"Don't I still have to earn that?" said the Saint, with remarkable mildness.
When they got to the Mignon Grill at the Palace Hotel on the other side of the Kursaal ("I promised Dino last night I'd come in for his special Lobster Thermidor, before I had any idea what else I'd be doing tonight," Simon explained, "but anyhow we should have one more good meal before they put us on bread and water.") he told her how he was hoping to carry out the abduction; and once again she was completely impersonal and businesslike, listening with intense attention.
"I think it could work," she said at the end, nodding with preternatural gravity. "Unless. There is one thing you may not have thought of."
"There could be a dozen," he admitted. "Which one have you spotted?"
"Suppose they have already begun to brain-wash him — so that he does not trust us."
Simon frowned.
"Do you think they could?"
"You know how everyone in a Soviet trial always pleads guilty and begs to be punished? They have some horrible secret method… If they have done it to him, he might not even want to be rescued."
"That would make it a bit sticky," he said reflectively. "I wonder how you un-brain-wash somebody?"
"Only a psychologist would know. But first we must get him to one. If it is like that, you must not hesitate because of me. If you must knock him out, I promise not to become silly and hysterical."
"That'll help, anyway," said the Saint grimly.
The baby lobster were delicious, and he was blessed with the nerveless appetite to enjoy every bite. In fact, the prospect that lay ahead was a celestial seasoning that no chef could have concocted from all the herbs and spices in his pharmacopeia.
But the time came when anticipation could not be prolonged any more, and had to attain reality. They walked back to the Grand National, and he picked up a bag which he had left at the hall porter's desk when they went out. It was one of those handy zippered plastic bags with a shoulder strap which airlines emblazon with their insignia and distribute to overseas passengers to be stuffed with all those odds and ends which travellers never seem able to get into their ordinary luggage, and Simon had packed it with certain requisites for their expedition which would have been fatal to the elegant drape of his coat if he had tried to crowd all of them into various pockets. The boat was waiting at the marina, and in a transition that seemed to flow with the smoothness of a cinematic effect they were aboard and on their way into the dark expanse of the lake.
Simon followed the shore line to Viznau before he turned away to the right. From his bag he had produced a hiker's luminous compass, with the aid of which he was able to set a sufficiently accurate course to retrace the makeshift bearing he had taken that afternoon between his wrist watch and the sun. He opened the throttle, and the boat lifted gently and skimmed. Irma Jorovitch put on her cardigan and buttoned it, keeping down in the shelter of the windshield. They no longer talked, for it would only have been idle chatter.
The water was liquid glass, dimpling lazily to catch the reflection of a light or a star, except where the wake stretched behind like a trail of swift-melting snow. Above the blackness ahead, the twinkling façades of Bürgenstock high against the star-powdered sky were a landmark this time to be kept well towards the starboard beam. Halfway across, as best he could judge it, he broke the first law by switching off the running lights, but there were no other boats out there to threaten a collision. Then when the scattered lights on the shore ahead drew closer he slackened speed again to let the engine noise sink to a soothing purr that would have been scarcely audible from the shore, or at least vague enough to seem distant and un-alarming.
He thought he should have earned full marks for navigation. The three tall chimneys that he had to find rose black against the Milky Way as he came within perception range of curtained windows glowing dimly over the starboard bow, and he cruised softly on beyond them into the cove where he had paused on the afternoon reconnaissance.
This time, however, he let the boat drift all the way in to the shore where his cat's eyes could pick out a tiny promontory that was almost as good as a private pier. He jumped off as the bow touched, carrying the anchor, which he wedged down into a crevice to hold the boat snugly against the land.
Back in the boat, he stripped quickly down to the swimming trunks which he had worn under his clothes. From the airline bag he took a pair of wire-cutting pliers, and one of those bulky "pocket" knives equipped with a small tool-shop of gadgets besides the conventional blades, which he stuffed securely under the waistband of his trunks. Then came a flashlight, which he gave to Irma, and a small automatic pistol.
"Do you know how to use this, if you have to?" he asked.
"Yes. And I shall not be afraid to. I have done a lot of shooting — for sport."
"The safety catch is here."
He gave her the gun and guided her thumb to feel it.
She put it in her bag, and then he helped her ashore. "The road has to be over there," he said, "and it has to take you to the gates which you saw from your car. You can't possibly go wrong. And you remember what we worked out. Your car has broken down, and you want to use their phone to call a garage."
"How could I forget? And when they don't want to let me in, I shall go on talking and begging as long as I can."
"I'm sure you can keep them listening for a while, at any rate. Is your watch still the same as mine?" They put their wrists together and she turned on the flashlight for an instant. "Good. Just give me until exactly half-past before you go into action. Good luck!"
"Good luck," she said; and her arms went around him and her lips searched for his once more before he turned away.
The water that he waded into was cold enough to quench any wistful ardor that might have distracted his concentration from the task ahead. He swam very hard, to stimulate his circulation, until his system had struck a balance with the chill, out and around the western arm of the little bay; and then as he curved his course towards the house with the three chimneys he slackened his pace to reduce the churning sounds of motion, until by the time he was within earshot of anyone in the walled garden he was sliding through the water as silently as an otter.
By that time his eyes had accommodated to the darkness so thoroughly that he could see one of the dogs sniffing at a bush at one corner of the back porch, but he did not see any human sentinel. And presently the dog trotted off around the side of the house without becoming aware of his presence.
Simon touched the rope connecting two of the marker buoys enclosing the private beach, feeling around it with a touch like a feather, but he could detect no wire intertwined with it. If there were any alarm device connected with it, therefore, it was probably something mechanically attached to the ends which would be activated by any tug on the rope. The Saint took great care not to do this as he cut through it with the blade of his boy-scout knife. But hardly a hand's breadth below the surface of the water, making the passage too shallow to swim through, his delicately exploring fingers traced a barrier of stout wire netting supported by the buoys and stretched between their moorings, which would have rudely halted any small boat that tried to shoot in to the shore. He could feel that the wire was bare, apparently not electrified, but just in case it might also be attached to some warning trigger he touched it no less gingerly as he used his wire-cutters to snip out a section large enough to let him float through.
The luminous dial of his watch showed that he still had almost five minutes to spare from the time he had allowed himself. He waited patiently, close to the projecting side wall, until the first dog barked on the other side of the house.