Free The Saint in Action by Leslie Charteris, Robert Hilbert;

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