The Saint felt a jar, and a flame roared inside his chest. Somehow, he couldn’t pull the trigger any more. The gun fell from his limp fingers. His incredulous eyes looked full in the mirror and saw a neat black hole over his heart, saw it begin to spread as his life’s blood gushed out.
It was strange to realize that this was it, and it had happened to him at last, as it had always been destined to happen someday, and in an instant he was going to cheat to the back of the book for the answer to the greatest mystery of all. Yet his last conscious thought was that his image was sharp and clear in the mirror. When he had seen Dawn’s reflection, it had been like one seen in an agitated pool...
When he opened his eyes again it was broad daylight, and the intensity of the light told him that it must have been more than twelve hours since he had been shot.
He was lying on the floor of the cabin. He felt for his heart. It was beating strongly. His hand did not come away sticky with blood.
His eyes turned hesitantly down to his shirt. There was no hole in it. He jumped to his feet, felt himself all over, examined himself in the mirror. He was as whole as he’d ever been, and he felt fine.
He looked around the cabin. The mattresses were piled in the corner under the pine cones, the bunks unmade. Otherwise there were no signs of the brawl the night before. No trace of Jimmy and Mac, or Appopoulis. No Big Bill Holbrook. No Dawn...
And no hole in the wall beside the mirror where his hopeless shot at Appopoulis had buried itself.
The Saint shook his head. If it had all been a dream, he might have to seriously consider consulting a psychiatrist. Dreams reach only a certain point of vividness. What he remembered was too sharp of definition, too coherent, too consecutive. Yet if it wasn’t a dream, where were the evidences of reality, the bullet hole in his chest, in the wall?
He went to the door. There should be footprints. His cabin had rated with Grand Central Station for traffic last night.
There were no footprints, other than his own.