“A little.”
“Well, what do you think?” asked Iantha Lamb.
Simon shrugged.
“I think you’ll never settle that argument with figures, anyhow. So X number of guys were killed at the battle of Waterloo and Y number of guys were killed at El Alamein. What formula do you use to figure who was braver?”
“In other words,” she insisted, “the only proof would be to test one against the other, like making a bullfighter go big-game hunting, or sending a big-game hunter into a bullfight.”
“I’d like to see any bullfighter take on a buffalo with his bare hands,” muttered Vail. “Or a rogue elephant. Or—”
“Or a man-eating shark,” Simon said. “Can both of them swim?... I’m not being facetious. There are different skills involved, as well as courage. A bullfighter might be a lousy shot. A big-game hunter probably wouldn’t even know how to hold a cape. If you want to match a bullfighter and a big-game hunter on equal terms — present company excepted, I hope — the only fair way would be in some field where they’re both amateurs.”
Iantha Lamb pouted.
“What would you suggest?”
It was then perhaps that the Saint felt his first truly premonitory chill. For an academic conversation, the point didn’t have to be pressed so hard. But he said lightly, “How about tiddly-winks? It’s easier to arrange than shark wrestling.”
She seemed petulantly disappointed, but Russell Vail grinned more widely as he emptied his glass.
“That’s a great idea,” he said. “But I’ve got a better one. Knives and forks and a juicy steak. Can we settle for that? I’m famished.”
While he and her husband competed amicably for the bar bill, Iantha held the Saint with a stare of dramatic malevolence which in spite of its obvious exaggeration Simon felt was not entirely in fun.
“You don’t get off so easily,” she muttered. “I’m still holding you to the bargain we made.”
“Any time,” said the Saint cheerfully.
“Where are you staying?”
“At Grosvenor House.”
“Our table is ready,” Usebio said, with rigid correctness.
And that should have been the end of it, except for an epilog that Simon might have read in the papers, for it was not the kind of situation that the Saint cared to meddle in. The sometimes fatal by-products of sharp-pointed triangles had crossed his path several times, but he did not seek them. Sometimes, however, they sought him.
He was finishing a rather late breakfast in his room the next morning when the telephone rang and a drowsy voice said, “Good morning. You see, I didn’t forget.”
“Maybe you’re dreaming,” he said. “You sound as if you were still asleep.”
“I wanted to try and catch you before you went out. Are you busy for lunch?”
As he hesitated for a second, she said, “Or are you backing out this morning? Last night you said any time.”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything so daring and dangerous as lunch,” he murmured.
She made a lazy little sound too deep to be a giggle.
“It still leaves the rest of the afternoon, doesn’t it? Shall we make it the Caprice — at one?”
Somewhat to his surprise, she was punctual, and she had a fresher and healthier air than he had half expected. It was true that she wore too much makeup for daylight, for his taste, but that was not conspicuous in itself in one of the favorite lunching-grounds of London’s show business. Even the Saint would have been less than human if he hadn’t enjoyed the knowledge that he was observed and envied by a fair majority of the males in the restaurant.
“Gossip can’t do me any harm,” he remarked, “but did you think about it when you chose this place?”
“What could be more discreet?” she asked coolly. “If I’d suggested some cozy little hideaway, and anyone happened to see us there, they’d have something to talk about. But everybody meets everybody here — on business. It’s so open that nobody wonders about anything.”
“I see that you’ve studied the subject,” he said respectfully. “And where is Elías?”
“Having lunch with a lawyer, in the sort of place lawyers go to.”
“What kind of lawyer?”
She gave a short brittle laugh.
“About making a will. Not what you’re thinking. Elías is a Catholic, of course. I’m not, but he’s as serious as they make ’em. He couldn’t ask for a divorce if I slept with his whole cuadrilla and broke a bottle over his head any time he came near me. When these Papists get married, they really mean till death do us part.”
Mario the presiding genius came to their table himself and said, “Did you ever try kid liver? It’s much more delicate than calf’s liver. I have a little, enough for two portions.”
“I couldn’t bear it,” said Iantha, emoting. “A poor little baby goat!... I’ll just have some vichyssoise and lamb chops.”
“My heart bleeds for that poor little lamb,” said the Saint. “I’ll try the kid liver.”
It was delicious, too, worthy of a place in any gourmet’s memory, but he knew that she hadn’t forced that meeting merely for gastronomic exploration.
“I suppose we’re all inconsistent,” he said, “but do you try to rationalize your choice of animals to be sentimental about?”
“Of course not. I just know how I feel.”
“I suppose lamb is a meat, a kind of food you see in markets and restaurants. You don’t associate it with a live animal. You’re not used to eating goat, so you visualize it alive, gambolling cutely when it’s young. But you don’t think of fighting bulls as beef, and I don’t expect you’re used to eating lions.”
“That’s different. Lions and fighting bulls can kill you. So a man can prove something when he kills one. You should be an analyst — you’ve found my complex. There’s something about danger and courage that gives me a terrific thrill.”
“You’d’ve loved it in ancient Rome, with the gladiators.”
“I might have.”
“And when they killed each other, it would’ve been even more thrilling.”
She bit her lip, but it was only a teasing play of little pearly incisors on a provocative frame of flesh.
“I’ve often wondered. I wish I could have seen it just once, for real, instead of in Cinemascope. I’ve always had this thing about brave men.”
“Don’t look at me. I’d like to be a coward, but I’m too scared.”
“You don’t have to make dialog. I can be honest. You fascinate me. You always have, ever since I first read about you.”
This was the moment of truth — to borrow a phrase from the clichés of tauromachy. The inevitable preliminary chit-chat had run its course, perhaps rather rapidly, in spite of the convenient restaurant punctuations for sampling and savoring. But now he was going to be cut off from the easier evasions. It was imminent in the velvet glow of her faintly Mongolian eyes.
He took a carefully copious sip of the rosé which he had ordered for their accompaniment — it was a Château Ste Roseline, delicately fruity, and an uncommon find in England, where the warm weather which fosters the appreciation of such summery wines is normally rarer yet.
“Tell me the worst,” he said.
“I’d like to have an affair with you.”
Simon Templar put down his glass with extreme caution.
“Does Russell Vail know about this?” he inquired.
“Yesterday I might have cared. Today I don’t.”
“But he kills lions. Even elephants.”
“But you’ve killed men, haven’t you?”
“Not for fun.”
“But you have. And you will again — if someone doesn’t do it to you first. That makes you bigger than either of them.”
“I’m glad you brought in that ‘either,’ ” said the Saint. “Let’s not forget your husband. Sometimes there’s another angle on the ‘till death do us part’ bit, especially among Latins. Sometimes the husband provides the necessary death — and it isn’t his own.”