"No, darling," he said. "For one thing, I'd rather surprise him. For another thing, if it really is Karl, and not just Karl on your mind, there may be a little horseplay when we meet. And lastly, I'd rather keep you out of sight as much as possible — for all purposes. In fact, I don't even want you to answer the telephone again. And if anyone does call except your father, tell Mrs. Cook to say you're still in Washington." He smiled at her confusion. "You forget that at this moment the Ungodly don't know where you are. And the longer that lasts, the longer it'll be before I have to worry about your health again."
He went out of the house, crossed the driveway, and moved off among the trees.
The laboratory was on the other side of the house and in the opposite direction from the way he set off; and he made a wide circle to approach it from the far side — the side from which no intruder would be expecting an interruption.
His feet made no sound on the grass, and he slipped through shrubbery and woodland with the phantom stealth of an Indian scout. He had an instinct for cover and terrain that was faultless and effortless: not once after he merged into the landscape was he exposed from any angle from which he could anticipate being watched for.
And under the cool efficiency of his movements he could feel a faint tingle along his veins that was his prescience of the disintegration of inaction and the promise of pursuit and fight. If Madeline Gray hadn't imagined what she saw, and there actually was an uninvited visitor out there, he would certainly be an interesting character to hold converse with — wherever he came from. And if the visitor really was a man with the dubious name and history of Karl Morgen, he might be the one missing quantity that Simon had just been idly complaining about. If, wildly and gorgeously beyond that, he crowned everything by proving to be one of the frustrated kidnapers of the night before — then indeed there would be moments of great joy in store. Anything so perfect as that seemed almost too much to expect; and yet, if even a fraction of those exquisite possibilities came true, it would still be more than enough to justify the tentative rapture that was stealing along the Saint's relaxed and tranquil nerves. He had always hated fighting in the dark, waiting to be shot at, the whole negative and passive rigamarole of puzzling and guessing and weighing of abstractions: if there was an end of that now, even for a little while, it would be a beautiful interlude…
Towards the end of his excursion, a tall cypress hedge offered perfect invisibility. He went along the edge, of a field of oat hay for a hundred yards, and squeezed through another gap in the hedge into the concealment of a clump of rhododendron bushes. The laboratory building was so close then that he could see the roof over the top of his shelter.
Working around to the limit of his cover, he was finally able to sight one of the windows through the thinning fringe of leaves.
He saw more than the window. He saw through it. And all the inside of him became blissfully quiet as he saw that at least a part of his prayers had been granted.
There was a man in the laboratory.
And more than that, it wasn't just any man.
Simon couldn't see any details clearly in the darker interior, but he was able to distinguish a rough triangle of solid color where the lower part of the man's face should have been. Perhaps that crude disguise even helped the identification, by repeating a remembered pattern. The man's silhouette was clear enough. He looked tall, and the outlines and carriage of his broad square shoulders were freshly etched on the Saint's memory.
It was one of the ambitious abductors of Washington.
"So after all," said the Saint reverently, to his immortal soul, "sanctity does have its rewards."
The man seemed to be searching, methodically and without haste, as if he felt reasonably confident that he was not likely to be disturbed.
Simon drew back, and circled the other way around the rhododendrons, towards the corner of the building. The cover grew very low towards the corner, but by going flat on his stomach he was able to come up against the next wall, which had no windows in it. A few strides took him to a second corner; then he had to travel on his toes and fingertips again, stretched low like a lizard, to pass well below the front windows. Then he was at the door.
As he was rising, he paused when his eye reached the level of the keyhole. He could see through the tiny hall, and framed directly beyond it the man stood at one of the work-benches, facing towards him and studying something in a test tube.
Simon waited.
Presently the man put down the test tube and moved away, passing out of sight into another part of the laboratory.
The Saint straightened up.
He took the gun out of his shoulder holster and thumbed off the safety catch with his right hand while his left turned the door handle and eased the door open. The hinges revolved without a creak. He crossed the hallway in three soundless steps, and stood just inside the laboratory.
"Hullo, Karl," he said softly.
3
The man whirled at his voice, and then stood rigidly as the Saint moved his automatic very slightly to draw attention to its place in the conference.
"Looking for something?" Simon inquired politely.
The man didn't answer. Above the fold of the handkerchief that crossed his nose, his eyes were cold and ugly. The Saint had no more doubt whatever about one part of his identification. He wouldn't forget those eyes. They were the kind that didn't like anybody, and wanted to show it. They were the kind of eyes that the Saint loved to be disliked by.
"Suppose you take the awning off your kisser," Simon suggested, "and let's really get acquainted.
The man finally spoke.
"Suppose I don't."
If there had been any doubt left, it would have ended then. That hoarse cavernous voice was recorded in the Saint's memory as accurately as the eyes.
"If you don't," Simon said definitely, "I'll just have to shoot it off. Like this."
The gun in his hand coughed once, a crisp bark of power that slammed the eardrums, and the bullet ruffled the cloth over one of the man's ears before it spanged into the wall behind him. The man ducked after the bullet had gone by, and felt the side of his head with an incredulous hand. His forehead was three shades paler.
"Please," said the Saint.
He was not particularly concerned about noise any more. The windows were closed, and they were far enough from the house to be alone even for shooting purposes.
The man put his hands up slowly and untied the handkerchief behind the back of his head, revealing the rest of his face. He had a short beak of a nose and a square bony chin, and the mouth between them was thin and bracketed with deep vertical wrinkles. And the Saint knew him that way, too.
He had been a silent member of Frank Imberline's entourage at the Shoreham the night before.
He certainly got around.
One of his hands was moving self-consciously towards his pocket with the crumpled handkerchief, and the Saint said gently: "No, brother. Just hold it. Because if you tried a fast draw I might have to kill you, and then we wouldn't be able to talk without a medium, and I'm fresh out of mediums."
The movement stopped; and Simon smiled again.
"That's better. Now will you turn around?" The man obeyed. "Now walk backwards towards me."
The man shuffled back, dragging his feet reluctantly. When he was still six feet away, the Saint took two noiseless strides to meet him. Without changing his grip on his gun, he brought up his right hand and smashed the butt down on the back of the man's head. The man's knees buckled, and he feel forward on to his hands. Simon trod hard on the small of his back and flattened him. Then he came down on him with his knees.