"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Lauber demanded.
The Saint shrugged.
"Palermo and Graner have gone back to the house, anyway. So's the car. We've got to get Aliston and the chauffeur back there. Then when we've got them all rounded up together --"
He broke off abruptly, listening. They had not closed the door completely when they re-entered the room; and the Saint's keen ears caught the first sound of someone walking into the hall below. Lauber listened also in the silence which followed and they both heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
The Saint smiled again and stepped noiselessly round the table. He gripped Lauber by the arm and pushed him into the centre of the room, where he would be seen first by anyone coming through the door.
"Stay there," he breathed. "I'll get behind him."
Before Lauber could protest against this doubtful honour it was too late for him to move. The Saint had retired with the some soundless speed; and when the door was pushed open he was behind it.
A moment later he emerged again, for the man who came in was Graner's chauffeur. Simon recognized him even from his back view with the assistance of the odour of garlic and perspiration that came in with him.
"Don Reuben sent me," he explained.
"What for?" growled Lauber, with his voice edged by the reaction.
"I have been watching the Hotel Orotava. A little while ago the Seńor Vanlinden and another man came there. The Seńor Vanlinden stayed inside, but soon afterwards the other man came out. He got in a taxi to go to San Francisco 80. I heard the driver repeat the address."
"What else?"
"Don Reuben said one of you must go there and watch him. I am to stay here and help the other."
Lauber looked at the Saint; and Simon stepped quietly forward and pinioned the man's arms deftly behind his back. The chauffeur let out a squawk of startlement and screwed his head round until he saw the Saint. Simon grinned at him and averted his nose.
"Hurry up and go through him," he said. "I'm being gassed."
Lauber made the search, while the man squirmed ineffectually in the Saint's expert grip. He was longer and clumsier over it than the Saint would have been, but when it was over the Saint was satisfied that at least the chauffeur hadn't got the ticket on him.
"What was he saying?" Simon remembered to enquire, as he released the spluttering captive.
Lauber translated the message. He was still watching the chauffeur suspiciously.
"He might have hidden the ticket somewhere else," he concluded, reverting to his main preoccupation.
Simon thought rapidly. His own judgment was that the chance was a remote one. If the chauffeur had really found the ticket at all, it was unlikely that he would have been there. Since he was a native of the island, it was stretching plausibility a long way to credit him with sufficient intelligence and imagination to cover himself by outwardly continuing his normal life, or to have been delayed from trying to cash the ticket by any fear of Joris having communicated with the police. Simon was almost ready to rule the chauffeur out of the lists of suspects, but he saw no harm in letting Lauber keep his suspicions.
"That's quite likely," he agreed. "You'd better see if you can make him talk while I go and keep track of this other guy."
The scowl came slowly back to Lauber's face.
"We'll see if we can make him talk," he retorted heavily. "And then I'll go and keep track of the other guy."
Simon faced him crisply.
"Try not to be a bigger fool than God made you! Why d'you think Graner wants one of us to watch this fellow?"
"I don't know and I don't care --"
"Then it's time you started. You heard what I told Graner. He thinks this guy knows where the ticket is -and we know he doesn't. Graner just wants to take care they don't double-cross me-and I know they can't. They won't get scared if they see me, but they'll get scared if they see you. And this is the important place to be-this is where Aliston will be coming back --"
"But you said you'd got Joris and his friend!" The Saint almost fell backwards. That was what he felt like doing; but by some miracle of will he kept himself standing there and looking Lauber in the eye without the flinch of a muscle.
"So I have got them," he asserted steadily. "But they think I'm in with them. I don't have to lock them up. Don't you see that by letting them think they're still in the running I'm making sure that they won't go squealing to the police about the ticket having been stolen?"
"All the same," Lauber said stubbornly, "you aren't going out of here alone."
His hand was sliding down to his pocket. He meant business-there wasn't a doubt of that. The Saint regretted having given him back his gun, but there it was. Regrets wouldn't take it away again. But the Saint also meant business. He had left Christine and Hoppy alone for too long already; whereas Lauber's usefulness was temporarily exhausted.
Lauber was less than a yard away as the Saint faced him; he was not the same intellectual type as Graner. There was only one argument that would really make an impression on him.
Simon sized up the situation and the man in one of the swiftest calculations he had ever had to make in his life. He had already hit Lauber's jaw once and had discovered what it was made of. But Lauber's body had the solid paunchiness to which men of his build are subject when they begin to lead idle lives. Simon chose his mark for the second experiment with greater care.
"Tell me about it some other time, brother," he murmured; and his fist jolted out like a piston.
A kick like the piston of a locomotive went into it, built up from the shift of the Saint's weight and the scientific turning of his body and the supple muscles of his back and shoulders. Every ounce of his weight and strength from the tips of his toes up to his wrist went into the job of impregnating the punch with the power of dynamite. Simon wanted no more delays: he knew how much it took to affect Lauber's constitution and generously gave him everything that he had. The blow sogged into Lauber's stomach, just below the place where his ribs parted, with a force that drove the flesh back four inches before Simon's knuckles had finished travelling.
Lauber gave a queer sharp cough, and his knees melted. Simon jarred his right fist up under the jaw as Lauber's head came forward, just for luck; he didn't wait to see any more.
The chauffeur, who couldn't have been at all sure which side he was on by that time, made a half-hearted attempt to grab him as he ducked for the door. Simon detonated a brisk jab squarely on his nose and tripped him neatly as he staggered back. A second later he was taking the first flight of stairs at one leap.
He dodged round a couple of corners and found a taxi rank. He tossed a coin in his mind as he jerked open the door of the nearest cab.
"San Francisc' ochenta," he ordered, as the driver started his engine.
He lighted a cigarette as he settled back, and calmly considered what he had done in the last few seconds. He had dealt violently with both Lauber and Manoeclass="underline" what did that lead to? Unless he ran up the skull and crossbones and declared open war on the whole gang, that interlude of entertainment would have to be accounted for somehow. And yet he had had no choice. Lauber's skull was too dense and obstinate for any other methods to have been effective-the chauffeur's nose was a minor detail. Whatever happened, Lauber had to be prevented from going where Christine was. And even now he still knew the address. Simon wondered whether he ought to have taken over the gun again and finished the job; but that opportunity had also passed by, and it was no use worrying about it.
...Already the Saint's brain was wholly occupied with the problems of the future.