He stopped walking and looked at Vanlinden again. The old man, shivering with nervous reaction and clinging pathetically to his daughter's hand, had sunk back exhausted on to the pillow. His weak, tired eyes stared mutely up at the Saint; but even he must have been convinced that Simon knew nothing, for the fire had died out of them and left only the anguish.
Simon turned to the girl.
"If Graner's idea was what you say it was, why did he let you go at all?"
"He didn't. He said he was going to, but I never, believed him. Every day I was terrified that something -something would happen to Joris. When I knew that the official lists were supposed to arrive tonight, I was ... I was sure they . . . they would see that something happened to Joris before he woke up tomorrow."
"So you decided to make a dash for it."
She nodded.
"We said we were going to bed early and we got out of a window. Graner hadn't let the dogs out then. . . ."
"There are dogs, are there?"
He heard her catch her breath.
"Yes. But they weren't out. . . . We got away, and we ran. But they must have missed us. They came after us and caught us on the road. That was when you arrived."
The Saint blew two smoke rings, very carefully putting the second through the middle of the first.
"So they took the ticket," he said. "But they didn't have to kill Joris. Or did they?" His eyes pinned her again, very clear and level and bright like sapphires. "Does anything strike you about that?"
She pushed her fingers through her disordered hair.
"My God," she said, "how can I think?"
"Well, doesn't anything strike you? They may have wanted to put Joris away because he knew too much. But there may have been another reason. If he was running about loose after they'd pinched his ticket, he might make a fuss about it. It wouldn't be easy, but I suppose he could make a fuss. People don't buy a whole two-thousand-peseta Navidad ticket all to themselves so often, especially in a place like this, that the shop wouldn't be likely to remember him. If he was dead, anybody could say they bought it off him; but if he was alive and raising hell --"
"How could he? He couldn't go near the police --"
"That's a matter of opinion. Admittedly he'd be getting himself into trouble at the same time; but anyone who turns state's evidence can usually count on a good deal of leniency, and Joris has a lot less to lose than the others have. Just looking at it theoretically, when a bloke is in Joris' position, and a miracle has tossed him up within a finger's length of getting everything he wants most in the world, and then somebody snatches it away from him at the last moment and shoves him back again, it's liable to make him crazy enough to do anything for revenge. I don't know what sort of a psychologist Reuben Graner is, but I'd be inclined to look at it that way if I were in his place. What do you think, Hoppy?"
The unornamental features of Mr Uniatz marshalled themselves into an expression of reproachful anguish. Even in their moments of most undisturbed serenity, they tended to resemble something which an amateur sculptor had beaten out of a lump of clay with a large hammer, in the vain hope that his most polite friends would profess to recognise it as a human face; but when twisted out of repose they looked even more like an unfortunate essay in ultrafuturistic art, and could probably have commanded a high price from an advanced museum. Mr Uniatz, however, was not concerned about his beauty. A man of naive and elemental tastes, there was something about the mere sound of the word "think" which made him wince.
"What-me?" he said painfully.
"Yes, you."
Mr Uniatz bit another piece off the end of his cigar and swallowed it absent-mindedly.
"I dunno, boss," he began weakly; and then, with the Saint's clear and accusing blue eye fixed on him, he returned manfully to his torment. "Dis guy Graner," he said. "Is he de guy wit' de oughday?"
"We were hoping he had some."
"De guy wit' de ice?"
"That's right."
"De guy ya tell me about in Madrid?"
"Exactly."
"De guy we come here to take?"
"The same."
"De lottery guy?" said Hoppy, leaving no stone unturned in his anxiety to make sure of his ground before committing himself.
Simon nodded approvingly.
"You seem to have grasped some of it, anyway," he said. "I suppose you could call Graner the lottery guy for the present. Anyway, he's got the ticket. So the question is-what happens next?"
"Dat looks like a cinch," said Mr Uniatz airily; and the Saint subsided limply into a chair.
"One of two things has happened to you for the first time in your life," he said sternly. "Either the whiskey has had some effect, or an idea has got into your head."
Mr Uniatz blinked.
"Sure, it's a cinch, boss. All we gotta do is, we go to dis guy an' say 'Lookit, mug; eider you split wit' us on your racket, or we toin ya in to de cops.' Sure, he comes t'ru. It's a pipe," said Mr Uniatz, driving home his point.
The Saint gazed at him pityingly.
"You poor fathead," he said. "It isn't a racket. This is the Spanish official lottery. It's perfectly legal. Graner isn't running it. He's simply got the ticket that won it."
Mr Uniatz looked unhappy. The Spanish government, he felt, had done him a personal injury. He brooded glumly.
"I dunno, boss," he said at length, reverting to his original platform.
"It looks plain enough to me," said the Saint.
He sprang up again. To Christine Vanlinden, watching him, fascinated, there was an atmosphere of buoyant and invincible power about him like nothing she had ever felt about a man before. Whether he could be trusted or not, whatever scruples he might or might not have, his personality filled the room and absorbed everyone in it. And yet he was smiling, and his gesture had the faint half-amused swagger which was inseparable from every movement he made.
"Graner has got the ticket," he said. "But we've got Joris. So long as Joris is out of sight and an unknown quantity, I think Graner will be afraid to risk trying to cash the ticket. He'll try to get hold of Joris again to find out exactly how he stands. He can afford to wait a few days, and meanwhile he'll probably be trying to figure out some other way to get round the difficulty. But I don't think he'll be on the doorstep of the lottery agent first thing in the morning asking for the prize. So we hold exactly half the stakes each. And while Graner is trying to fill his hand, we can be trying to fill ours. Therefore, the next move from our side is to go and have a talk with Reuben."
He saw the quick pressure of white teeth on her lip.
"Talk to Graner?" she gasped. "You can't do that --"
"Can't I?" said the Saint grimly. "He's expecting me!"
2 Her eyes widened.
"You?"
"Yours sincerely. We got off the boat late, and then they didn't have any proper tackle to land the car. Every time they rigged up some gimcrack contraption the ropes broke, and then they all stood around waving their arms about and telling each other why it didn't work. When we did get off, I had to hang around for the other half of the day trying to get the carnet stamped. Tenerife again. After that was all over we came and fixed ourselves up here, and what with one thing and another we seemed to need a few drinks and a spot of food before we plunged into any more excitement. So we had them. Eventually we did make some enquiries about Graner, and after six people had given us sixteen different directions, we were on our way to try and find him when we met you." The Saint smiled. "But Reuben is expecting me all right!"