They drove out to the club, and sat on the balcony terrace looking down over the beautifully terraced gardens, the palm-shaded oval pool, and the artificial brook where imported trout lurked under spreading willows and politely awaited the attention of pampered anglers. The rest of them sipped Daiquiris, while Freddie restored himself with three double brandies in quick succession. And then, sauntering over from the tennis courts with a racquet in her hand, Lissa O’Neill herself came up to them. She looked as cool and dainty as she always seemed to look, in one of those abbreviated sun suits that she always seemed to wear which some clairvoyant designer must have invented exclusively for her slim waist and for long tapered legs like hers, in pastel shades that would set off her clear golden skin. But it seemed as if all of them drew back behind a common barrier that made them look at her in the same way, not in admiration, but guardedly, waiting for what she would say.
She said, “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Fancy meeting you,” said the Saint. “Did you get bored with your book?”
“I finished it, so I thought I’d get some exercise. But the pro has been all booked up for hours.”
It was as if all of them had the same question on their lips, but only the Saint could handle his voice easily enough to say, quite lazily, “Hours?”
“Well, it must have been two hours or more. Anyway, I asked for a lesson as soon as I got here, and he was all booked up. He said he’d fit me in if anybody cancelled, but I’ve been waiting around for ages and nobody’s given me a chance...”
A part of the Saint’s mind felt quite detached and independent of him, like an adding machine clicking over in a different room. The machine tapped out: she should have known that the pro would be booked up. And of course he’d say that he’d be glad to fit her in if he had a cancellation. And the odds are about eight to one that he wouldn’t have a cancellation. So she could make him and several other people believe that she’d been waiting all the time. She could always find a chance to slip out of the entrance when there was no one in the office for a moment — she might even arrange to clear the way without much difficulty. She only had to get out. Coming back, she could say she just went to get something from her car. No one would think about it. And if there had been a cancellation, and the pro had been looking for her — well, she’d been in the johnny, or the showers, or at the bottom of the pool. He just hadn’t found her. She’d been there all the time. A very passable casual alibi, with only a trivial percentage of risk.
But she isn’t dressed to have done what must have been done.
She could have changed.
She couldn’t have done it anyway.