He seized the girl by the arm and dragged her out into the moonlight so that the Saint could see her distinctly, and he held the girl in front of him so that her body was between him and the Saint.
“Be careful how you shoot, Templar!” shouted Bittle. “Be careful even of what you say and do—because, unless you and your friends surrender within three minutes, I am going to kill Miss Holm with my own hands!”
Chapter XIX.
The Tiger
Precisely three minutes later, Simon Templar and Orace were led into the saloon under an armed guard.
“Good-evening, dear Bittlekins,” murmured the Saint affably. “Fancy meeting you!—as the vicar said when he saw one of the leading lights of the parish Mothers’ Union dancing at the Forty-Three. Sit down and tell me all the news.”
Bittle smiled.
“We all make slips,” he said, “but I scarcely imagined you would overlook such an obvious factor as Miss Holm.”
“I was just hoping that you yourself might overlook it,” explained the Saint. “I honestly thought you were slow enough on the uptake for that. Still, we all make our mistakes, as the bishop said, even the very youngest and most inexperienced of us—and very few mistakes are irreparable.”
Bittle nodded slowly.
“Very few,” he agreed. “I made a bad one when I presumed your death—but, as you see, that error has been rectified. Even now, Templar, you are a dead man.”