Simon gave up for the time being.
“Well, let’s get on with this and search the house. You didn’t see any strangers on your way here?”
“No, sir,” Angelo answered. “Did anyone get hurt?”
“No, but we seem to have had a visitor.”
“I no understand,” the Filipino insisted. “Everything lock up, sir. I see to it myself.”
“Then somebody opened something,” said the Saint curtly. “Go and look.”
He went on his own way to the front door. It was locked and bolted. He opened it and went outside.
Although there seemed to have been a large variety of action and dialogue since Lissa’s scream had awakened him, it had clicked through at such a speed that the elapsed time was actually surprisingly short. As he stood outside and gave his eyes a moment to adjust themselves to the darkness he tried to estimate how long it had been. Not long enough, he was sure, for anyone to travel very far... And then the night cleared from his eyes, and he could see almost as well as a cat could have seen there. He went to the edge of the terrace in front of the house, and looked down. He could see the private road which was the only vehicular approach to the place dropping and winding away to his left like a gray ribbon carelessly thrown down the mountainside, and there was no car or moving shadow on it. Most of the street plan at the foot of the hill was as clearly visible also as if he had been looking down on it from an airplane, but he could see nothing human or mechanical moving there either. And even with all his delays, it hardly seemed possible that anything or anyone could have travelled far enough to be out of sight by that time — at least without making a noise that he would have heard on his way through the house.
There were, of course, other ways than the road. The steep slopes both upwards and downwards could have been negotiated by an agile man. Simon walked very quietly around the building and the gardens, scanning every surface that he could see. Certainly no one climbing up or down could have covered a great distance: on the other hand, if the climber had gone only a little way and stopped moving he would have been very hard to pick out of the ragged patchwork of lights and shadows that the starlight made out of tumbles of broken rock and clumps of cactus and incense and grease-wood. By the same token, a man on foot would be impossibly dangerous game to hunt at night: he only had to keep still, whereas the hunter had to move, and thereby give his quarry the first timed deliberate shot at him.
The Saint could be reckless enough, but he had no suicidal inclinations. He stood motionless for several minutes in different bays of shadow, scanning the slopes with the unblinking patience of a head-hunter. But nothing moved, and presently he went back in by the front door and found Angelo.