"I must be," she said, with the same innocent soberness. "Do you know I was only sixteen when they brought me here? I've seen them watching me as I grew up. I've seen them wanting me. Sometimes they've tried; but Joris could still help me a little. I learnt to keep them away. But I knew I couldn't keep them away always. You may be the same as they are, but you don't seem the same. I shouldn't mind so much if it was you. And if it would help Joris ... if you helped him, I would give you anything you want. . . ."
"That isn't necessary," he said roughly.
He got up quickly, without looking at her, and went to the window. He stood there for a time, without speaking, looking down into the square without seeing anything, until he felt he could trust himself to face her again. When he turned round at last, he had taken everything out of his eyes but the preoccupation of the adventure.
"The first thing you've got to do is to get out of here," he said. "Graner's been sent home for the moment, but we don't know what's going to happen next. And I'd rather you weren't around when it does happen."
"But where else can I go?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." He thoughtfor a moment. "Last time I was here, there was a fellow -- Wait a minute."
He skimmed rapidly through the telephone directory; and some time later, after he had managed to get the attention of the hotel operator, and the hotel operator had managed to wake the exchange out of its peaceful slumbers, and the exchange had made careful investigations to assure itself that there was such a number, he secured his connection.
"Oíga-żestá allí el seńor Keena? . . . David? Well, the Lord's name be praised. This is Simon. . . . Yes indeed. . . . Yes, I know I said you'd never see me again in this God-awful hole while there was any other place left on earth to go to, but we haven't time to go into that now. Listen. I want you to do something for me. Have you still got your apartment? . . . Well, how'd you like to turn out of it for a lady? . . . Yes, I'm sure you can't see why, but how d'you know she'd like you ? . . . Anyway, it's just one of those things, David. And it is important. I'll tell you all about it later. She can't go to a hotel. . . . That's grand of you. . . . Will you meet us there in about five minutes? . . . Okay, fella. Be seein' ya!"
He hung up the telephone and turned round cheerfully.
"Well, that's settled. Now if we can find some way to smuggle you out-Joris and Hoppy went out in trunks, so I suppose that's ruled out. Wait another minute . . ."
"Are they watching the hotel?"
"Graner left Manoel outside-he was shining the back of his coat on the Casino when I saw him last. But we can fix that. Are you ready to move?"
"When you are."
She put a hand on his arm, and for a moment he hesitated. There were so many other things he would rather have done just then. . . . And then, with a quick soft laugh, he touched her lips with his own and opened the door at once.
Downstairs, he beckoned the wavy-haired boy away from the desk, where there were some repulsive specimens of the young blood of England wearing their old school blazers and giggling over the priceless joke that Spaniards had a language of their own which was quite different from English.
"Have you got a back way out?" he asked.
"A back way out, seńor?" repeated the boy dubiously.
"A back way out," said the Saint firmly.
The boy considered the problem and cautiously admitted that there was a back door somewhere through which garbage cans were removed.
"We want to be garbage cans," said the Saint.
He emphasised the fact with another hundred-peseta note.
They passed through stranger and stranger doors, groped their way through dark passages, circumnavigated a kitchen and finally reached another door which opened on to a mean back street. An idle waiter whom they brushed past gaped at them.
"You're learning," said the Saint appreciatively, and the boy began to grin. Simon turned back to him grimly. "But just understand this," he added. "If that waiter or anyone else says a word about our going out this way, it's your head that I'll knock off. You've got a hundred pesetas. Use them."
"Claro," said the boy, less enthusiastically; and Simon ruffled his nice wavy hair and left him to it.
David Keena was waiting for them when their taxi drew up at the building where he lived.
"There is some excitement in Tenerife, after all," he said when the Saint got out.
"You don't know the half of it." Simon waited until they were inside the house to introduce the girl. "This is playing hell with your peaceful life, I know, but I'll do the same for you one day."
They went up to the apartment. Simon scanned it approvingly. If by any chance the Graner organisation, either corporately or individually, started to search for Christine, they would draw the hotels first. She might be secure in that apartment for an indefinite time.
He took Christine's hand.
"Hasta luego," he said, and smiled at her.
She looked at him, not quite understanding.
"Are you going?"
"I must, darling. I daren't be away from the hotel a moment longer than I have to, in case Graner calls me back. But I'll be on the job. Now that I know you're safe, I'll have all my time to look for Joris and Hoppy. Just sit tight and don't worry. It won't be long before I find them."
"You'll tell me what happens?"
"Of course. There's a telephone here, and I'll call you the minute I've got anything to say. Or any other time I've got a few seconds to spare for a chat. I only wish I had the time to spare now, Christine."
He held her hand for a moment longer; and there was something in his smile which seemed quite apart from the only life in which she had ever known him. The gay zest of adventure was still there, the half-humorous welcome to danger, the careless confidence -in his own lawless ways that made up so much of his fascination; but there was something else, something like a curious regret that she was too young to understand. And before she could ask him anything else he was gone.
"Why the rush?" asked Keena, as Simon drew him down the stairs.
"For fifteen million reasons which I can't stop to tell you about now. But you know something about me, and you know the sort of troubles I get into. If you don't know any more than that it may be healthier for you."
"I read something in the Prensa about an outbreak of gangsterismo --"
"So did I, but that was the first I'd heard of it." Simon stopped at the foot of the stairs and grinned at him. "Now you'll have to be content with that until I've got time to give you the whole story. You can go back upstairs for just long enough to settle the girl in and see that she knows where everything is. Then you hustle back to your office and carry on as if nothing had happened. She's not to show her face outside this place, and you're not to behave as if you'd got anyone here; so you can stop wondering where you're going to take her to dinner. You find yourself a nice respectable hotel, and if there are any questions you can say your apartment's being painted. You don't say a word about Christine, or about me for that matter. Do you get the idea?"
"I think it's a lousy idea," Keena said gloomily.
The Saint chuckled and opened the front door.
"It 'll grow on you when you get to know it better," he said. "We'll get together later and talk it over."
He had kept his taxi waiting, and a moment later he was on his way again. As they approached the Casino building he slid down in the seat until he was invisible to anyone who might have been lounging about the square, and told the driver to take him round to the corner of the Calle Doctor Allart-he had taken note of the name of the street behind the hotel when he went out with Christine.
The driver looked round at him blankly, narrowly missing a collision with a tram in the process.
"żDónde está?"
Simon explained the position of the street at length, and comprehension gradually brightened the chauffeur's face.