Mr Uniatz licked his dry lips.
"Chees!" he repeated piously; and Simon heard him moving stiffly out of the door.
Joris Vanlinden still lay inertly on the bed after he had been cut loose. Simon removed the gag and took out the cloth with which his mouth was stuffed in the same way that Hoppy's had been. He gazed up at the Saint with dull and curiously apathetic eyes. Simon glanced round the room and saw a jug of water; he filled a glass and brought it to the bed, supporting the old man's head while he drank.
"How d'you feel?" he asked.
Vanlinden took his mouth from the glass and lay back again. His mouth worked once or twice before he could speak.
"Where's Christine?" he got out at last.
"She's all right."
"Did they get her?"
"No, they didn't find her. I sent her to a friend's apartment. She's quite safe."
Vanlinden was silent again. There had been vague crashing sounds emanating from the kitchenette for some little while past; and the Saint went out and found Mr Uniatz at the end of a triumphant search, with a bottle of whiskey grasped in his hand. Mr Uniatz' mouth, which could never have been likened to a rosebud, spread even wider under the influence of the broad beam of contentment that was lighting up his face.
"Lookit what we got, boss," he said, hospitably including the Saint in the great moment; and Simon nodded sympathetically.
"Let me open it for you."
He detached the bottle from Hoppy's loving paws with the dexterity acquired from many similar rescues and stripped off the seals. He poured some of the whiskey into a glass before he handed the bottle back.
"Make yourself at home, Hoppy," he said unnecessarily and returned to the bedroom.
Joris Vanlinden was still lying quietly where the Saint had left him. His eyes were closed, but they opened when Simon came to the bed.
"Have you got a toist too?" Simon enquired with a smile.
The old man's lips moved faintly, but he didn't answer. Simon helped him up again and offered him the drink. He sipped a little and then he shook his head.
Simon let him down again and put the glass on the table. Still the old man didn't speak. He seemed quite happy to lie there with his eyes resting vacantly on the Saint's face, without talking or moving. Once he smiled weakly, as if that said all he wanted to say.
The Saint watched him for a few moments; and then he turned on his heel and went back to the living room.
Mr Uniatz was sitting on the table, with the half-empty bottle, which was tilted up to his lips and rapidly proceeding to contain less and less. He removed it from its target for long enough to say "Hi-yah, boss," and replaced it again without any loss of time. Simon performed another of his expert feats of legerdemain and parked the bottle at the other end of the table; and Mr Uniatz wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"Dis guy," he said, hooking his thumb backwards at the sleeping Mr Palermo-"where does he come from?"
"He's one of the lads who brought you here."
"He ain't dead," said Hoppy, as if he found the fact not only remarkable but also to be deplored.
The Saint grinned and searched for a cigarette.
"No, he isn't dead. He just hit the back of his head on my foot, and then he hit the front of his face on the floor, and what with one thing and another he seemed to decide that that wasn't getting him anywhere, so he gave it up and went to sleep."
Mr Uniatz thought it over. It was difficult for him to believe that the Saint could have been guilty of any of the lapses of memory to which ordinary mortals were subject, but he could discover no other explanation. However, from the sounds he had heard previously, Mr Uniatz was able to deduce that the Saint had been having some trouble; and he presumed that the stress of other preoccupations was responsible. Mr Uniatz' natural courtesy and kindness of heart forbade him to make any comments, especially when the omission could so easily be rectified. Almost bashfully he fished an automatic out of his pocket.
"Shall I give him de woiks, boss?" he suggested, as if he was apologising for mentioning the matter at all.
"Not just now," said the Saint decisively. "And where did you get that thing?"
"Dis is my Betsy," said Mr Uniatz proudly. "He must of took it off me while I was in de clouds, because I find it in his pocket. He has a rock on his finger too."
He exhibited the diamond ring which he had managed to squeeze most of the way on to his little finger.
"The sort of rock you need would have R. I. P. on it," said the Saint. "How did you get into this mess?"
Mr Uniatz got on to his feet and sauntered airily round the table, cunningly gaining possession of the whiskey bottle on the way.
"Well, boss, it's like dis. I wake up in de morning, an' de old buzzard is still knockin' off de hours, so after a bit I figure I may as well see if I can promote some breakfast. I get hold of a chambermaid, an' I say 'Breakfast.' She looks at me like a parrot, as if I was nuts, so I say 'Breakfast' again. So she says 'Does I you know?' I begin to t'ink she has de bugs herself. 'Does I you know?' she says. 'What de hell kind of a jernt is dis?' I say. 'Have you gotta know me before you can get me some breakfast?' All she does is go on saying 'Does I you know ?' Are all dese spicks screwy, woujja t'ink, boss?"
"Just about all of them," said the Saint. "But she was only saying desayuno. It's the Spanish for breakfast."
Mr Uniatz looked at him admiringly.
"Now woujja believe dat?" he asked of the un-answering world. "I said dey were screwy, didn't I? So what happens if dey want to say 'Do I know ya'?"
"That's something quite different," said the Saint hurriedly. "Anyway, I gathered that you got your breakfast. I saw the tray in your room."
"Sure. In de end she wakes up an' goes away, an' in about half an hour somebody knocks on de door --"
"Didn't I tell you not to open the door to anybody?"
"I know dat's what you tell me, boss, but how was I to know de waiters were in wit' dese mugs?"
"That wasn't a waiter, you ass! Apart from anything else, you can always tell a Canary Islander on sight because there just aren't any other people in the world who can look so ugly and unwashed and so pleased about it. The bloke who brought you your breakfast was one of what you call the mugs."
A pleased look of comprehension smoothed the scowl of concentration from Mr Uniatz' brow.
"Ah," he said. "Maybe dat's why he hits me on de head."
"Probably that had something to do with it," Simon agreed, with powerful restraint. "What happened after that?"
"I dunno, boss. I dunno what he hits me wit', but when I wake up I'm all tied up on de bed."
"Didn't you hear anything?"
"No, I don't hear nut'n or see nobody, only de skoit. She comes in an' takes a gander at us an' goes out again. Den I hear you talkin' when you get here, an' dat's all."
Simon slid back his sleeve to examine his watch. It seemed that the girl had been a long time finding a taxi. . . . Hoppy Uniatz tilted his bottle again and allowed the refreshing fluid to gurgle freely down his parched throat. When he paused for breath, he made an indicative movement of his head towards the bedroom.
"De old buzzard," he said. "How's he makin' out?"
The Saint shrugged.
"He'll be all right," he said shortly.
He knew that it would only be a waste of time to attempt to explain his diagnosis of Joris Vanlinden's condition to the audience he had at his disposal. But the reminder creased two thin lines of anxiety between his brows.
Joris Vanlinden was slipping away-that was all there was to it. It wasn't from any definite physical injury; although the beating he had taken the night before, and the crack on the head which had doubtless followed the one which Hoppy's skull had received with so much less effect, had contributed their full share to his present condition. The fundamental injury was the injury to Vanlinden's mind. He was an old man, and he had already been well worn down by the things that had happened to him in the years before: now, he was simply ceasing to fight. The drive of hope and will which any man must have to survive disaster, which the instinct of self-preservation gives to nearly every man in a greater or less degree, had been exhausted in him. Simon could recognise the state even though he had never actually encountered it before. Vanlinden was sinking into the state of inert despair in which men of earlier days are said to have turned their faces to the wall and died for no other reason than that the will to live had dried up within them. And Simon knew that it was only one added reason why he must lose no time.