"I know," said the Saint. "And then?"
"Then I just tried to talk myself out of it, but I didn't get very far with that. But us Dexters never know when to say Uncle... So then I went to bed when everybody else did, when Pat had broken everything up anyway. I thought I could go to sleep and forget it; but I couldn't... I just lay awake and listened... And nobody else seemed to go to bed. Nobody tried to open my door, which I'd locked, being a bright girl; but every time I was nearly asleep I could hear people creeping about and muttering. And it never sounded like the sort of noises they'd make if they were just trying to go on with a party. And I went on being afraid all the time. I'm a very imaginative character, don't you think?"
"No," he said. "Not any more than you should be."
"So finally I thought I just had to talk to somebody safe and ordinary again, and I thought you and Pat were the best bet there was. I didn't know what on earth I'd have said to you when I got here, but I'd have thought of something. I always can, being an old hardened expert... But when I crept in here, and had the light on for a moment, and Pat hadn't been to bed at all, and you seemed to be out for keeps as Zellermann said you would be — I suppose I had a moment of panic. So... Simon, will you forget me being so stupid? I'm not usually like this. But it's sort of ridiculous, after everything that's gone on, for this to be you."
The Saint seemed to have arms vaguely attached to his body, one of them pressing her against him and the other lying across his lap and becoming conscious of something sharp-edged and metallic in his pocket — something that was definably not small change creased into a fold of his trousers. Something that bothered his forearm and his thigh together, so that he put his hand into his pocket to fumble and identify it, while he was talking... He still had to cling on to every item of his hard-won clarity, inch upon inch.
He said: "Avalon, I've got to tell you two or three things as sharply as I can make it. I'll fill in the details later, when we have time. If we have time. But probably you can do that for yourself anyway."
She said: "Yes, darling."
"If you can't, you'll have to take my word for it. We're right in the middle of a situation where human life is cheaper than the air. I'm going to try to make sense, and I want you to listen closely. I'm sure I can't do it twice."
"I won't interrupt," she said.
The Saint fastened his mind on what he wanted to say. He forced himself with tremendous effort to expand the phrase "Benny sent me" into a broad picture.