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was no evidence of anything, but it was addressed to Sir Hugo Renway and
signed by Manuel Enrique. Simon put it away in his pocket and went on with his
search. He opened a japanned deed box and found it crammed with banknotes and
bearer bonds: that was not evidence at all, but it was the sort of thing which
Simon Templar was always pleased to find, and he was just tipping it out when
he heard the rattle of the door handle behind him.
The Saint moved like a cat touched with a high-voltage wire. In what seemed
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like one connected movement, he scooped the bundle of currency and bonds into
his pocket, shoved the deed box back on its shelf, swung the door of the safe,
and leapt behind the nearest set of curtains; and then Renway came into the
room.
He walked straight across to the safe, fishing out the key from his waistcoat
pocket; but the door opened as soon as he touched the handle, and he froze
into an instant's dreadful immobility. Then he fell on his knees and dragged
out the empty deed box. . . .
Simon stepped quietly out from behind the curtains, so that he was between
Renway and the door.
"Don't cry, Mother Hubbard," he said.
IX
RENWAY got to his feet and looked down the barrel of the Saint's gun. His
face was pasty, but the lipless gash of a mouth was almost inhumanly steady.
"Oh, it's you," he whispered.
"It is I," said the Saint, with impeccable grammar. "Come here, Hugo I want
to see what you've got on you."
He plunged his left hand swiftly and dexterously into the other's inner
breast pocket and found the second thing he had been looking for. It was a
cheap pocket diary, and he knew without examining it that it was the one on
which his forged trade-marks had been drawn. Renway must have been insanely
confident of his immunity from suspicion to keep it on him.
"What ho," drawled Simon contentedly. "Stand back again, Hugo, while I see if
you've been compromising yourself."
He stepped back himself and barely had time
to feel the foot of the man behind him under his heel before a brawny arm
shot over his shoulder and grasped his gun wrist in a grip like a twisting
Clamp of iron. Simon started to turn, but in the next split second another
brawny arm whipped round his neck and pinned him.
The wrenching hand on his wrist forced him to drop his gun it had begun to
twist too long before he began resisting. Then he let himself go completely
limp, while his left hand felt for the knees of the man behind him. His arm
locked round them and he heaved himself backwards with a sudden jerk of his
thighs. They fell heavily together, and the grips on his wrist and neck were
broken. Simon squirmed over, put a knee in the man's stomach, and sprang up
and away; and then he saw that Renway had snatched up the automatic and was
covering him.
Simon Templar, who knew the difference between certain death and a sporting
chance, put up his hands quickly.
"Okay, boys," he said. "Now you think of a game."
Renway's forefinger weighed on the trigger.
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"You fool!" he said almost peevishly.
"Admitted," said the Saint. "Nobody ought to walk backwards without eyes in
the back of his Head."
Renway had also picked up the diary, which Simon had dropped in the struggle.
He put it back in his pocket.
The Saint's brain was turning over so fast that he could almost hear it hum.
He still had Enrique's letter and the bundle of cash. There was still no
reason for Renway to suspect him of anything more than ordinary stealing: his
taking of the diary was not necessarily suspicious. And Simon understood very
clearly that if Renway suspected him of anything more than ordinary stealing,
he could, barring outrageous luck, only leave March House in one position.
Which would be depressingly and irrevocably horizontal.
Even then, there might be no alternative attitude; but it was worth trying.
Simon had a stubborn desire to hang onto that incriminating letter as long as
possible. He took out the sheaf of bonds and banknotes and threw them on the
desk.
"There's the rest of it," he said cynically. "Shall we call it quits?"
Renway's squinting eyes wandered over him.
"Do you always expect to clear yourself so easily?" he asked, like a
schoolmaster.
"Not always," said the Saint. "But you can't very well hand me over to the
police this time, can you? I know too much about you."
In the next moment he knew he had made a mistake. Renway's convergent gaze
turned Petrowitz, who was massaging his stomach tenderly.
"He knows too much," Renway repeated.
"I suppose there's no chance of letting bygones be bygones and still letting
me fly that aeroplane?" Simon asked shrewdly.
The nervous twitch which he had seen before went over Renway's body, but the
thin mouth only tightened with it.
"None at all, Mr. Tombs."
"I was afraid so," said the Saint.
"Let me take him," Petrowitz broke in with his thick gruff voice. "I will tie
iron bars to his legs and fire him through one of the torpedo tubes. He will
not talk after that."
Renway considered the suggestion and shook his head.
"None of the others must know. Any doubt or fear in their minds may be
dangerous. He can go back into the cellar. Afterwards, he can take the same
journey as Enrique."
Probably for much the same offense, Simon thought grimly; but he smiled.
"That's very sweet of you, Hugo," he remarked; and the other looked at him.
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"I hope you will continue to be satisfied."
He might have been going to say more, but at that moment the telephone began
to ring. Renway sat down at the desk.
"Hullo. . . . Yes. . . . Yes, speaking." He drew a memorandum block towards
him and took up a pencil from a glass tray. With the gun close to his hand, he
jotted down letters and figures. "Yes. G-EZQX. At seven. . . . Yes. . . .
Thank you." He sat for a little while staring at the pad, as if memorizing his
note and rearranging his plans. Then he pressed the switch of a microphone
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