"That," said the girl grimly, "is the idea."
Simon weighed his prospects realistically. He hadn't exaggerated the solitude of their surroundings: a pitched battle with machine guns at the Old Barn would have caused less local commotion than letting off a handful of squibs in the deepest wastes of the Sahara. There was nothing to neutralize the value of those two automatics by the door if the fingers on their triggers chose to become dictatorial — and the experience of a lifetime had taught the Saint to be highly conservative about the chances he took in calling a bluff from the wrong side of a gun. Apart from which, he was wondering whether he wanted to make any change in the arrangements…
As if he were trying to find arguments for accepting the bitterness of defeat his eyes turned a little away from the girl to a point in space where they would include a glimpse of the face of the lorry driver. He had sown good seed there, he knew, even if he had been ' balked of the quick harvest he had hoped for… And on the outskirts of his vision, removing all doubt, he saw Jopley's sullen features screwed up in a grotesque wink…
"We always see our visitors off the premises," said the Saint virtuously. "Are you sure you won't have one for the road?"
"Not tonight."
Either he was setting new records in immortal imbecility, Simon realized as he led the way down the steep winding lane, or the threads that had baffled him for the past three weeks were on the point of coming into his reach; and some irrational instinct seemed to tell him that it was not the former. He had no inkling then of how gruesomely and from what an unexpected angle his hunch was to be vindicated.
The beam of his own torch, held in the girl's hand, shone steadily on his back as he walked and cast his elongated shadow in a long oval of light down the track. The decision was taken now — whatever he might have done to turn the tables back in the Old Barn, out there in the empty night with the torchlight against him and two guns at his back there was no trick he could play that would fall far short of attempted suicide.
They came down to the road, and he saw the lights of his car parked a little way past the turning. Jopley got in first and took the wheel; and then the girl slipped into the seat beside him, still holding the Saint in the centre of the flashlight's ring of luminance. Simon stood by the side of the car and smiled into the light.
"You still haven't told me your name, darling," he said.
"Perhaps that's because I don't want you to know it."