"Of course there's sense in it!" cried the Saint. "There's more in the gang than one girl. We want the rest. We want them like I want the mug of beer you're going to fetch me in a minute. Why shouldn't we have 'em?"-- Dicky nodded slowly. "I knew you'd say that. But I felt you ought to know. ..."
Simon clapped him on the back. "You're a great lad," he said. "And now, what about that beer?" Beer was brought and tasted with a fitting reverence. The discussion was closed.
With the Saint, momentous things could be brought up, argued, and dismissed like that. With Roger Conway, perhaps, the argument would have been pursued all night-but that was only because Roger and the Saint loved arguing. Dicky was reserved. Rarely did he throw off his reserve and talk long and seriously. The Saint understood, and respected his reticence. Dicky understood also. By passing on so light-heartedly to a cry for beer, the Saint did not lose one iota of the effect of sympathy; rather, he showed that his sympathy was complete.
Dicky could have asked for nothing more; and when he put down his tankard and helped himself to a cigarette, the discussion might never have raised its head between them. "To resume," he said, "we leave on the twenty-ninth."
Simon glanced at the calendar on the wall. "Three days," he murmured. "And the cargo of billionaires?"
"Complete." Dicky grinned. "Saint, you've got to hand it to that girl. Seven of 'em-with their wives. Of course, she's spent a year dry-nursing them. Sir Esdras Levy-George Y. Ulrig-Matthew Sankin-" He named four others whose names could be conjured with in the world of high finance. "It's a peach of an idea."
"I can't think of anything like it," said the Saint. "Seven bloated perambulating gold-mines with diamond studs, and their wives loaded up with enough jewelry to sink a battleship. She gets them off on the rolling wave-knowing they'll have all their sparklers ready to make a show at the ports they touch-on a motor yacht manned by her own crew-"
"Chief Steward, J. Hilloran-"
"And the first thing the world'll know if it will be when the cargo is found marooned on the Barbary coast, and the Corsican Maid has sailed off into the blue with the whichnots. . . . Oh, boy! As a philosophic student, I call that the elephant's tonsils."
Dicky nodded. "The day after to-morrow," he said, "we leave by special train to join the yacht at Marseilles. You've got to say that girl does her jobs in style."
"How do you go?"
"As her secretary. But-how do you go?"
"I haven't quite made up my mind yet. Roger's taking a holiday-I guess he deserves it. Norman and Pat are still cruising the Mediterranean. I'll handle this one from the outside alone. I leave the inside to you-and that's the most important part."
"I mayn't be able to see you again before we leave."
"Then you'll have to take a chance. But I think I shall also be somewhere on the ocean. If you have to communicate, signal in Morse out of a porthole, with an electric torch, either at midnight or four in the morning. I'll be on the look-out at those times. If. . ."
They talked for two hours before Tremayne rose to go. He did so at last. "It's the first real job I've had," he said. "I'd like to make it a good one. Wish me luck, Saint!"
Simon held out his hand. "Sure-you'll pull it off, Dicky. All the best, son. And about that girl-"
"Yes, about that girl," said Dicky shortly. Then he grinned ruefully. "Good-night, old man."
He went, with a crisp handshake and a frantic smile. He went as he had come, by way of the fire escape at the back of the building, for the Saint's friends had caution thrust upon them in those days. The Saint watched him go in silence, and remembered that frantic smile after he had gone. Then he lighted another cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully, sitting on the table in the centre of the room.
Presently he went to bed. Dicky Tremayne did not go home to bed at once. He walked round to the side street where he had left his car, and drove to Park Lane.
The lights were still on in an upper window of the house outside which he stopped; and Tremayne entered without hesitation, despite the lateness of the hour, using his own key. The room in which he had seen the lights was on the first floor; it was used as a study and communicated with the Countess Anusia Marova's bedroom. Dicky knocked, and walked in "Hullo, Audrey," he said.
"Make yourself at home," she said, without looking up. She was in a rich blue silk kimono and brocade slippers, writing at a desk. The reading lamp at her elbow struck gold from her hair.
There was a cut-glass decanter on the side table, glasses, a siphon, an inlaid cigarette-box. Dicky helped himself to a drink and a cigarette, and sat down where he could see her. The enthusiastic compilers of the gossip columns in the daily and weekly press had called her the most beautiful hostess of the season. That in itself would have meant little, seeing that fashionable hostesses are always described as "beautiful"-like fashionable brides, bridesmaids and debutantes. What, therefore, can it mean to be the most beautiful of such a galaxy?
But in this case something like the truth might well have been told. Audrey Perowne had grave grey eyes and an enchanting mouth. Her skin was soft and fine without the help of beauty parlours. Her colour was her own. And she was tall, with the healthy grace of her kind; and you saw pearls when she smiled.
Dicky feasted his eyes. She wrote. She stopped writing. She read what she had written, placed the sheet in an envelope, and addressed it. Then she turned. "Well?"
"I just thought I'd drop in," said Dicky. "I saw the lights were on as I came past, so I knew you were up."
"Did you enjoy your golf?"
Golf was Dicky's alibi. From time to time he went out in the afternoon, saying that he was going to play a round at Sunningdale. Nearly always, he came back late, saying that he had stayed late playing cards at the club. Those were the times when he saw the Saint. Dicky said that he had enjoyed his golf.
"Give me a cigarette," she commanded. He obeyed. "And a match. . . . Thanks. . . . What's the matter with you, Dicky? I shouldn't have had to ask for that."
He brought her an ashtray and returned to his seat. "I'm hanged if I know," he said. "Too many late nights, I should think. I feel tired."
"Hilloran's only just left," she said, with deceptive inconsequence.
"Has he?"
She nodded. "I've taken back his key. In future, you'll be the only man who can stroll in here when and how he likes." Dicky shrugged, not knowing what to say. She added: "Would you like to live here?"
He was surprised. "Why? We leave in a couple of days. Even then, it hadn't occurred to me-"
"It's still occurring to Hilloran," she said, "even if we are leaving in a couple of days. But you live in a poky little flat in Bayswater, while there are a dozen rooms going to waste here. And it's never occurred to you to suggest moving in?"
"It never entered my head."
She smiled. "That's why I like you, Dicky," she said. "And it's why I let you keep your key. I'm glad you came to-night."
"Apart from your natural pleasure at seeing me again-why?"
The girl studied a slim ankle. "It's my turn to ask questions," she said. "And I ask you-why are you a crook, Dicky Tremayne?"
She looked up at him quickly as she spoke, and he met her eyes with an effort. The blow had fallen. He had seen it coming for months-the day when he would have to account for himself. And he had dreaded it, though he had his story perfectly prepared. Hilloran had tried to deliver the blow; but Hilloran, shrewd as he was, had been easy. The girl was not easy. She had never broached the subject before, and Dicky had begun to think that Hilloran's introduction had sufficiendy disposed of questions. He had begun to think that the girl was satisfied, without making inquiries of her own. And that delusion was now rudely shattered.
He made a vague gesture. "I thought you knew," he said. "A little trouble in the Guards, followed by the O.B.E. You know. Order of the Boot---Everywhere. I could either accept the licking, or fight back. I chose to fight back. On the whole, it's paid me."
"What's your name?" she asked suddenly.
He raised his eyebrows. "Dicky Tremayne."
"I meant-your real name."
"Dicky is real enough."
"And the other?"
"Need we go into that?"
She was still looking at him. Tremayne felt that the grim way in which he was returning her stare was becoming as open to suspicion as shiftiness would have been. He glanced away, but she called him back peremptorily. "Look at me-I want to see you."
Brown eyes met grey steadily for an intolerable minute. Dicky felt his pulse throbbing fester, but the thin straight line of smoke that went up from his cigarette never wavered. Then, to his amazement, she smiled.