Simon, using his pocket torch, found only one thing surprising about his sleeping adversary: the man was scarcely a man. He could not have been much over twenty — thin, brown-haired, neatly dressed in turtle-neck sweater and slacks, with a kind of intelligence in the molding of his face which one would not expect to find in the countenance of any ordinary young back-alley bandit.
He was carrying a single weapon: a string necktie, one of whose ends was still wrapped around his left hand. With that, in traditional commando fashion, he had apparently intended to throttle the Saint — or to pretend to throttle him, if his use of the strangling cord was to conform with the mock attacks that had already taken place.
Out in the hall, from the vicinity of the base of the stairs, a door opened. This time there was no attempt at silence. The door not only opened quite noisily, but was kicked back against the wall, and the footsteps which followed were completely uninhibited.
The hall bulb was flicked on, flooding the larger room with light, but by that time the Saint had already flattened himself against the wall just inside the door. He was ready for almost anything except what happened.
A very pretty young blonde walked in, carrying a tray on which were arranged a tea pot, three cups, a pitcher of milk, and a bowl of sugar. On the young lady herself were arranged, with much greater effectiveness, a very tight little sweater, a very short little skirt, and a pair of fashionable white boots. As she entered and saw the prone figure on the floor just beginning to groan and stir, she stopped and said to him in the mildly exasperated tone of a housewife whose husband has just failed to bring the swatter down directly on the fly, “Oh, Grey, you didn’t get him!”
2
Simon, who had planned a startling and entirely physical greeting for the newcomer before he got a look at her, decided that even without her hands full of tea things she would have posed about as much threat to him as a gladiola bulb.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t drop it,” he said softly.
The girl gasped, turned quickly, but did not drop the tray, even when she saw Simon’s automatic aimed at her middle.
“Oh, Mr. Templar, you frightened me.”
“And that’s only the beginning. Why don’t you set that stuff on the table over there and put your hands very high over your head until I can check over your few available hiding places for knives, bombs, and mustard gas grenades.”
The girl giggled as she freed her hands of the tray and raised them over her head.
“But I’m not even playing,” she said.
“Neither am I,” said Simon. “I hope you’re not going to be mad at us.”
“That’s the chance you have to take when you ambush people,” the Saint replied. “Now I shall shoot both of you and be on my way.”
The girl’s ingenuous green eyes became a little rounder.
“Wouldn’t it be awful,” she said, “if you took this seriously and really did kill us?”
“Oh, I am going to kill you,” Simon said casually. “The only thing that’s stopping me is a question of etiquette. Does the old business about ladies going first apply when one’s performing an execution?”
The girl blinked, and her high spirits were visibly lowered. Her accomplice was sitting up on the floor now, rubbing his face with both hands in an apparent effort to restore the clarity of his eyesight.
“Grey,” the girl said tentatively. “Grey? I think he’s angry at us. Why must you always overdo things?”
The young man managed to focus his eyes on the Saint.
“I’m Grey Wyler,” he said, pushing strands of hair out of his face, “and this is Jenny Turner.”
Simon nodded, and the little imps of humor which had beat a temporary retreat reappeared in the clear blue of his eyes.
“It’s safe to say the pleasure is all yours,” he remarked. “But curiosity may move me to spare your lives if you’ll tell me what this is all about.”
“We’re psychology students,” Grey Wyler began.
“At the bottom of the class, no doubt,” said Simon.
Wyler did not seem to share any of the light-heartedness of his female companion. His whole manner reflected an inner tension, and there was an unrelieved seriousness in the tone of every word he spoke which made the Saint feel an instinctive distrust and antagonism. The humorlessness showed the kind of lack of perspective which so easily verges over into insanity — and certainly nothing which had happened during the evening so far gave him any assurance as to the mental stability of his playmates.
“This is what’s called the Death Game,” Wyler went on. “It’s a hunters and victims kind of thing. Nobody really gets hurt, of course, but...”
“May I put my hands down?” Jenny interrupted.
“First step over this way and let’s see what sort of armaments you’re packing,” Simon said.
Jenny obeyed, keeping her arms up while the Saint checked over her from neck to knees with a gentle but not-entirely discreet hand.
“Oh, Mr Templar,” she murmured. “It’s such a thrill meeting you in person.”
“Same to you, Zsa Zsa. You can put your hands down now.”
The girl laughed.
“How’d you know it was me?”
“It took some very high class reasoning — the first step of which is that your boyfriend’s voice is about an octave and a half too low for the job.”
Jenny looked at him admiringly.
“You’re funny, too,” she said, “and better looking in person than your pictures. Don’t you think he’s better looking than his pictures, Grey?”
Wyler made a noncommittal noise and got to his feet.
“How about pouring us some tea before it gets cold?” he said. “Mr Templar?”
“No, thank you. My nine lives have just about been used up tonight, and I can’t afford the chance of drawing a tea bag with a skull and crossbones on it.”
“Game’s over,” Jenny said, serving. “No more killing tonight. Sorry you have to stand up, but this place belongs to my Dad and he’s trying to sell it. At least the kitchen was still in working order.”
Simon allowed himself to be talked into taking a cup.
“Now,” he said, “what is this Death Game?”
“It’s a bit kinky, but terribly in,” said Jenny. “Grey gets slightly carried away — he does with everything — but most people take it as a joke. Milk?”
“Please.”
Grey Wyler took over the explanation.
“The players are divided into hunters and victims.”
“They doing it in universities all over the place,” Jenny interrupted.
Wyler looked at her with cold irritation.
“If you’ll let me tell it.”
Jenny shrugged and moved to stand nearer Simon, watching him with an intensity that bordered on worshipfulness.
“Sometimes the hunters and victims are paired by lot,” Wyler said. “In our department at the college here we use a computer. There’s an instructor, Bill Bast, who works the game in as part of the educational process. Dr Manders, our department head, encourages it too.”
Wyler had pronounced the words “educational process” with a subtle sarcastic sneer which the Saint soon realized was one of his most persistent mannerisms. It was the boy’s way of making it clear that in his vast superiority he could not risk being identified with or associated with anything on the common earthly plane. Someday, Simon thought, he would fit in very well as a professor.
“At any rate,” Wyler continued, “the hunters are told who their victims are, and the victims are told only that they are on somebody’s death list. Whose, of course, they don’t know. Then the hunter proceeds to try to ‘kill’ his assigned victim in the most ingenious way possible.”