share?”
Quintana looked at him with the raised eyebrows of faintly contemptuous reproach, and then he got up from the desk and went to the safe and unlocked it. He came back with a heavy sheaf of bank notes bound together with an elastic band and threw it down on the blotter in front of him as he sat down again.
“There is the money. You can take it away with you as soon as the formalities are complete. And for your own sake it would be better to complete them quickly. That is a condition I cannot argue about. Either you will accept your price on my terms, or you will be shot before your friends communicate with Scotland Yard. In that case the trouble we shall be caused will be of no benefit to you. Choose for yourself.”
He spread out his arms in a suave diplomatist’s bow, gargled his tonsils and spat gracefully at the porcelain cuspidor beside the desk.
The Saint trimmed his cigarette end in an ash tray.
An immense calm had suddenly come over him, in strange contrast to the tension he had been under before. Now that his questions had been answered, everything had been smoothed out into a simplicity in which tension had no place. His bluff had gone over—up to a point. But Quintana’s answer was complete and unarguable. Simon knew that it was a lie, that Quintana had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain, that he never meant to hand over the money in front of him, that to telephone the others to come over and sign fabulous undertakings would only be leading them into the same trap that he himself was in. But he also knew equally well that if he rejected the condition he would be shot without mercy—and that Quintana might get away with it. It was a trap that he was expected to walk into like the greenest of greenhorns; and yet to stand back and announce that he had heard better fairy tales at his nurse’s knee would merely be making the preliminary arrangements for his own funeral service.
“You are lucky to get your price so easily,” whined Urivetzky.
“The conditions are only reasonable,” said Perez.
Simon looked from one to the other. They had grasped the trend of Quintana’s strategy as quickly as he had himself, and they were hunched forward, taut with eagerness to see how he would respond. And the Saint knew that this was one occasion when his fluent tongue would take him no further—when the only response that would save his life would be the response they wanted. How long even that would save his life for was another matter, but the alternatives were instant and inexorable. They could be read like a book in the hollow-eyed intentness of Urivetzky’s skull-life face and the savage vindictiveness of Perez’s stare.
The Saint smiled.
“Why, yes,” he agreed sappily. “That seems fair enough.”
It was as if an actual physical pressure had been released from the room. The others drew back imperceptibly, and the air seemed to lighten, although the claws were still there.
Quintana opened a drawer of the desk and took out a telephone.
“This is a private line which cannot be traced,” he said. “I am telling you that in case you should have any idea of going back on your bargain.”
“Why should I?” Simon enquired guilelessly. “I want that money too much.”
“I am only warning you. If in the course of this conversation you should say anything which might make us suspect that you were trying to evade our agreement you will be killed at once. If you have no intention of double-crossing us the warning can do you no harm.”
He pushed the telephone across the desk, and Simon picked up the receiver.
Without a shadow of hesitation he dialled the private number of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.
IX
The only thing left was to pray that Teal would be there. Simon glanced at his watch while he waited for the connection. Mr Teal was not a man who had many diversions outside his job, and at that hour he should have been peacefully installed beside his hearth, chewing