"Ah didn't see him, sah. Ah guess most likely he went out when you did."
It had been a nice job of contrivance anyhow. If the ungodly knew or assumed that the police were watching Simon Templar, they could also assume that the police would go out when Simon Templar went out. So the coast would be relatively clear when they knew he was going out.
He had been on his guard against uninvited shadows, when it seemed like a good idea to watch out for uninvited shadows. He hadn't bothered much about those who stayed behind, because he hadn't been thinking about anything worth staying behind for. But they had been.
The three faceless men. Blatt, Weinbach, and Maris. Two of whom he had only heard described. And Maris, whom nobody had heard of and nobody had ever seen.
But Olga Ivanovitch must have known at least one of them Or even more positively, at least one of them must have known her. They must have sat and looked at each other in the lobby while she was waiting for him. One way or another, the Saint was being taken out of the way for a safe period; and some of them had known it and watched it when he went out. Quite probably, Olga.
Simon's lips hardened momentarily as he finished refolding the last shirt and laid it on top of the stack in his bag. He turned back from the job to watch Port Arthur Jones fastidiously fitting a chair back into the scars which its standard position had printed on the nap of the carpet. The room looked as tidy again as if nothing had ever happened there.
"Thanks, chum," said the Saint. "Have we forgotten anything?"
The colored man scratched his close-cropped head.
"Well, sah, Ah dunno. The Alamo House is a mighty respectable hotel—"
"Will you be in trouble on account of the time you've been shut up in here?"