"Okay," he said in a resigned tone. "Come on up."
He put the telephone back in its cradle as gently as a mother laying down her first-born, and turned back to the girl with a smile.
"Go to your room again, Madeline," he said; and for the first time that evening the full gay carelessness of a Saintly lilt was alive and laughing in his voice. "Get your things packed. We're going to Connecticut tonight."
Her eyes were bewildered.
"But I have to see Mr. Imberline."
"I'll get you back here as soon as we've arranged a genuine appointment. But that won't be tomorrow. Meanwhile, I can't be in two places at once. And maybe your father needs looking after too." He grinned. "Don't bother about those private detectives. I'm sold — if you'll still buy me."
She laughed a little through uncertain lips.
"Are you very expensive?
"Not if you buy your Peter Dawson wholesale. Now run along. And the same password applies. I'll be after you as soon as I'm through with this."
He had her arm and he was taking her to the door.
"What was that telephone call?" she asked. "And how do you know you're going to be all right?"
"That's what I'm going to find out," he said. "I won't be any help to you hiding in a cellar. But I'm firmly convinced that I was not destined to die In Washington. Not this week, anyhow… I'll see you soon, darling."
She stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at him; and then, suddenly and very quickly, she kissed him.
Then she was gone.
Simon went into the bedroom, opened a suitcase, and took out an automatic already nested in a spring holster. He slipped his arms through the harness, shrugged it into comfort, and went back into the living room and put his coat on again. It seemed like a slightly melodramatic routine; but the only reason why Simon Templar had lived long enough to become a legend before he was also a name on a tombstone was that he had never been coy about taking slightly melodramatic precautions. And in the complex and sinful world where he had spent most of his life, there were no guarantees that when an alluring feminine voice invited itself in on the telephone there would be an alluring feminine person on the doorstep when the doorbell next rang.
He just had time to light another cigarette and freshen his drink before that potential crisis was with him.
He opened the door with his left hand and swung it wide, standing well aside as he did so. But it was only a girl who matched the telephone voice who came in.
He risked one arm to reach across the opening and draw the door shut behind her, and he quietly set the safety lock as he did so.
After that, without the slightest relaxing of his vigilance, and still with that steady pressure of ghostly bullets creeping over his flesh, he followed her into the living-room and surveyed her again in a little more detail. She was tall, and built with the kind of curvacious ripeness in which there is hardly a margin of a pound between perfection and excess. So far she was still within the precarious safety of that narrow margin, so that her figure was a startling excitement to observe. Her face was classically beautiful in a flawless peach-skinned way. She had natural blonde hair and rather light blue eyes that gave her expression a kind of passionate vagueness.
"All right, darling," said the Saint. "I'm in a hurry too, so we'll make it easy. Who sent you and what am I supposed to fall for?"
3
Her face was blank and innocent.
"I don't quite understand. I was just told to get an interview—"
"Let's save a lot of time," said the Saint patiently. "I know that you aren't from the AP, and probably your name isn't Brown either — but that's a minor detail. You can put on any act you like and talk from here to breakfast, but you'll never get anywhere. So let's start from here."
She regarded him quite calmly.
"You have very direct methods, haven't you?"
"Don't you think they cut the hell out of the overhead?"
She glanced placidly around the room, and observed the potable supplies on the side table. He was aware that she didn't miss the half-empty glass that Madeline Gray had left, either.
"I suppose you wouldn't like to offer me a drink."
Without answering, he poured a highball and handed it to her.
"And a cigarette?"
He gave her one and lighted it.
"Now," he remarked, "you've had plenty of time to work on your story, so it ought to be good."
She laughed.
"Since you're so clever — you ought to be able to tell me."
"Very likely I can." He lighted another cigarette for himself. "You are either an Axis agent, a private crook, or a mildly enterprising nitwit. You may have fancier names for it, but it comes to the same thing. Once upon a time I'd have laid odds on the third possibility, but just recently I've gotten a bit skeptical."
"You make it sound awfully interesting. So what am I here for — as an Axis agent or a private crook?"
"That's a little more difficult. But I can think of the possibilities. You either came here to eliminate me — with or without outside cooperation — or to get information of one kind or another. Of course, there are gentle angles on both of those bright ideas, as well as the rough and noisy ones. We could stay up all night playing permutations and combinations. I was just curious to know what your script was."
"And if I don't tell you?"
"We'll just have to play it out," he said tiredly. "Go on. Shoot. Give me the opening line."
She tilted her head back, showing teeth as regular as a necklace of pearls.
"I think you're beautiful," she said.
"Thank you."
"You talk just like I imagined you would."
"That must be a great relief."
"You sound wildly exciting."
"Good."
"But I'm afraid I'm going to be a great disappointment."
"Are you?"
"I'm afraid I'm only a mildly enterprising nitwit."
He went on looking at her dispassionately.
"I adore you," she said.
"I adore me too," he said. "Tell me about you."
She tasted her drink.
"My name's Andrea Quennel."
It went through him like a chemical reaction, a sudden congealing and enveloping stillness. In an almost unreal detachment he observed her left hand. It wore no rings. He crossed over to her, and calmly took the purse from her lap and opened it. He found a compact with her initials on it, and didn't search any further.
"Satisfied?" she asked.
"You must be Hobart Quennel's daughter," he said.
"That's right. We came in just as Mr. Devan was driving off after he'd dropped you. He told us about your little excitement this evening. He hadn't thought anything about your name, but being a romantic soul of course I had to wonder at once if it was you. So I inquired at the desk, and it was."
She looked very pleased with herself, and very comfortable.
"That still doesn't tell me why you had to see me this way," he said.
"I wanted to meet you. Because I've been crazy about you for years."
"Why did you try to pretend to be a reporter?"
She shrugged.
"You said it yourself, didn't you? I'm a mildly enterprising nitwit. So I don't want everyone to know what a nitwit I am. I suppose I could have made Mr. Devan call you up on some excuse and met you that way, but I try to let him think I'm halfway sane, because after all he does work for my father. And if I'd call you up and said I was dying to meet you I was sure you'd just send the house detective after me. So I thought I was being rather clever." Her face became quite empty and listless. "I guess I wasn't. I'm sorry."