The girl went back to the sitting-room and dropped into a chair. The Saint’s cigarette-box was handy to her elbow, and she took a cigarette and lighted it thoughtfully.
Whether she was intended to worry or not, there could be no denying the obvious fact that Orace was distinctly agitated. She found it was twenty minutes and a bit past seven, and wondered if the Saint would be as punctual as Orace had predicted, and whether they would have to assume that something had happened to him if he hadn’t arrived within five minutes of the half-hour. Where could he have gone? There was nothing to be done about the Tiger’s ship at that hour. Had he gone on a preliminary reconnaissance of the island? Had he taken it into his head to inspect the Old House at closer quarters? Or had he gone over to beard Bittle or Bloem again—the sort of senseless bravado that would give a man like him a thrill?
She watched the minute hand of her watch travel down to the twenty-five-past mark, and reflected that she had been spending a good deal of her time lately with one eye on the clock, wondering if the Saint was going to be punctual or not. Heavens, he wasn’t the only one who could be worried!
Orace came in and laid a place for her. Then he tugged an enormous silver turnip from his trousers pocket.
“In a minnit er two,” he said. “Thunderin’ punctual, ’e always is.”
He nodded to her encouragingly, and strutted out. She heard his boots on the concrete floor outside, and guessed that he had gone to the entrance to see if he could spot the Saint coming up the hill.
At twenty-five to eight there was still no sign of the Saint.
Patricia took to moving restlessly about the room. She felt suddenly depressed. The Saint had gone swashbuckling off into the blue, without a word to anyone—and had blasted his reputation for punctuality. He might have been in so many different places, trying to do so many different things: she raged at her helplessness. She could only wait and wait and wait, and he’d either turn up or he wouldn’t. No clue. . . . Anything might have happened to him. She racked her brains to deduce where he would be most likely to have gone, and an appalling number of possibilities made faces at her and invited her to take her pick.
Orace came in again. He had taken off his apron and put on his coat and a cap. One of his pockets bulged and sagged.
“I’m gonna see if I can find ’im, miss,” he said. “But wiv yore permission I’ll see you ’ome fust.”