He tried, idealistically, to remind himself that he was only there to look around, and certainly not to make himself conspicuous. The argument seemed a little watery and uninspired. He tried, realistically, to remember that he could easily have made similar gestures himself, given the opportunity; and why was it romantic if he did it and revolting if somebody else did? This was manifestly a cerebral cul-de-sac. He almost persuaded himself that his ideas about Avalon Dexter were merely pyramided on the impact of her professional personality, and what gave him any right to imagine that the advances of Dr. Zellermann might be unwelcome? — especially if there might be a diamond ring or a nice piece of fur at the inevitable conclusion of them. And this very clearly made no sense at all.
He watched the girl deftly shrug off one paw after another, without ever being able to feel that she was merely showing a mechanical adroitness designed to build up ultimate desire. He saw her shake her head vigorously in response to whatever suggestions the vulturine wizard was mouthing into her ear, without being able to wonder if her negative was merely a technical postponement. He estimated, as cold-bloodedly as it was possible for him to do it, in that twilight where no one else might have been able to see anything, the growing strain that crept into her face, and the mixture of shame and anger that clouded her eyes as she fought off Zellermann as unobtrusively as any woman could have done...
And he still asked nothing more of the night than a passable excuse to demonstrate his distaste for Dr. Ernst Zellermann and all his works.
And this just happened to be the heaven-saved night which would provide it.
As Cookie reached the climax of her last and most lurid ditty, and with a sense of supremely fine predestination, the Saint saw Avalon Dexter's hand swing hard and flatly at the learned doctor's smoothly shaven cheek. The actual sound of the slap was drowned in the ecstatic shrieks of the cognoscenti who were anticipating the tag couplet which their indeterminate ancestors had howled over in the First World War; but to Simon Templar, with his eyes on nothing else, the movement alone would have been enough. Even if he had not seen the girl start to rise, and the great psychologist reach out and grab her wrist.
He saw Zellermann yank her back on to her chair with a vicious wrench, and carefully put out his cigarette.
"Nunc dimittis," said the Saint, with a feeling of ineffable beatitude creeping through his arteries like balm; "O Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace..."
He stood up quietly, and threaded his way through the intervening tables with the grace of a stalking panther, up to the side of Dr. Ernst Zellermann. It made no difference to him that while he was on his way Cookie had finished her last number, and all the lights had gone on again while she was taking her final bows. He had no particular views at all about an audience or a lack of it. There was no room in his soul for anything but the transcendent bliss of what he was going to do.
Almost dreamily, he gathered the lapels of the doctor's dinner jacket in his left hand and raised the startled man to his feet.
"You really shouldn't do things like that," he said in a tone of kindly remonstrance.