“And I’ve got a century that says I’m telling you I can.”
“Call it a bet.”
Urselli drew out his automatic fumblingly, as though he had started to regret his rashness, and then he caught the Saint’s blue gaze resting on him in gentle mockery, and snapped back the jacket with vicious resolution. He aimed carefully, and his first shot kicked up a spurt of dust six inches to the left of the target. His second was three inches to the right. Urselli cursed under his breath, and the third shot fell short. Intuccio drew nearer, and stood behind them with folded arms.
At that range it was reasonably good shooting, but the Saint smiled, and covered the weapon with a cool hand before Urselli could fire again.
“I mean like this,” he said.
He took the gun and fired without appearing to aim, but the tin leaped like a grasshopper; the third shot caught it in the air and spun it against the side of the hill. Urselli stared at him while the echoes rattled and died, and the can rolled tinkling down toward them till an outcrop of stone checked it.
“By the way,” Simon said, recalling the other’s peculiarly localized pronunciation of jernt and erled, “I thought you came from Chicago.”
“Well?”
“You wouldn’t have noticed it,” Simon said kindly, “but your accent betrays you. You spent some time in the East, didn’t you — on your jewelry business?” He was casually slipping the empty magazine out of the automatic while he talked, and then he suddenly let out an exclamation of dismay and peered anxiously down into the well. A faint splash came up from far below. “It slipped right through my fingers,” he said, looking at Urselli blankly.
The other sprang up, swiftly tearing the now useless weapon out of Simon’s hands.