The silence that followed lasted longer than any of its predecessors. It was made up of enough diverse ingredients to fill a psychological catalogue, and their conflicting effects combined to produce a state of explosive inertia in which the dropping of a pin would have sounded like a steel girder decanting itself into a stack of cymbals.
The Saint's cigarette expired, and he pressed it quietly out on the mantelpiece. For a few moments at least he was the only man in the room who was immune to the atmosphere of the petrified earthquake which had invaded it, and he was clinging to his immunity as if it was the most precious possession he had — which in fact it was. Whether the hoary old bluff he had built up with such unblinking effrontery could be carried through to a flawless conclusion was another question; but he had done his best for it, and no man could have done more. And if he had achieved nothing else he had at least made the opposition stop and think. If he had left them to their immediate and natural impulses from the time when they found him there he would probably have been nothing but a name in history by this time: they might still plan to let him end the adventure in the same way, but now they would proceed with considerable caution. And the Saint knew that when the ungodly began to proceed with caution instead of simply leaning on the trigger and asking questions afterwards as common sense would dictate was when an honest man might begin to look for loopholes. If there was anything that Simon Templar needed then it was loopholes; and he was watching for them with a languid and untroubled smile on his lips and his muscles poised and tingling like a sprinter at the start of a race.
Perez spoke again after that momentous silence in a babble of rapid-fire Spanish.
"He means his friends at his apartment."
"How many of them are there?" asked Quintana in the same language.
"There is a girl and a manservant. Those are the only ones who live there — I made enquiries. No one else has been there today except Graham."
Quintana glanced at the Saint again; but the Saint, who understood every word as easily as if it had been spoken in English, frowned back at him with the worried expression of a man who is trying hard to understand and failing in the attempt.
"You are sure there is no mistake?" Quintana insisted.
"That would be impossible. I heard about Graham from Ingleston, and he is not the type of man who would be an associate of the Saint. I followed him to the Saint's apartment this morning, and Fernandez followed him back there when the Saint went in to Ingleston's. Fernandez and Nayder have been watching there ever since, pretending to repair telephone wires."
"But your telephone call—"
"That was Fernandez, to know how much longer he should stay there. Also he was suspicious because an old man muffled up so that he could not be recognized had been brought out of the next apartment, and Fernandez had been thinking about it and wondering if it was one of the Saint's gang. Now we know that it must have been the Saint himself."
"No one else has gone out the same way?"
"No."
Quintana gazed at the Saint thoughtfully, stroking the barrel of his automatic with his left hand.
"You will excuse us not speaking English, Mr Templar," he said at length. "Naturally it is easier for us to speak our own language. But I was just trying to find out how good your case was. Major Perez assures me that we are more or less in your hands."
The Saint, who knew that Major Perez had done no such thing, returned his gaze with a bland and gullible smile. "That was what I was trying to make you see, dear old bird," he said, but his pulses were beating a little faster.
"If you will come into the next room," said Quintana, "we had better see if we can settle this matter like gentlemen."
Urivetzky's brow blackened incredulously, and he made an abrupt movement.
"Fools I" he snarled. "Would you let this man—"
"Please," said Quintana, turning towards him. "Would you allow me to handle this affair in my own way? We are not criminals — we are supposed to be diplomats."
As he had turned the Saint could only see him in profile; but Simon knew as certainly as if he could have seen it that the side of his face which only Urivetzky could see moved in a significant wink. He knew it if from nothing else from the way Urivetzky's scowl smoothed out into inscrutability.
"Perhaps you are right," Urivetzky said presently with a shrug. "But these ways are not my ways."
"Sometimes they are necessary," said Quintana and turned to Perez. "You agree, Major?"
The Spanish Patriot, with his eyes still fixed on the Saint, brought his features into perfunctory and calculating repose.
"Of course."
Quintana bowed.
"Will you come this way, Mr Templar?"
Simon hitched himself off the mantelpiece and strolled across to the communicating door. Quintana moved aside to let him pass and immediately fell in behind him and followed him into the study. Urivetzky came after him, and Perez completed the procession and closed the door. It was rather like a special committee going into conference or an ark taking in its crew.
No one who watched the Saint dissolve into the most comfortable armchair would have imagined that there was a single shadow of anxiety in his mind. But behind that one and only shield which he had he was wondering with a cold prickle in his nerves where the next shot was coming from.
He knew that there was something coming. He had put over his own bluff, but even he couldn't convince himself that it had gone over quite so triumphantly. Except in storybooks things simply didn't happen that way. Men like Quintana and Urivetzky and Perez didn't crumple up and stop fighting directly they met an obstacle. And in the very way they had so suddenly seemed to crumple up there was enough to tell him that he would need every mental and physical gift that he had to keep ahead of them through the next couple of moves.
With nothing but an air of lazy good humour he stretched out his hand towards Perez.
"Could I have my cigarette case back now?" he drawled. "Or were you thinking of giving it to somebody for a birthday present?"
"By all means," said Quintana. "Give it back to him, Perez."
Simon took back the case and opened it with a certain feeling of relief which he kept strictly to himself. At least, with that in his hands, he had something on his side, little as it was.
"And now," he said through a veil of smoke, "what about this forty thousand quid?"
"That can be arranged fairly quickly."
Quintana had sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk. He leaned back in it, turning his gun between his hands as if he had ceased to regard it as a useful weapon; but Simon knew that he could bring it back to usefulness quicker than the distance between them could be covered.
"Mr Templar, you are a bold man. Let me point out that you are now inside the residence of the representative of the Spanish Nationalist party. If I shot you now and the fact was ever discovered I doubt whether anything very serious could ever happen to me."
"Except some of the things I was telling you about," murmured the Saint.
The other nodded.
"Yes, it would be very inconvenient. But it would not be fatal. I am only mentioning that to show my appreciation of your — nerve. And for some other reasons. Now the alternative to killing you is to pay you your price of forty thousand pounds. But we could not do that without satisfactory guarantees that your own side of the bargain would be kept."
"And what would they be?"
"Very simple. We have all heard of your reputation, and in your own way you are said to be a man of honour. I expect your associates are of the same type. Well, in diplomatic circles when such situations arise, as they sometimes do, it is customary to bind the agreement with a solemn written undertaking that it will be kept. I shall therefore have to require that undertaking not only from yourself but also from these other persons who you say are in your confidence. They will come here personally and sign it in my presence."
The Saint moved very little.
"When?"
"I should prefer it to be done tonight."
"And the money?"
"That will be yours as soon as the undertaking is signed." Quintana stopped playing with his gun at a moment which left its muzzle conveniently but inconspicuously turned in the Saint's direction. "I suggest that you should telephone them at once, since the time limit you left them was so short. You will say nothing to them except that you require them to come here at once. Provided that there are no — accidents, the whole thing can be settled within half an hour."
The Saint's deep breath took in a long drift of smoke. So that was the move. It was something to know, even if the knowledge made nothing any easier.
He said without a trace of perturbation: "How do I know that you've really got the cash to do your share?"
Quintana looked at him with the raised eyebrows of faintly contemptuous reproach, and then he got up from the desk and went to the safe and unlocked it. He came back with a heavy sheaf of bank notes bound together with an elastic band and threw it down on the blotter in front of him as he sat down again.
"There is the money. You can take it away with you as soon as the formalities are complete. And for your own sake it would be better to complete them quickly. That is a condition I cannot argue about. Either you will accept your price on my terms, or you will be shot before your friends communicate with Scotland Yard. In that case the trouble we shall be caused will be of no benefit to you. Choose for yourself."
He spread out his arms in a suave diplomatist's bow, gargled his tonsils and spat gracefully at the porcelain cuspidor beside the desk.
The Saint trimmed his cigarette end in an ash tray.
An immense calm had suddenly come over him, in strange contrast to the tension he had been under before. Now that his questions had been answered, everything had been smoothed out into a simplicity in which tension had no place. His bluff had gone over — up to a point. But Quintana's answer was complete and unarguable. Simon knew that it was a lie, that Quintana had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain, that he never meant to hand over the money in front of him, that to telephone the others to come over and sign fabulous undertakings would only be leading them into the same trap that he himself was in. But he also knew equally well that if he rejected the condition he would be shot without mercy — and that Quintana might get away with it. It was a trap that he was expected to walk into like the greenest of greenhorns; and yet to stand back and announce that he had heard better fairy tales at his nurse's knee would merely be making the preliminary arrangements for his own funeral service.
"You are lucky to get your price so easily," whined Urivetzky.
"The conditions are only reasonable," said Perez.
Simon looked from one to the other. They had grasped the trend of Quintana's strategy as quickly as he had himself, and they were hunched forward, taut with eagerness to see how he would respond. And the Saint knew that this was one occasion when his fluent tongue would take him no further — when the only response that would save his life would be the response they wanted. How long even that would save his life for was another matter, but the alternatives were instant and inexorable. They could be read like a book in the hollow-eyed intentness of Urivetzky's skull-life face and the savage vindictiveness of Perez's stare.
The Saint smiled.
"Why, yes," he agreed sappily. "That seems fair enough."
It was as if an actual physical pressure had been released from the room. The others drew back imperceptibly, and the air seemed to lighten, although the claws were still there.
Quintana opened a drawer of the desk and took out a telephone.
"This is a private line which cannot be traced," he said. "I am telling you that in case you should have any idea of going back on your bargain."
"Why should I?" Simon enquired guilelessly. "I want that money too much."
"I am only warning you. If in the course of this conversation you should say anything which might make us suspect that you were trying to evade our agreement you will be killed at once. If you have no intention of double-crossing us the warning can do you no harm."
He pushed the telephone across the desk, and Simon picked up the receiver.
Without a shadow of hesitation he dialled the private number of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.