At long last a fee of two thousand pounds was agreed on; and the Saint helped himself to a fifth glass of sherry.
"Okay, boys," he murmured. "We'll get that guy."
"Sure," echoed Mr. Uniatz, rousing with a snort. "We'll get him."
Yorkland shuffled about on the edge of his seat, buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, and got up.
"Very well," he stuttered. "That's settled. Glad it's all fixed up. Now I must get back to town. Late already. Important meetings." His restless eyes glanced at the other member of his side. "Count on me for my share, Farwill."
The Honourable Leo nodded.
"Certainly," he reverberated. "Certainly. You may leave it to me to arrange the details." He drew the sherry decanter towards him and replaced the stopper unobtrusively but firmly. "I think we owe a vote of thanks to Mr. Uniatz for the--er--introduction."
Simon Templar surveyed him dispassionately over a second Corona.
"You owe more than that, fella," he said.
Farwill coughed.
"I thought the--er--honorarium was payable when the commission had been--ah--executed."
"Half of it is," agreed the Saint pleasantly. "The first half is payable now. I done business with politicians before. You make so many promises in your job, you can't expect to remember 'em all."
"Sure," seconded Hoppy Uniatz heartily. "Cash wit' order is de rule in dis foim."
Farwill drew out his wallet grudgingly; but it was stocked with a supply of currency which indicated that some such demand had not been unforeseen. He counted out a number of banknotes with reluctant deliberation; and Yorkland watched the proceeding with a hint of hollowness in his round face.
"Well," he said with a sigh, "that's done. Send you a check tonight, Farwill. Thanks. Really must be off now. Excuse me. Good-bye."
He shook hands all round, with the limp perfunctory grip of the professional handshaker, and puttered out of the room; and they heard his car scrunching away down the drive.
The Saint smiled to himself and raked in the money. He counted it into two piles, pushed one towards Hoppy Uniatz, and folded the other into his pocket. There were five hundred pounds in his own share--it was a small enough sum as the Saint rated boodle, but there were circumstances in which he could take a fiver with just as much pleasure as he would have taken five thousand. It was not always the amount of the swag, it was the twists of the game by which it was collected; and beyond all doubt the twist by which that five hundred had been pulled in ranked high in the scale of pure imponderable delights. On such an occasion even a nominal allowance of loot was its own reward; but still the Saint had not achieved everything that had been in his mind when he set out on that soul-satisfying jag.
One other riddle had been working in his brain ever since he left his apartment that morning, and he led up to it with studied casualness.
"The job's as good as done, Leo," he said.
"Sure," echoed the faithful Mr. Uniatz. "De guy is dead an' buried."
"Excellent," responded Farwill formally."Ah --excellent."
He had almost got the decanter away when Simon reached it with a long arm. Farwill winced and averted his eyes.
"This ain't such bad stuff, Leo," the Saint commented kindly, emptying his glass and refilling it rapidly. He spilt an inch of ash from his cigar onto the carpet and cocked one foot on to the polished table with a callous disregard for his host's feeling which he felt would go well with the imaginary character of Pete de Blood, and which soothed his own sleepless sense of mischief at the same time. "About this guy Templar," he said. "Suppose I do have to rub him out?"
"Rub him out?" repeated Farwill dubiously. "Ah--yes, yes. Suppose you have to kill him." His eyes shifted for a moment with the hunted look of the politician who scents an attempt to commit him to a definite statement. "Well, naturally it is understood that you will look after yourself."
"Aw, shucks," said the Saint scornfully. "I can look after myself. That ain't what I mean. I mean, suppose he was rubbed out, then there wouldn't be any way to find out where the book was, an' the cops might get it."
Farwill finally collared the decanter and transported it in an absent-minded way to the cellaret, which he locked with the same preoccupied air. He turned round and clasped his hands under his coattails.
"From our point of view, the problem might be simplified," he said.
The Saint rolled his cigar steadily between his finger and thumb. The question with which he had taxed the imagination of Mr. Uniatz had been propounded again where it might find a more positive reply; but the Saint's face showed no trace of his eagerness for a solution. He tipped the dialogue over the brink of elucidation with a single impassive monosyllable:
"How?"
"The Saint has a--ah--confederate," said Far-will, looking at the ceiling. "A young lady. We understand that she shares his confidence in all his --ah--enterprises. We may therefore assume that she is cognizant of the whereabouts of the volume in question. If the Saint were--ah--removed, therefore," Farwill suggested impersonally, "one would probably have a more--ah--tractable person with whom to deal."
A flake of ash broke from the Saint's cigar and trickled a dusty trail down his coat; but his eyes did not waver.
"I get you," he said.
The simplicity of the argument hit him between the eyes with a force that almost staggered him. Now that it had been put forward, he couldn't understand how he had failed to see it himself from the beginning. It was so completely and brutally logical. The Saint was tough: everyone knew it, everyone admitted it. And he held the whip hand. But he could be--ah--removed; and the whip would pass into the hands of one lone girl. Undoubtedly the problem might be simplified. It would be reduced to an elementary variant of an old game of which the grim potentialities were still capable of sending a cold trickle down his spine. He should have seen it at once. His hat hung in the hall with a bullet-punched ventilation through the crown which was an enduring testimony that the opposition had neither gone berserk nor sunk into the depths of imbecility; without even charting the pinnacles of satanic cunning, they had merely grasped at the elusive obvious-- which he himself had been too wooden-headed to see.
"That's a great idea," said the Saint softly. "So after we've rubbed out this guy Templar, we go after his moll."
"Ah--yes," assented Farwill, staring into the opposite corner as if he were not answering the question at all. "If that should prove necessary-ah--yes."
"Sure," chirped Mr. Uniatz brightly, forestalling his cue. "We'll fix de goil."
The Saint silenced him with a sudden lift of ice-blue eyes. His voice became even softer, but the change was too subtle for Farwill to notice it.
"Who thought of that great idea?" he asked.
"It was jointly agreed," said the Honourable Leo evasively. "In such a crisis, with such issues at stake, one cannot be sentimental. The proposition was received with unanimous approval. As a matter of fact, I understand that an abortive attempt has already been made in that direction--I should perhaps have explained that there is another member of our--er--coalition who was unfortunately unable to be present at our recent discussion. I expect him to arrive at any moment, as he is anx- I ious to make your acquaintance. He is a gentleman who has already done valuable independent work towards this--ah--consummation which we all desire."
The Saint's eyebrows dropped one slow an gentle quarter-inch over his steady eyes.
"Who is he?"
Farwill's mouth opened for another elaborate paragraph; but before he had voiced his preliminary "Ah" the headlights of a car swept across the drawn blinds, and the gravel scraped again outside the windows. Footsteps and voices sounded in the hall, and the library door opened to admit the form of the Honourable Leo's butler. "Lord Iveldown," he announced.