“Everything that’s been said about you is true. There’s nobody like you. That’s so much better than Andy Faulks did there’s no comparison. Say, that really would have been something, and look, it’d have explained why she couldn’t remember who she was. Saint, I got to hand it to you. Too bad you’re not in bed in Glendale.”
For once of a very few times in his life, the Saint was taken aback. The words were spoken with such ease, such sincerity, that Simon’s deadly purpose cooled to a feeling of confusion. While it is true that a man who is accustomed to danger, to gambling for high stakes with death as a forfeit, could simulate feelings he did not actually feel, it is seldom that a man of Big Bill Holbrook’s obvious IQ can look annihilation in the face with an admiring grin.
Something was still wrong, but wrong in the same way that everything in the whole episode was wrong — wrong with that same unearthly off-key distortion that defeated logical diagnosis.
The Saint took out a cigarette and lighted it slowly, and over the hiss of the match he heard other sounds which resolved themselves into a blur of footsteps.
Simon glanced at his watch. Jimmy and Mac had been gone less than half an hour. It was impossible for them to be returning from the village four miles away.
What had Holbrook said? Something about everything happening faster in dreams? But that was in the same vein of nonsense. Maybe they’d met the boss at the foot of the hill.
Holbrook said, “What is it? Did you hear something?”
“Only your friends again.”
Fear came once more to Holbrook and Dawn Winter. Their eyes were wide and dark with it, turning instantly toward the bunk beds.
“No,” Simon said. “Not this time. We’ll have this out in the open.”