"Have you tried this for insomnia?" asked the Saint conversationally, and brought up his right hand in a smashing uppercut.
The man's teeth clicked together; his knees gave; he buckled forward without a sound, and Simon let him fall. He went back to the entrance of the building.
"All clear," he said in a low voice. "Make it snappy."
He led the way back to the black sedan and picked up his sleeping patient. There was a board fence on the opposite side of the road, above which rose the naked girders of another new apartment building under construction. Simon applied scientific leverage, and the patient rose into the air and disappeared from view. There was a dull thud in the darkness beyond.
Simon crossed the road again. The loading of freight had been completed with professional briskness while he was away. Already Peter Quentin was at the wheel; and Hoppy Uniatz, sitting crookedly beside him in the other front seat, was covering the three men who were bundled together in the back. The engine whirred under the starter.
Simon looked in at the prisoners, and particularly at the staring cringing eyes of Bravache.
"It won't hurt much, Major," he said, "and you ought to be proud to be a martyr for the flag… On your way, boys."
He stood and watched the receding taillight of the car until it turned the corner at the end of the street; and then he strolled slowly back to the entrance of the building. He waited there less than five minutes before a dark Daimler limousine swept into the street and drew up in front of the door.
The Saint leaned in the open window beside the driver and kissed her.
"What's been happening?" asked Patricia.