“Listen.”
The faint scratching of metal was barely audible.
Hoppy nodded, one hand scratching for the gun under his pillow, his anticipatory grin almost as luminous as the moonlight that poured into the window.
“De zombies!” he hissed in a resounding whisper that brought Simon’s hand back upon his mouth again.
“Quiet!” the Saint breathed savagely.
There was a brief silence, and it seemed for a moment as if the man working on the door had indeed heard him. Then it came again — a scrape of metal — and suddenly the metallic click of tumblers falling into alignment, and the snick of an opening bolt.
“He’s coming in,” Simon whispered in Hoppy’s ear. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll brain you with this gun butt.”
He took his hand off Hoppy’s mouth and moved with the effortless ease of a cat through the living-room. He could hear the creak of the bed as Hoppy got out and padded after him. They paused by the archway to the entrance hall, staring into the almost darkness, intent on the pale rectangle of the front door.
As they waited there, the Saint couldn’t help feeling that somehow, despite his conviction that this visit rose from his recent conflict with Spangler, it didn’t quite add up. For he thought he knew Spangler’s character pretty thoroughly, and so primitive a motive as simple revenge simply didn’t agree with his knowledge of the man. Revenge for revenge’s sake was a luxury too expensive — and dangerous — to be compatible with Doc Spangler’s conservative nature. The worthy doctor might have better reason later on, but so far the Saint couldn’t imagine him going to so much trouble merely to assuage a sore belly.
There was another moment of silence... Then, without hearing it, but almost as if he sensed a momentary and fractional change in the air pressure, the Saint knew that the front door was starting to open.