"One of the things I envy about you," said Peter Quentin with a certain relish, "is that magnetic power which makes you irresistible to women. Even if they've just been knocked unconscious the moment they open their eyes and see what's found them—"
"It's a handicap, really," said the Saint good-humouredly. "Their instinct tells them that if they saw much of me they'd do something their mothers wouldn't like, so as often as not they tear themselves reluctantly away."
"I noticed she looked reluctant," said Peter. "She took your car, too — that must have been a wrench."
The Saint grinned philosophically and tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail. His spirits were too elastic to know the meaning of depression, and the setback had intriguing angles to it which he was broad minded enough to appreciate as an artist.
The lorry, with Peter at the wheel, churned on through West Holme onto the Wareham road; and Simon Templar lounged back on the hard seat beside him with his feet propped up where the dashboard would have been if the lorry had boasted any such refinements and considered the situation without malice. In the interior of the van, behind him, Hoppy Uniatz was keeping the original driver under control; and Simon hoped that he wouldn't do too much damage to the cargo. But even allowing for Mr Uniatz's phenomenal capacity, there was enough bottled kale there to save the night's work from being a total loss.
They were clattering through the sleeping streets of Ringwood before Peter Quentin said: "What are you going to do about the car?"
"Report it stolen sometime tomorrow. She'll have ditched it by then — it's too hot to hold on to."
"And suppose she reports the lorry first?"
Simon shook his head.
"She won't do that. It'd be too embarrassing if the police happened to catch us. We come out best on the deal, Peter. And on top of that, we've had a good look at her, and we'd know her again."
"It ought to be easy," said Peter cheerlessly. "After all, there are only about ten million girls in England, and if we divide the country up between us—"
"We shan't have to go that far. Look at it on the balance of probabilities. If she stays in this game and we stay in it, it's ten to one that our trails '11 cross again."
Peter thought for a moment.
"Now you come to mention it," he said, "the odds are bigger than that. If she's got any sense she'll find out who you are from the insurance certificate in the car. And then she'll be calling on you with a team of gunmen to ask for her lorry back."
"I had thought of that," said the Saint soberly. "And maybe that's the biggest advantage of all."
"It would save us the trouble of having to find someone to give it to," Peter agreed sympathetically.
But the Saint blew a cloud of smoke at the low roof of the tiny compartment and said dreamily: "Just look at it strategically, old lad. All the time we've known that there was some big nob or bunch of nobs organizing this racket — some guy or guys who keep themselves so exclusive that not even their own mob knows who's at the top. They're the boys we're after, for the simple reason that because they've got the brains to run the show in a way that the saps who do the dirty work, like our pal in the back here, haven't got the intelligence to run it, they've also got the brains to see that they get the fattest dividend. We've been messing about for some time, annoying them in small ways like this and trying to get a lead, and all the time we've been trying to keep ourselves under cover. Now I'm just beginning to wonder if that was the smartest game we could have played. In any case the game's been changed now whether we like it or not; and I don't know that I'm brokenhearted. Now we're on the range to be shot at, and while that's going on we may get a look at the shooters."
"Who'll still be just the saps who do the dirty work."
"I'm not so sure."
For once Peter restrained the flippant retort which came automatically to his mind. He knew as well as any man that the Saint had been proved big enough game to bring the shyest and most cautious hunters out of hiding. There was something about the almost fabulous stories which had been built up around the character of the Saint that tended to make otherwise careful leaders feel that he was a problem of which the solution could not be safely deputed to less talented underlings.
"All the same," he said, "we were getting along pretty well with Pargo."
"He was still only one of the rank and file — or maybe you might call him a sergeant. It was a bit of luck that we found him driving the first lorry we hijacked, with what I knew about his earlier career of crime;* and he had sense enough to see that it was safer for him to take his chance with us than have himself parked in a sack outside Scotland Yard; but I don't know that he could ever have got a line on the nobs… I made a date to meet him later tonight, by the way — when he rang me up about this lorryload he said he'd be driving down from town in the small hours and might have some more tips, so I thought we'd better get together."
*See The Misfortunes of Mr Teal.
"Tell him to give us a ring when we're going to be bumped off," said Peter. "I'd like to know about it, so I can pay my insurance premium."
The Saint looked at his watch.
"We've got an hour and a half to go before that," he said. "And we may get a squeal out of Hoppy's protege before then."
His earlier relaxation, in which he had been not so much recovering from a blow as waiting for the inspiration for a fresh attack, had vanished altogether. Peter Quentin could feel the atmosphere about him, more than through anything he said, in the gay surge of vitality that seemed to gather around him like an invisible aura, binding everyone within range in a spell of absurd magic which was beyond reason and was yet humanly impossible to resist; and once again Peter found himself surrendering blindly to that scapegrace wizardry.
"All right," he said ridiculously. "Let's squeeze the juice out of him and see what we get."
Near Stoney Cross they had swung off the main road into a narrow track that seemed to plunge into the cloistered depths of the New Forest as if it would drift away into the heart of an ancient and forgotten England where huntsmen in green jerkins might still leap up to draw their bows at a stag springing from covert; actually it was a meandering and unkempt road that wandered eventually into the busy highways that converged on Lyndhurst. Somewhere along this road Peter Quentin hauled the wheel round and sent them jolting along an even narrower and deeper-rutted track that looked like nothing but an enlarged footpath. They lurched round a couple of sharp turns, groaned up a forbidding incline and jarred to a sudden stop.
Peter switched out the lights, and the Saint put his feet down and stretched his cramped limbs.
"We all know about housemaid's knee," he remarked, "but did you ever hear about truckdriver's pelvis? That's what I've got. If I were a union man I should go on strike."
He opened the door and lowered himself tenderly to the ground, massaging the kinks out of his bones.
In front of him, a broad squat mass loomed blackly against the starlight — the Old Barn, which really had been a derelict thatched Tudor barn before Peter Quentin found it and transformed its interior into a cosy rural retreat with enough modern conveniences to compete with any West End apartment. It had the advantage of being far from any listening and peeping neighbours; and the Saint had found those assets adequate reason for borrowing it before. In that secluded bivouac things could be done and noises could be made which would set a whole suburb chattering if they happened in it…
There was an inexorable assurance of those facts implicit in the resilience of the Saint's stride as he rambled towards the rear of the van. And as he approached it, in the silence which had followed the shutting off of the scrangling engine, he heard a hoarse voice raised in wailing melody.
"If I had de wings of a nangel,
From dese prison walls I would fly,
I would fly to de arms of my darling,
An' dere I'd be willing to die…"
Simon unfastened the doors while the discordant dirge continued to reverberate from the interior.
"/ wish I had someone to lurve me,
Somebody to call me her own, I wish—"
The Saint's torch splashed its beam into the van, framing the tableau in its circle of brilliance.
Mr Uniatz sat on a pile of cases, leaning back with his legs dangling and looking rather like a great ape on a jungle bough. In his left hand he held his Betsy, and the flashlight gripped between his knees was focused steadily on the lorry driver, who stood scowling on the opposite side of the van. One of the cases was open, and a couple of bottles rolled hollowly on the floor. A third bottle was clutched firmly in Mr Uniatz's hand, and he appeared to have been using it to beat time.
His face expanded in a smile as he screwed up his eyes against the light.
"Hi, boss," he said winningly.
"Come on out," said the Saint. "Both of you."
The lorry driver shuffled out first, and as he descended Simon caught him deftly by the wrist, twisted his arm up behind his back and waited a moment for Peter to take over the hold.
He turned round as Hoppy Uniatz lowered himself clumsily to the ground.
"How much have you soaked up?" he enquired patiently.
"I just had two-t'ree sips, boss, I t'ought I'd make sure de booze was jake. Say, dijja know I could yodel? I just loin de trick comin' along here—"
The Saint turned to Peter with a shrug.
"I'm sorry, old son," he said. "It looks as if you'll have to take the truck on, after all. I've never seen Hoppy break down yet, but all the same it might be awkward if he met a policeman."
"Couldn't that wait till tomorrow?"
"I'd rather not risk it. The sooner the truck's cleared and out of the way, the better."
"Okay, chief."
"Hoppy," said the Saint restrainedly, "stop that god-awful noise and take your boy friend inside."
Peter handed over the prisoner, and they walked back towards the front of the van. A last plaintive layee-O, like the sob of a lovesick cat, squealed through the stilly night before Peter climbed back into the driving seat and restarted the engine. Simon helped him to turn the truck round, and then Peter leaned out of the window.
"What happens next?"
"I'll call you in the morning when I know something," Simon answered. "Happy landings!"
He watched the lorry start on its clattering descent of the hill, and then he turned and went towards the house. In the bright spacious living room the lorry driver was lolling in a chair under Hoppy's watchful eye. Simon went straight up to him.
"Get up," he said. "I haven't told you to make yourself at home yet. You're here to answer some questions."