“The owner of East Island Villas, Mr Timonaides, who very graciously donated the use of his. property for this group, would like to entertain the guests at his own home. He prefers small gatherings, so he plans to have three of you out each night. You happen to have been asked for tonight.” She looked at Jenny again. “Since there are not enough ladies to go around, there is not one invited every day.”
“I’m delighted to accept,” Simon said. “May I ask who else is going this time?”
“Your friend Mr Wyler and one of the Americans — Mr Halston.”
“Couldn’t you change it and let me go?” Jenny asked impulsively. “I’m sure Grey Wyler wouldn’t mind.”
“I am sorry, but once things are arranged, Mr Timonaides dislikes changes. I’m sure you’ll enjoy being with new people when your turn comes.”
“When does the car leave?” Simon asked with purposeful innocence.
There was always a possibility, he thought, that his real identity had not been confirmed, and the more unobservant and unconcerned he could seem, the better his chances of continuing the masquerade.
“You will go by boat,” Maria Corsina explained.
“Boat?”
“Mr. Timonaides lives on an island. The cruiser will leave at seven.”
“Fine. Thank you very much.”
He and Jenny started across the lawn, and Maria Corsina called after him.
“Oh, Mr Tombs, it might be good to wear a coat and tie. Mr Timonaides is a formal man.”
“He sounds interesting. I’m looking forward to meeting him.”
“I’m sure he’s looking forward to meeting you.”
When the Saint and Jenny entered the thick plantings around the villas she stopped and whispered to him.
“Simon, I think they know. It’s stupid to walk right into a trap.”
“Maybe it’s not a trap,” he said blandly. “Maybe they’re just impressed with Mr Tombs’ potential as a recruit. I’m sure Grey Wyler must have made that impression. Could be the first night’s guests of honor are the ones — or some of the ones — who answered ‘yes’ to that question about playing the Death Game for real.”
“But what if they do know?”
“If they do know, I can think of about a hundred ways they could arrange my demise without the trouble of hauling me out to Timonaides’ island. Or they could just think of some pretext to send me packing — like the suddenly discovered fact that uninvited substitutes are against the rules at Death Game conclaves.”
They walked toward Jenny’s cottage in the thickening darkness.
“But I can think of just as many reasons why they’d take you out there if they did plan to get rid of you,” Jenny said.
“Well don’t enumerate them, please. You’ll take the keen edge off my appetite. Besides, if it is a trap, it won’t be the first time some spider has invited me into his web expecting to eat me up, and ended up getting eaten himself.” They were at her door. Jenny sighed miserably... “I guess there’s nothing I can do, then.” Simon took her chin in the fingers of his right hand and kissed her softly on the lips.
“Just be a good girl,” he said, “and have a nice evening.”
“I won’t!” she said as he walked away. “And I won’t go to sleep until you’re back here safely.”
Although a night breeze was kicking the sea into a light chop by seven o’clock, the trip to the island was smooth and uneventful. The Negro captain set a course straight for the distant cluster of lights which were the only illumination in the darkness ahead, and his mate brought up a round of iced rum drinks from below. Simon and his fellow passengers settled into comfortable chairs on the after deck, and Halston said rather predictably, “This is the life, huh?”
“Sure is,” the Saint said, stretching his legs, swirling his drink in its glass, and taking a long swallow.
Wyler, also predictably, was silently contemptuous. He managed to look over the craft as if he would love to own it and at the same time hated it because it belonged to somebody else. Halston, looking thick-necked and uncomfortable in his suit and tie like an athlete dressed up to receive an award, was a more simple type. Almost everything impressed him and he was quick to admit it.
“Great drinks, too,” he said, blinking his small, close-set eyes. “Man, what I wouldn’t give to have an outfit like this.”
“Maybe you will someday,” the Saint said. “Maybe we all will.”
The comment was not made idly. Over the edge of his glass he watched the faces of his two companions and felt satisfied that their perceptible but suppressed reactions meant they had probably had individual heart-to-heart chats with Dr Edelhof about their futures. Just how much Edelhof would have told them was a matter of speculation, but he would have spoken to them more freely than he had to Simon because their identities would have been unquestionable and their past records on hand. But Edelhof also would have strongly cautioned each one — as he had Simon — not to tell anything to anybody. Halston looked inquiringly at the Saint and Wyler, licked his lips, and controlled his natural garrulousness with a big swallow of his drink.
A few minutes later the boat approached the island and circled to the eastern side, which, because of the proximity of smaller islands, undoubtedly offered the most shelter from rough seas. The inhabited island itself was more or less round, about a quarter of a mile in diameter, and seemed to be fenced and brightly lighted around its whole circumference.
The cruiser pulled slowly around a jetty and up to a dock protected by concrete supplements to a small natural indentation in the shore. A colored man who had been lounging outside the locked gate spoke into a metal box affixed to one of the light poles and then came to help dock the boat.
“Here dey come, gentlemens,” he said rather vaguely as the passengers stepped ashore.
A second later Simon saw that he was referring to a pair of electric golf carts which were being driven by Negroes down an asphalt-paved path to the other side of the gate. The watchman who had announced the arrival of the carts unlocked the gate and watched as the guests climbed on — Simon getting into one, Wyler and Halston sharing the other. Then the watchman locked the gate again, and the carts purred slowly in single file through a cultivated jungle even thicker and more fully developed than the recently planted one at East Island Villas.
After two minutes or so the path curved, revealing a large red brick house straight ahead. The carts maneuvered up to an open, flagstone terrace and stopped. Standing backlighted in the central doorway of the house was a man of moderate height and a silhouette which suggested a standoff between solid strength and corpulence.
“Gentlemen,” he said in a smooth low-pitched voice, stepping forward into the outdoor floodlights which made day of the area immediately surrounding the house. “Welcome to my home.”
The golf carts were driven quietly away around the building as Simon, Wyler, and Halston went to introduce themselves and shake hands with their host, who concluded the formalities with the simple statement. “And I, of course, am Timonaides.”
He spoke English with careful, almost overly precise pronunciation, explaining as he showed them into his huge living room that he spoke several languages but thought it best to make each evening’s entertainment monolingual if possible.
“You’ve got a point there,” Joe Halston said with hearty approval, taking in the room’s antique statuary, vases, and elegant furniture with the head-swivelling enthusiasm of a tourist just set loose on the Acropolis.
Simon was more interested for the moment in the appearance of Timonaides, whom he had seen only in photographs, usually in more glamorous company than a delegation of collegians. His face tended to heaviness, especially in the vicinity of his fleshy lips, but his dark eyes were alert and intelligent. Though he was at an age when most men have greying hair, the color was a healthy brown, and in spite of some thinning the oily waves were sufficient to give almost youthful coverage. Pink-cheeked, well-manicured, and wearing a dove-grey, perfectly tailored suit and blue silk tie, Kuros Timonaides exuded the aura of a wealthy man.