will be put right as soon as we get back to the house."
"With somebody else's gun, or have you got another one of your own?"
"Obviously we must have some confidence in each other."
"And a hell of a lot of confidence you've given me for a start!"
The Saint's blue eyes switched suddenly back to Graner's face, very clear and cool and disparaging. This was the crucial moment of the plan of compaign which the urgent necessity of the moment had whipped out of his brain, the reason why he had induced Christine to take that expertly doctored drink, the only reason which had deprived him of the more elementally attractive solution of hitting Reuben Graner smartly on the nose and taking Christine away with an open declaration of war.
Half-a-dozen other solutions had whirled through his brain in the few seconds that he had been able to allow himself to think, and he had discarded all of them. Christine remained the one snag that had to be overcome. If he had proposed to take her up to the house when she was conscious, her reaction against him would probably have given him away. If she were taken up to the house at all, and she had to answer any questions there, her answers would probably give him away in any case. And finally, to clinch the matter, the Saint had no intention of throwing her on the mercy of Graner's gang on any account; if Graner once had them both shut up together in that fortress of a house, the situation would take quite a different angle-Simon had a cold-blooded conviction about that. And yet he had to find a way of assuring Christine's safety and his own, without putting his own cards on the table. For if he did that, he was cut off irrevocably from any direct contact with Aliston and Palermo, who knew where Joris and Hoppy were, and Lauber, who knew what had become of the ticket. It was like walking a mental tightrope with a fatal drop waiting on either side; but the Saint had to find his way across.