"Let us go out into the great open spaces and look at the night," said the Saint.
Mr. Eisenfeld allowed himself to be conducted back down the walk over which he had just returned. He had very little choice in the matter. The gun of the uninvited guest remained glued to his backbone as if it intended to take root there, and he knew that the fingers which rested so caressingly on his windpipe would have detected the first shout he tried to utter before it could reach his vocal cords.
A few yards down the road a car waited with its lights burning. They stopped beside it.
"Open the door and get in."
Mr. Eisenfeld obeyed. The gun slipped round from his back to his left side as his escort followed him into the seat behind the wheel. Simon started the engine and reached over to slip the gear lever into first. The headlights were switched on as they moved away from the curb; and Mr. Eisenfeld found his first opportunity of giving vent to the emotions that were chasing themselves through his system.
"What the hell's the idea of this?" he demanded violently.
"We're going for a little drive, dear old bird," answered the Saint. "But I promise you won't have to walk home. My intentions are more honourable than anyone like you could easily imagine."
"If you're trying to kidnap me," Eisenfeld blustered, "I'm telling you you can't get away with it. I'll see that you get what's coming to you! Why, you…"
Simon let him make his speech without interruption. The lights of the residential section twinkled steadily past them, and presently even Eisenfeld's flood of outraged eloquence dwindled away before that impenetrable calm. They drove on over the practically deserted roads — it was after midnight, and there were very few attractions in that area to induce the pious citizens of Elmford to lose their beauty sleep — and presently Mr. Eisenfeld realized that their route would take them past the site of the almost completed Elmford Riviera on the bank of the river above the town.
He was right in his deduction, except for the word "past." As a matter of fact, the car jolted off the main highway onto the unfinished road which led down to Elmford's playground; and exactly in the middle of the two-mile esplanade, under the very shadow of the central monument which Sam Purdell had been so modestly unwilling to accept, it stopped.