06 Alias the Saint

He ended up exactly where he had started, for everything there was to say had been said at two o'clock that morning. His entry had been staged with a deliberate eye to its effect--it would have been practically impossible to pretend to be an entirely innocent tourist for long, in any case, even if the first man he met had not put into his head the old trick of posing as a detective. And if he had to introduce himself flatly as a detective, the obvious course was to do it with a splash, and the Saint was inclined to congratulate himself on having made a fairly useful splash, as splashes go. But there it ended. Having made his splash he could only sit tight and wait.

Simon Templar was prepared to back himself against all comers in a patient-waiting competition. That decided, he raked some magazines out of his bag and sat down to read.

At half-past seven he washed, brushed his hair carefully, and went down to dinner full of hope, But once again he was unrewarded by a glimpse of the mysterious Betty Tregarth.

He sat out the other three, but they rose and left the table at last, and the girl had not joined them. The Saint stopped Raxel as he passed on his way to the door.

"I hope you have not suffered a bereavement." he said solicitously.

Raxel seemed puzzled,

"Miss Tregarth," explained the Saint,

"You mean my secretary?" said Raxel. "No, she has not been with us today."

A flicker of hope fired up deep down inside Simon Templar.

"Unfortunately," volunteered Raxel smoothly, "she has been indisposed. Nothing serious--a severe cold, with a slight temperature--but in this weather I thought it advisable to keep her in bed."

Simon watched the three men go with mixed feelings. The Professor had been just a little too aggressively plausible. His manner had indicated quite clearly that whether Simon Templar chose to believe that Betty Tregarth was indisposed or not, his interest in her was not appreciated and would be discouraged.

Not that that worried the Saint. When he went up to bed that night he made a careful search of the more obvious hiding places in his room, and found what he had expected to find, tucked into the pocket of his pajama-coat. It was a rough plan of the upper part of the house, and each room was marked to indicate the occupant. One room was marked with a cross, and against this was a scrawled note:

Kept locked. R., M., and C. go in occasionally. T. is there nearly all day.

The Saint studied the plan until all its details were indelibly photographed on his brain, and then dropped it on the fire and watched it burn. Then he went to bed.

He woke up at four o'clock, got up, and dressed. He slipped his automatic into his hip pocket, took his torch in his hand, opened the door silently, and stole out into the corridor.

6

His first objective was the room which had been marked T on the plan. Trying the handle with elaborate precautions against noise, he found, as he had expected, that the door was locked. But the locks on the doors were old-fashioned and clumsy, as he had discovered by some preliminary experiments in his own room, and it only took him a moment to open the lock with a little instrument which he carried. He passed in, and closed the door softly behind him. The ray of his torch found the bed, and he stole across and roused the girl by shining the light close to her eyes. She stared, and the Saint switched out the light and clapped a hand swiftly over her mouth.

"Don't scream!" he whispered urgently in her ear. "It's only me--Smith."

She lay still, and Simon took his hand from her lips and switched on the torch again.

"Talk in a whisper," he breathed, and she nodded understandingly. "Listen--have you really been ill?"

She shook her head.

"No. They're keeping me here--I was caught coming back from your room last night. How did you get in?"

Simon gave her a glimpse of the skeleton key which he had spent part of the afternoon twisting out of a length of stout wire.

"Have you thought of getting away?" he asked. "I"ll smuggle you out now, if you care to try it."

"It's no good," she said.

Simon frowned.

"You're being kept here a prisoner, and you don't want to escape?" he demanded incredulously. ^ "I'm not a prisoner," she replied. "It's just that they found out I'd got enough humanity in me to risk something to save you. If you went away I'd be free again at once."

"And you'd rather stay here?"

"Where could I go?" she asked dully.

Instantly he was moved to pity. She seemed s absurdly young, like a child, lying there.

"Haven't you any--people?"

"None that I can go back to," she said pitifully, desperately. "You don't know how it is."

"I guess I do," said the Saint gently, even if he was wrong. "But maybe I could find you some friends who'd help you."

She smiled a little.

"It wouldn't help," she said. "It's nice of you, but I can't tell you why it's impossible. Go on with what you've got to do, if you're too reckless to get out while there's time. Don't think anything more about me, Mr. Smith."

"Simon."

"Simon."