They rode some more. They wound through Central Park, entering at Columbus Circle, curving and twisting along the west side of that great haven for nurses, sailors, nurses and sailors, up around the bottleneck end of the lake, south past the zoo.
The Saint looked significantly at the flat backs of the animal cages. "What time," he asked Spaniel Eyes, "do you have to be back in?"
"Shaddup."
"This," the Saint said conversationally to Scar-chin, "has been most illuminating. I suppose I shouldn't ever have taken this drive otherwise. Very restful. The lake full of rowboats, the rowboats full of afternoon romance, the — oh, the je ne sais quoi, like kids with ice creamed noses."
Scar-chin yawned.
Simon lighted another cigarette and brooded over the routine. He considered his chances of getting a lawyer with a writ of habeas corpus before things went too far. Or was it the scheme of Scar-chin and Spaniel-Eyes to spirit him away to some obscure precinct station and hold him incommunicado? Such things had been done before. And at that stage of the game the Saint knew he could not afford to disappear even for twenty-four hours.
Spaniel Eyes looked at his watch as they neared the exit at Fiftyninth Street and Fifth Avenue.
"Okay," he called to the cab driver.
The driver nodded and drove to — of all places — the Algonquin. Scar-chin came back to life.
"Awright," he said. "Go on up to your room."