She said, “Simon.”
“Yes?”
“Didn’t you say something last night about — about being sure it was someone in the house?”
“I did.”
“Then... then just now — you were with Ginny, so she couldn’t have done anything. And Lissa isn’t here. But you know I couldn’t... you know I couldn’t have hidden a gun anywhere, don’t you?”
“I don’t know you well enough,” said the Saint.
But it was another confusion that twisted around in his mind all the way home. It was true that he himself was an alibi for Ginny — unless she had planted one of those colossally elaborate remote-control gun-firing devices beloved of mystery writers. And Esther couldn’t have concealed a gun, or anything else, in her costume — unless she had previously planted it somewhere up the stream. But both those theories would have required them to know in advance where they were going, and the Saint had chosen the place himself... It was true he had mentioned it before they started, but mentioning it and finding it were different matters. He would have sworn that not more than a handful of people besides himself had ever discovered it, and he remembered sections of the trail that had seemed to be completely overgrown since they had last been trodden. Of course, with all his watchfulness, they might have been followed. A good hunter might have stayed out of sight and circled over the hills — he could have done it himself...
Yet in all those speculations there was something that didn’t connect, something that didn’t make sense. If the theoretical sniper in the hills had been good enough to get there at all, for instance, why hadn’t he been good enough to try a second shot before they got away? He could surely have had at least one more try, from a different angle, with no more risk than the first... It was like the abortive attack on Lissa — it made sense, but not absolute sense. And to the Saint’s delicately tuned reception that was a more nagging obstacle than no sense at all...
They got back to the stables, and Freddie said, “I need a drink. Let’s beat up the Tennis Club before we go home.”
For once, the Saint was not altogether out of sympathy with the exigencies of Freddie’s thirst.