He smiled.
"Don't worry about it, darling," he said. "Just stay here for a minute, will you?"
He turned to Peter and Hoppy and indicated Borieff with a faint nod.
"Bring him in," he said and led the way into the next room.
Jopley was cursing and fighting against his bonds, and Lasser had recovered enough to be writhing too. Simon dragged them over to the fireplace and went back to tear down the heavy silk cords that drew the long window hangings. He roped the two men expertly together, and when Borieff arrived he added him to the collection. The other end of the rope he knotted to a bar of the iron grate that was set solidly in the brickwork.
Then he closed the door and looked at Peter and Hoppy, and the smile had gone altogether from his face.
"There's just one thing more which you didn't know," he said quietly. "Comrade Lasser told me about it in here. There's supposed to be a fire here tonight — the place is all prepared for it. And after we'd all been worked over like Pargo was — Borieff was the assistant in that, by the way — whatever else happened, however much we told, the idea was to leave us tied up here with a lighted candle burning down to the floor. We were to be got rid of anyway, and according to Lasser we had to be burnt alive so that it would look like an accident."
The Saint's eyes were as cold and passionless as the eyes of a recording angel.
"We are the only jury here," he said. "What is our justice?"
The Hirondel thundered down into the valley and soared up the slope on the other side. Somewhere near the first crest of the Purbeck Hills Simon stopped the car to take out a cigarette; and through the hushing of the engine his ears caught a familiar gurgling sound that made him look round.