“The same old dialogue,” sighed the Saint. “I wish I could remember how many times I’ve heard that line. Frankie, you kill me.”
“Maybe you’re not kidding,” Frankie sneered. “Sit down on the bed and keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
The Saint sat down, and Monica Varing stirred again uneasily. He felt very calm and quiet now. The inward exultation that danger could always ignite in him had steadied down and chilled. He had a cold estimate of all their chances, an equally cold watchfulness for his own first opening, an arrogant confidence that when the time came he could do more than any other human being could do.
“I just want you to know,” he said, “that if you’ve done anything to Monica Varing—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Templar,” said a new voice from the top of the stairs. “We may have to kill Miss Varing, but I would never allow that sort of thing.”
It was Mrs Laura Wingate.
Chapter fifteen
The Saint watched her come down the stairs, while his brain struggled dizzily to recover its balance. It was fantastic, preposterous. In a story, of course, he would have guessed it long ago, but he had been thinking strictly in realities. This was unreal, and yet he was seeing it with his own eyes.
She was still the same fantastic figure out of a Helen Hokinson drawing. She protruded fore and aft, a plump, apparently brainless woman whose thoughts should have dealt with nothing more dangerous than planning theatre parties or buying Renoirs she couldn’t appreciate. Her lower lip protruded a little; that was the only change.
She looked at the Saint, and he felt one small flicker of chill as their eyes met. The glaring light seemed to bleach all colour out of her eyes, and the ruthless ophidian coldness of the gaze in that powdered face was shocking.