"Don't worry," she said calmly. "I can shoot."
The Saint's glance measured the distance.
"It's about six yards," he observed. "And a lot of people have mistaken ideas about how easy it is to pot a moving target with an automatic at six yards."
"Would you like to try me?"
Simon poised his cigarette end between his forefinger and thumb and flipped it sideways. It struck Hoppy's discarded bottle, over by the settee, with a faint plunk! and sent up a tiny fountain of sparks.
"Hit that," he said.
The muzzle of the gun swung away from his body, but it was only for an instant. She fired without seeming to aim, and the automatic was aligned on the Saint's breastbone again before the crash of the explosion had stopped rattling in his ears, but the bottle was spattered in fragments over the carpet.
The Saint nodded to Hoppy.
"She can shoot," he remarked. "She's been practising."
"It's not much use having a gun if you don't."