The reply was unexceptionably polite. And just as incontestably it declined to be drawn into abstract argument. It slammed up one stark circumstance, and invited explanations that would convince a jury—nothing less.
Simon took a fresh cigarette from the packet on the table and slouched back in his pew, watching the two detectives like a hawk. There was not an atom of tension in his poise, not one visible quiver of a muscle to flash hints of danger to a suspicious man, and under the smooth, level brows bis eyelids drooped no more than thoughtfully against the smoke; but behind that droop the eyes were alive with frozen steel. His right arm was crooked lazily round the chair back, but the hand hung less than an inch from his gun pocket.
"It does seem odd," he drawled.
The keen gaze of the detective who had done all the talking searched his face.
"Were you travelling with Mr. Ingram?" he inquired.
"Yeah."
The Saint picked up his glass and turned the stem between his fingers. The hand that held it was rock-firm, and he returned the chief detective's direct stare without a tremor; and yet his heart was putting in perhaps two extra beats per minute above its normal rhythm. He knew to the millionth part of an inch how slender was the thread by which their getaway still hung. The crisis of their bluff was pelting into them with less than a handful of split seconds left to run—and he had known all the time that it was coming. It had been on its way from the first word with all the inevitablity of an inrushing tide. Simon had expected nothing else. He had won the only stakes it had been played for—the fifteen minutes' grace which had been given, the awakening of doubts in the detectives' minds, the vital cue to Monty and the two police officers sitting there quietly at the table.
"You came here from Siegertsbrun together?"
The eyes had never wavered from the scrutiny. Neither had Simon Templar's.
The Saint raised his glass.
"Cheerio," he said.
Almost mechanically the other groped around and took up his own drink. His colleague did the same. Both of them were looking at the Saint. He could see the ideas that were working simultaneously through their minds. They had recovered from the first stunning confusion of the bluff, and now in the reaction they were thinking on top gear—turning the defense over under the searchlights of habitual incredulity, probing remorselessly into its structure, reading behind it into the balance of probabilities.
And yet they drank. They ignored the customary clinking of glasses, and their perfunctory bows were so slight as to be almost imperceptible.
"Ihre Gesundheit!"
Simon put down his glass and drew thoughtfully on his cigarette. At that moment he could have laughed.
"No, brother," he said gently. "We missed Siegertsbrun. But we had a swell time in Innsbruck." He smiled sweetly at the startled bulging of the detectives' eyes, and on the tablecloth their empty glasses seemed to rise on tiptoe and cheer for him. "It's been lovely meeting you, and I hope this chat won't get you into trouble at headquarters."
The nearest man half rose from his chair, and the Saint stepped swiftly up and caught him as he went limp.
Simon wrung him affectionately by the hand. He slapped him on the back. He gripped him by the shoulders and bade him an exuberantly cordial farewell. And in so doing he settled the man carefully back into his chair, lumped him forward, propped his chin up on his hand, and left him huddled in a lifelike pose of contemplation.
"Be good, brother," said the Saint, "and remember me to auntie. Give my love to Rudolf"—out of the corner of his eye the Saint saw that Monty had arranged the other detective in a similar position—"and tell him I hope it chokes him. Tootle pip."
They walked quickly across the dining room and paused to glance backwards from the door. The two detectives at the far corner table, with their backs turned to the room, appeared like a couple of Bavarian Buddhas wrapped in immortal meditations.
Simon smiled again.
"Such is life," he whispered.
Then he moved out into the vestibule. As they emerged into the hall the Saint glanced casually about him, and in that same casual way his glance rested for a long moment on the back of a man who was leaning over the janitor's desk by the main doors. He was talking earnestly to the head porter, and a long jade cigarette holder was tilted up in the fingers of one sensitive white hand.
VII. HOW SIMON TEMPLAR BORROWED A CAR
AND AGREED TO BE SENSIBLE
SIMON'S long arm shot out and grabbed Monty by the shoulder, halting him in his stride and spinning him half round. The Saint's eyes were debonair.
"Steady, old scout," murmured the Saint blithely. "This is where you go home!"
Monty's brow crinkled. And the Saint laughed. The laugh was almost silent; and not one syllable of what he said could have been heard a yard away.
"Buzz up and collect Pat and all the luggage," said the Saint quietly. "Get down by the fire escape—you're good at that. And I'll see you at the station." He jerked a thin sheaf of reservations from his pocket and thrust them neatly into Monty's hand. "If you want to know why, you can peep back on your way up the stairs. You might even listen for a bit—but I shouldn't wait too long. The train goes in fifteen minutes. Happy landings!"
The same shoulder-hold sped Monty on; and the Saint circled slowly on his heel and continued his stroll across the floor.
Looking back from a flight of stairs that was partly screened by the iron grille of the elevator shaft, Monty had an angle view of him coming up behind the man who was still standing by the porter's desk. The Saint's hands were in his pockets, and his step was airy. He stopped just one pace from the desk, and his voice floated softly up across the hall.
"What ho!" said the Saint.
The man at the desk turned.
It was typical of his iron self-restraint that he placed the tip of the long cigarette holder between his teeth before he moved. He turned round without a trace of hurry or excitement, and his recognition of the Saint was the merest flutter of a pencilled eyebrow.
"My dear Mr. Templar!"
The Saint's hands sank deeper into his pockets.
"My dear Rudolf!" There was a suggestion of sardonic mimicry in the Saint's reply. "Are you staying here?"
The cigarette glowed evenly in its jade setting.
"I was looking for a friend," said the Crown Prince.
Simon gazed at him mockingly. He had hardly expected to renew his acquaintance with the prince quite so soon; and yet the conversation he had had with the detectives who now slept peacefully in the dining room had illuminated many mysteries. It had indicated, amongst other things, that Rudolf was a worker with a classic turn of speed in his own class—if the Saint had required any enlightenment on that subject. Certain facts had been mentioned in that conversation which could never have been known to the police without Rudolf's assistance. And Simon was wondering what new subtleties were being corkscrewed into the delicate tangle—what new stratagems were unwinding themselves behind the statuesque placidity of the smiling chevalier opposite him. But the Saint's face showed nothing.
"Have you any friends?" he asked guilelessly.
The prince laughed. He took Simon engagingly by the arm.
"There is a quiet corner over there where we can talk. It would be worth your while."
"D'you think so?" drawled the Saint.
He sauntered indulgently towards an alcove adorned with three glass-topped tables and a litter of old newspapers, and the prince stayed beside him. As they went, the Saint sidled an eye up the stairway and saw that Monty had disappeared. In the same glance, the hands of a clock hanging on one wall came into his field of view; and the position of them printed itself on his memory in a sector of remorseless warning. Two minutes had ticked by since he left the dining room, which gave him six minutes more at the outside before the effects of the dope which had splashed a lurid semicolon into the purplest passage of the official pursuit would be wearing off—even if no interfering waiter uncovered the deception before that. Six hazardous minutes in which to squeeze what he had to learn out of the brain of that man of polished marble, and to select his own riposte. . . . And then Simon felt the light hand of the prince stroking up inside his arm into his armpit and slipping back to his elbow just as lightly, and he knew that the possible hiding-places for jewels on his own person had been comprehensively investigated. Rudolf also had much to learn. It would be a cake-walk of a race with a whirlwind sprint at the finish, but the Saint could find nothing to complain about in that. He chuckled and sank into an armchair.