And then he screwed the cigarette into an ash tray and stood up.
"I think I should like to use your car," he said.
He drifted towards the street doors with his quick, swinging stride, and the prince went beside him. As they stepped out into the blazing sunshine of the Bayerstrasse the Saint's hardened vigilance scanned the street, left and right, expertly dissecting the appearance of every loiterer within sight. He eliminated them all. There was a man selling newspapers, another sweeping the street, a one-armed beggar with a tray of toys, a weedy specimen idling in front of a shop window—no one who could by any stretch of imagination be invested with the aura of bull-necked innocence which to the initiated observer fizzles like a mantle of damp squibs around the elaborately plain-clothed man in every civilized corner of the globe. It was just a little more than the Saint had seriously hoped for: it showed that the full measure of his iniquity had not yet been fully revealed to the phlegmatic myrmidons of the German police, and in any other circumstances he would have felt that the fact paid him no compliments. He had been ready for further opposition—squads of it—and his right hand had never left the gun in his pocket. The risk had to be taken.
"You are very wise," said the prince suavely.
Simon nodded curtly, without turning his head.
His eyes swept the car that was drawn up by the curb with its engine pulsing almost inaudibly—an open, cream-coloured Rolls, upholstered in crimson leather, with the Crown Prince's coat of arms displayed prominently on the coach work. A liveried chauffeur held the door open—Simon recognized him as the man who had done his best to strangle him in the dark hours of that morning, and favoured him with a ray of that slight, sweet smile.
"Let me drive," said the Saint.
He twitched the door from the man's hand and slammed it shut. In one more smooth movement he whipped open another door and dropped into the driving seat.
As he flicked the lever into gear, the man's hand clutched his shoulder. For an instant Simon let go the steering wheel. With the faintest widening of that Saintly smile, the Saint's steely fingers bracketed themselves lovingly round the man's prominent nose and flung him squealing back into the prince's arms. A second later the car was skimming down the street under the flanks of the most startled tram in Munich.
2
The journey which Monty Hayward made from the hotel to the station was one which he ranked ever afterwards as an entirely typical incident in the system of unpleasantness which had enmeshed him in its toils.
It would have made his scalp crawl uneasily even if nothing had happened to disturb his breakfast; but now the certain knowledge that his description had been circulated far and wide, and that it was graphic enough for him to have been identified from it three times already, made any excursion into the great outdoors seem tantamount to a lingering mortification of the flesh. He was certain to be hanged anyway, he felt, and it seemed painfully unnecessary to have to keep pushing his head into a series of experimental nooses just to get the feel of the operation.
Patricia laughed at him quietly. She produced one of the Saint's razors.
"You'll look quite different without your moustache," she said, "and horn-rimmed glasses are a wonderful disguise."
Monty scraped off his manhood resignedly. He went out into the brightness of the afternoon with many of the sensations of a man who dreams that he is rushing through a crowded street with no trousers on. Every eye seemed to ferret out his guilt and glare ominously after him; every voice that rang out a semitone above normal pitch seemed like a yell of denunciation. His shirt clung to him damply.
If there were no detectives posted anywhere along the short route they had to take, there were two at the platform barrier. They stood beside the ticket inspector and made no attempt to conceal themselves. Monty surrendered the suitcases he carried into the keeping of a persistent porter and looked hopelessly at the girl. With their hands free, they might stand a chance if they cut and run. . . . But the girl was stone blind to his mute entreaty. She dumped her bag on the porter's barrow and strode on. A touch of black on her eyebrows, and an adroit use of lipstick, had created a complete new character. She walked right up to the ticket inspector and the two detectives, and stood in front of them with one arm akimbo and her legs astraddle, brazening them through tortoise-shell spectacles larger even than Monty's.
"Say, you, does this train go to Heidelberg?"
"In Mainz umsteigen."
"Whaddas that mean, Hiram?"
Her accent would have carved petrified marrow-bones. It was actually one of the detectives who volunteered to interpret.
"In Mainz—exchange trains."
"Bitte, die Fahrkarten," said the inspector stolidly.
Monty swallowed, and delved in his pocket for the reservations.
They were passed through without a question. Monty could hardly believe that it had been so simple. He stood by and watched the amused porter stowing their bags away in the compartment, tipped him extravagantly, and subsided weakly into a corner. He mopped his perspiring forehead and looked at Patricia with the vague embryo of a grin.
"Do you mean to tell me this is a sample of your everyday life?" he asked.
"Oh, no," said the girl carelessly. "Somtimes it's very dull. You just happen to have dropped into one of the high spots."
"It must be an acquired taste."
Patricia laughed, and passed him her cigarette case.
"You're having the time of your life, really, if you'd only admit it. It's a shame about you, Monty—you're wasted in an office. Simon would give you a partnership for the asking. Why don't you stay in with us?"
"I think I am staying in with you," said Monty. "We shall probably go on staying together—in the same clink. Still, I'm always ready to listen to any proposals you have to make." He struck a match and held it out for her. "Are you included in the goodwill of the business?"
She smiled.
"I might let you hold my hand sometimes."
"And I suppose as a special treat I could kiss your toes when I'd murdered someone you didn't approve of."
"Maybe you might even do that."
"Well," said Monty definitely, "I don't think that's nearly good enough. You'll have to think of something much more substantial if you want me to be tempted."
The girl's blue eyes bantered him.
"Aren't you a bit mercenary?"
"No. It's the Saint's fault for leaving us alone together so often. I assure you, Patricia, I'm not to be trusted for a minute."
"We'll ask Simon about it," said the girl wickedly, and stood up.
She went over to the window and glanced up and down the platform. Her watch showed less than a minute to the time they were scheduled to start: already the crowd was melting into its compartments, doors were being slammed, and the late arrivals were scurrying about to find their seats. . . . Behind her, a benevolent old clergyman with a pink face and white side-whiskers stopped in the doorway and peered round benignly: Monty leered at him hideously, and he departed. . . . An official came in and checked their tickets without paying them the least attention. . . .
Patricia was tapping one sensibly rounded brogue on the low heel of the other. She turned and spoke over her shoulder:
"Any idea what can have kept him?"
"I could think of several," said Monty, with a callousness which scarcely attempted to ring true. "The silly mutt ought to have got away with us instead of hanging around talking to Rudolf. Personally I'd rather sit down and talk to a rattlesnake."
"He had to find out what game Rudolf was playing," said the girl shortly; and at that moment a shadow fell across them and they both turned round.
Simon Templar stood before them—the Saint himself, with one long arm reaching to the luggage rack and his feet braced against the preliminary jolting of the train, gazing down at them with a wide, reckless grin. Even so it was a second or two before they recognized him. A white straw hat was tilted onto the back of his head, and a monocle in his right eye completed the amazing work of wiping every fragment of character from his face and reducing the features to amiable vacuity. A large carnation burgeoned in his buttonhole, and his tie was pulled into a tight knot and sprung foppishly forward from his neck. Patricia had actually seen him at the far end of the platform and dismissed him without further thought