Standing in the shadows outside the library windows, the Saint studied the scene within. The chairs where Peter and Hoppy and Brenda Marlow sat were ranged roughly at the three corners of a square; approximately at the fourth corner stood Borieff, leaning against the back of an armchair and watching them, with his gun in his hand and a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. Simon could easily have dropped him where he stood, but that was not what he wanted. He saw that Borieff's back was directly turned to the door through which they had first entered the library and spent a few seconds more printing estimated distances and angles on his memory. Then he returned silently along the path to the room he had just left.
Jopley, taped hand and foot exactly as the Saint had been a little while ago, glared up at him malevolently from the floor; and in another corner Lasser groaned and stirred uneasily as if he was rousing front a troubled sleep; but that was very near the limit of their power of self-expression. The Saint smiled encouragingly at Jopley as he went by.
"I don't mind if you yell, Algernon," he said kindly. "I should say that door was almost soundproof, but in any case it'd be quite good local colour."
The other seemed to consider whether he should accept the invitation, but while he was still making up his mind the Saint crossed the room to the door opposite the french windows and let himself out into the dark bare hall.
His fingers closed on the knob of the library door and turned it slowly without the faintest rattle. His only fear then was that the door itself might creak as it opened, but it swung back with ghostly smoothness as far as he needed to step into the room.
Peter Quentin saw him with an instant's delirious amazement and quickly averted his eyes. The girl saw him, and her face went white with the clutch of wild, half-unbelieving hope before she also looked away. She sat with her head bent and her eyes riveted on the toe of one shoe, her fingers locked together in intolerable suspense. The crudely assembled features of Mr Uniatz contracted in a sudden awful spasm that seemed to squeeze his eyes halfway out of their sockets: if he had been anyone else the observer would have said that he looked as if he had a stomach-ache, but on Mr Uniatz it only looked as if the normal frightfulness of his countenance had been lightly stirred by the ripple of a passing thought. And the Saint moved forward like a stalking leopard until he was so close behind Borieff that he could have bitten him in the neck.
The actual state of Borieff's neck removed the temptation to do this. Instead his right hand whipped around Borieff's gun wrist like a ring of steel, and he spoke into the man's ear.
"Boo," he said.
The man gasped and whirled round convulsively as if he had been touched with a live wire; but the Saint's grip on his wrist controlled the movement and kept the gun twisted harmlessly up towards the ceiling. At the same time Simon's left hand pushed the automatic he had taken from Lasser forward until it met Borieff's ribs.
"I should drop that little toy if I were you," he said. "Otherwise I might get nervous."
He increased the torque on Borieff's wrist to emphasize his point, and the man yelped and let go the gun. Simon kicked it towards the girl.
"Just keep him in order for a minute, will you?" he murmured. "If he does anything foolish mind you hit him in the stomach — it's more painful there."
As she picked up the gun he pushed Borieff away and took out his knife. With a few quick strokes he had Peter free, and then he turned to Hoppy.
Peter stood up, peeling off the remains of the adhesive tape.
"I'm getting discouraged," he said. "All these years we've been trying to get rid of you, and every time we think you're nicely settled you come back. Won't you ever learn when to die a hero's death and give somebody else a chance with the heroine?"
"I will when I find someone else who'd have a chance," Simon assured him generously.
He straightened up from releasing Mr Uniatz's ankles and held out the remains of the roll of plaster.
"Make a parcel of Comrade Borieff, will you, Hoppy?" he said. "We don't want him to get restive and hurt himself."
"Okay, boss," said Mr Uniatz willingly. "All I need is just one drink—"
"I'll have mine first," said Peter Quentin, swooping hastily on the bottle, "or else there mightn't be enough to go round."
Simon took the glass away from him as he filled it, and strolled over to the girl.
"Was that date in London very important?" he said. "Or will you come along with us and make it a party?"
She shook her head.
"I was only going for Lasser — I had to meet the Frenchman who supplies him and give him his money."
"My God," said the Saint. "I'd almost forgotten—"
He left her standing there and disappeared through the communicating door into the next room. In another moment he was back with the sealed envelope that Lasser had taken from her bag.
"Is this it?"
"Yes."
"I thought it was worth something the first time I saw it," said the Saint and slit it open with his thumbnail.
When he had counted the thick wad of bank notes that came out of it, his eyebrows were lifted and his eyes were laughing. He added it to the hundred pounds which he had recovered from Jopley and put it carefully away in his pocket.
"I can see we staged the showdown on the right evening," he said. "This will be some consolation to all of us when we divide it up." His eyes sobered on her again. "Lasser must have trusted you a good deal."
"I suppose he knew I was that sort of fool," she said bitterly.
"How did you get in with him?"
"I met him through some friends I used to go sailing with, and he seemed to be an awfully good egg. I'd known him for quite some time when he told me what he was doing and said that he needed some help. I' knew it was against the law, but I didn't feel as if I was a criminal. You know how it is — we've all smuggled small things through the customs when we've had the chance, and we don't feel as if we'd done anything wicked. I just thought it'd be great fun with a bit of danger to make it more exciting."
"I've wangled things through the customs myself," said the Saint. "But there's a difference between that and making a business of it."
"Oh, I know," she said helplessly, "I was a damn fool, that's all. But I didn't realize… I didn't have anything to do with the organization. I went out in the yacht once or twice, and another boat met us in the Channel, and we took things on board, and then we came back here and unloaded it and went away. I went to Paris and bought those dresses and things, but Lasser gave me the money, and he was to take half the profits. And I used to meet people and take them messages and things when he didn't want them to know who they were dealing with. I'd never been on one of the lorries before last night, but Lasser wanted two people to go for safety because of the lorries that had disappeared, and there was nobody else available. I know why now — because Lasser wanted Borieff to help him, and Pargo was being tortured."
"You didn't happen to think that Jopley and Borieff were retired churchwardens, did you?"
"No — I hated them. But Lasser said you had to employ anyone you could get for jobs like theirs, and I didn't think even they could go so far." She shrugged, and her eyes were dark with pain. "Well, it's my own fault. I suppose you'll be handing them over to the police, and you'd better take me with you. I shan't give you any trouble. Whatever happens, I'm glad you beat them."
He shook his head.
"I'm afraid it wouldn't be any good handing them over to the police," he said. "You see, the Law has such pettifogging rules about evidence."
"But—"
"Oh yes, you could convict them of smuggling, and get them about six months each. But that's all."
"Then—"
He smiled.
"Don't worry about it, darling," he said. "Just stay here for a minute, will you?"
He turned to Peter and Hoppy and indicated Borieff with a faint nod.
"Bring him in," he said and led the way into the next room.
Jopley was cursing and fighting against his bonds, and Lasser had recovered enough to be writhing too. Simon dragged them over to the fireplace and went back to tear down the heavy silk cords that drew the long window hangings. He roped the two men expertly together, and when Borieff arrived he added him to the collection. The other end of the rope he knotted to a bar of the iron grate that was set solidly in the brickwork.
Then he closed the door and looked at Peter and Hoppy, and the smile had gone altogether from his face.
"There's just one thing more which you didn't know," he said quietly. "Comrade Lasser told me about it in here. There's supposed to be a fire here tonight — the place is all prepared for it. And after we'd all been worked over like Pargo was — Borieff was the assistant in that, by the way — whatever else happened, however much we told, the idea was to leave us tied up here with a lighted candle burning down to the floor. We were to be got rid of anyway, and according to Lasser we had to be burnt alive so that it would look like an accident."
The Saint's eyes were as cold and passionless as the eyes of a recording angel.
"We are the only jury here," he said. "What is our justice?"
The Hirondel thundered down into the valley and soared up the slope on the other side. Somewhere near the first crest of the Purbeck Hills Simon stopped the car to take out a cigarette; and through the hushing of the engine his ears caught a familiar gurgling sound that made him look round.
In the back seat Mr Uniatz detached the bottle from his lips and beamed at him ingratiatingly.
"I find it in de cabinet where dey keep de liquor, boss," he explained. "So I t'ought it'd keep us warm on de way home."
"At least you won't freeze to death," said the Saint philosophically.
He turned the other way as he struck his lighter and gazed out into the darkness where the hills rose again at the edge of the sea. Somewhere in the black silhouette of them there was a dull red glow, pulsing and brightening, like a palely luminous cloud. The eyes of the girl beside him turned in the same direction.
"It looks like a fire," she said interestedly.
"So it does," said the Saint and drove on without another backward glance, eastwards, towards Lyndhurst.