In the back seat Mr Uniatz detached the bottle from his lips and beamed at him ingratiatingly.
"I find it in de cabinet where dey keep de liquor, boss," he explained. "So I t'ought it'd keep us warm on de way home."
"At least you won't freeze to death," said the Saint philosophically.
He turned the other way as he struck his lighter and gazed out into the darkness where the hills rose again at the edge of the sea. Somewhere in the black silhouette of them there was a dull red glow, pulsing and brightening, like a palely luminous cloud. The eyes of the girl beside him turned in the same direction.
"It looks like a fire," she said interestedly.
"So it does," said the Saint and drove on without another backward glance, eastwards, towards Lyndhurst.
Part Three
The Beauty Specialist
I
The fact that Simon Templar had never heard of the "Z-Man" was merely a tremendous proof that the Z-Man himself, his victims and the police authorities had joined forces in a monumental conspiracy of silence, For the Saint invariably had a zephyr finger on the pulse of the underworld, and the various forms of fun and frolic that went on in the ranks of the ungodly without his knowledge were so few that for all practical purposes they might have been regarded as nonexistent.