"Okay, skipper," Peter said soberly, as the car swooped into Marsham Street. "But don't forget you're responsible to Hoppy's widows and my orphans."
Ever since the first few hectic moments of the ride they had been running with the cutout closed, and the dying of the engine was scarcely perceptible as Simon turned the switch.
After the last turn they had slid up practically in silence to their destination, which was one of a row of modern apartment buildings that had not long ago transformed the topography of that once sombre district. One or two other cars were parked within sight, but otherwise the street seemed quiet and lifeless. Simon glanced up at the crossword design of light and dark windows as he stepped out of the car and crossed the pavement, with some attention to the softness of his footsteps, for he knew well how sounds could echo to the upper windows of a silent street at that hour of the night. He said nothing to the others, for all the ground had been covered in advance in his instructions. He read off the apartment number from the indicator in the empty lobby, and an automatic elevator carried them up to the top floor. The Saint was as cool as chromium, as accurate and self-contained as a machine. He left the elevator doors open and waited until Peter and Hoppy had taken up their positions flattened against the wall on either side of the door; then he put his knuckle against the bell.
There was an interval of perhaps ten seconds, then the door opened.
It opened, according to the Saint's first diagnosis, straight on to an awkward-looking silenced revolver in the hand of the stocky ape-faced man who unfastened the latch.
"Come in," he said.
Blank astonishment, anger and incredulity chased themselves over the Saint's face — exactly as they were expected to chase themselves.
"What's the idea of this?" he demanded wrathfully. "And who the hell are you, anyway?"
"Come in," repeated the man coldly. "And put your hands up. And hurry up about it, before I give you something."
The Saint put his hands up and went in. But he went in with his shoulder blades sliding along the door, so that the other was momentarily cut off from it. Then the man had to turn his back to the doorway when he started to close the door, so as to keep Simon covered at the same time. And that was part of the clockwork of the Saint's preorganized plan. Simon gave the signal with a gentle cough; and over the man's shoulder appeared the intent face of Peter Quentin, soundlessly, with a stiff rubber blackjack raised. There was a subdued clunk, and the man's eyes went comically glassy.