"Sit down."
Simon made himself as comfortable as he could on the plain wooden chair and opened his cigarette case.
"When do I know what the hell this is all about?" he enquired politely.
Palermo unwrapped the Cellophane from a local cigar, bit off the end and lighted it. It smelt like burning straw.
The girl came back and laid an extra place at the table; and Palermo and Aliston sat down. Aliston twiddled one of his coat buttons and looked at the floor, the ceiling, the different walls, his feet and his fingernails. Palermo seemed as absorbed in his foul Cigar as if he hadn't heard the Saint's question.
"I suppose you know there 'll be hell to pay when Graner hears that the girl's been left at the hotel all this time alone," said the Saint presently.
"She isn't at the hotel," Aliston said sharply.
Simon raised his eyebrows.
"Well, where is she?"
"That's what we're hoping to hear from you," said Palermo.
The Saint placed his cigarette in his mouth and inhaled from it without changing his expression. The girl returned again with a pan of paella and put it down in front of Palermo. Simon noticed that she went back and fetched two more plates and stood looking at him doubtfully. Palermo glared at her silently, and she left the plates and sat down; but the Saint had learnt all that he had to learn. He knew now that Joris Vanlinden and Hoppy were in the room with the closed door on his right.
He gave no sign of having observed anything, but the sweet exhilaration of the fight began to creep into his nerves again. A well-aimed fist in Mr Palermo's other eye, he was musing, would produce an agreeably symmetrical effect. Or should one be guided by a less monotonous style of composition and work diagonally downwards through the nose? It was a nice problem in practical aesthetics, and he didn't want to decide it too hastily. He helped himself from the dish when it was passed to him, and picked up his fork.
"Why should you ask me that?" he said calmly.
Palermo kept his cigar in his left hand and ate with his right, without once getting the two mixed up. Simon could not quite determine whether he ate to suppress the taste of the cigar or whether he smoked to disguise the flavour of the food.
"Because you took her away," he said bluntly.
"I did?"
Palermo nodded. He grabbed a mouthful of rice, a mouthful of smoke and another mouthful of rice.
"I saw you in a taxi when we were driving down- we were in a one-way street and we couldn't turn round in time, or we'd have stopped you. I told Graner there was probably a back way out of the hotel. How's your chicken?"
"I expect it led a very useful life until it stopped laying," said the Saint guardedly.
"They never kill them here before that," said Palermo affably. "Have some more."
He fished about in the pan and loaded the Saint's plate with a piece of gizzard, a section of neck and a few pieces of bone whose anatomical status it was impossible to ascertain because of the fact that the Spanish race has never learned how to carve a bird. They simply chop it up into small fragments with an axe, and you can work it out for yourself. The Saint sighed. It was only his fourth meal in Santa Cruz, but he remembered his previous visit as well; and already he was beginning to suffer from the luscious hallucinations of a starving man.
"It seems as if I did the right thing, anyway," he said brazenly.
"Why?"
Simon looked straight at him.
"I told Graner your outfit is a swell bunch of double-crossers. And it seems as if you've still got plenty of it left in you. I was thinking of that when I put Christine out of the way."
"Sure." Palermo shovelled some more food into his mouth and drank some wine. "You ever do any double-crossing?"
Aliston's fork clattered on to his plate.
"For heaven's sake, Art," he snapped. "We haven't got all day to waste."
"Take it easy, take it easy," said Palermo soothingly. "Tombs and me are just getting along fine. Tombs is a good fellow. He just doesn't understand us properly yet. Isn't that right, Tombs?"
Simon picked a piece of cuttlefish out of his paella and chewed it laboriously. It tasted exactly like high-grade rubber.
"You're wrong there," he said coolly. "I think I understand you pretty well. When you've met one skunk, you recognise the smell of the others-whether they're wearing an old school tie or a little piece of gigolo whisker."
The refined face of Mr Aliston pinkened, but Palermo's retained its swarthy impassivity. He stared at the Saint with his head cocked on one side like a sparrow.
"You talk fast," he said.
"I think like that," said the Saint easily. "It didn't even take me long to figure out that you aren't only double-crossing me-you're double-crossing Graner as well."
There was a certain period of silence, during which the girl's knife and fork clinked softly as she continued to eat with wholehearted concentration. Aliston's chair creaked a nervous rhythm as he swayed backwards and forwards. Palermo went on looking at the Saint for several moments and then continued eating.
"Graner hasn't done anything much for you, has he?" he said. "I wouldn't have stood for him hitting me like he hit you last night."
"You'd have had to stand for it if you'd been in my place."
"Still, did you like it?"
The Saint shrugged, watching him thoughtfully.
Palermo went on, with an air of friendly decision: "I'm going to be frank with you, Tombs. You're a good fellow, and I'd rather have it that way. We are double-crossing Graner. You guessed right. He's tried to do things to us like he did to you, and Cecil and me have been getting tired of it. Graner's all right-he's a great organiser and he's done plenty for us. But he's too bossy. Cecil and me, we're what you might call independent. When this lottery-ticket business came along, we thought it was about time to quit. So we had to ditch Graner. See?"
"And ditch me," added the Saint mildly.
Palermo was unabashed. He went on cleaning up his plate with hearty thoroughness.
"Sure. I'm being frank with you, see? That was how it was. We didn't know you much then, and we were just going to split the ticket between us. Well, now it seems you've got Christine and you've been talking to her. We've got to keep her quiet, and we want to know what she's told you. So maybe we have to pay for it. I'm not saying we like it, but business is business and we've got to make the best of it. You've got to look at it the same way. If you stick with Graner you can't collect more than two million pesetas, and you'll lucky if you get that. Come in with us, give us all you know, and we'll give you a square deal that 'll bring you five million. That's fair enough, isn't it?"
"I think it's a lovely idea," said the Saint slowly.
Palermo leaned back and shifted his belt with a satisfied gesture.
"That's fine," he said. "Well, where did you take Christine?"
Simon pushed his plate away and smiled at him no less complacently.
"Oh no," he said. "That isn't fine at all."
"What d'you mean ?" demanded Palermo abruptly. "We're partners now, aren't we?"
"For the moment."
"Well, what are you putting in ?"
"What are you putting in, if it comes to that ?"
Palermo pointed his cigar at the closed communicating door.
"You know what we're putting in. That's what you were talking about just now. Christine told you, didn't she? You don't have to play innocent any more."
"You've got them here ?"
"Sure we have."
The Saint eased a short cylinder of ash on to the side of his plate.
"And I've got Christine-where I've got her," he said equably. "So we're all square. I'm not wanting to take Joris away from you, and you needn't want to take Christine away from me. You've already told me that you've taken up double-crossing for a living, and you don't know much about my morals either. So if we each keep what we've got we can work together without being afraid that we're double-crossing each other. That seems sound enough for a start, anyway. Besides, why put all our eggs in one basket? If Joris managed to get away, he'd take Christine; or if Graner got wise to this place he'd have 'em both; or if Joris' friends got on to you --"