But the Saint was hardly aware of it any more. Certainly it had no more sinister implications. Condor was sold, even though he hadn’t admitted it aloud. It was only a question of a little more time and some routine verifications. The detective’s mournful passivity and the dejected downward angle of the toothpick in his mouth were their own acknowledgments. In the end it had been as simple as that. And Simon was only wondering why he had never thought of that scene before, when Flane had come hurtling out of Ufferlitz’s office and the Saint had picked him up and steadied him while he made his threat — the scene that Peggy Warden had omitted to tell Condor about. Simon thought he had been very slow about that. But it was all taken care of now...
And they were in Peggy Warden’s apartment, and she was a little frightened and wide-eyed, but she said, “Yes, Mr Flane did say that, but—”
And Condor said, “Do you remember his words?”
“It was something like—” She wrinkled her brow. “Something like ‘When I fix you, you’re going to stay fixed.’ ”
“That was it,” said the Saint.
She said, “But he was drunk — he didn’t really know what he was saying—”
Condor turned away from her with a movement of glum separation whose superficial rudeness had less to do with any deliberate intention than with his congenital inability to loosen his official armor.
His bright black eyes circled down on to the Saint like tired dead crows.
“Okay, Saint,” he said. “You’re good. I don’t know how good yet, but good.”
“Then what happens?”