The Saint Bids Diamonds by Leslie Charteris Page A

hand was crushed against her breast as if it hurt her.
    Graner began to step towards her.
    “It is fortunate that we found you so soon,” he said silkily. “Santa Cruz is not a good place for you to be put on your own. I trust you are ready to come home now?”
    She sprang suddenly to her feet.
    “No!”
    “My dear Christine! You must not let yourself get hysterical. Where is Joris? Perhaps we can take him as well.”
    “No!” she sobbed. “I won’t go back! I’m never going back. You can’t take me —”
    His clawlike hand made a snatch and caught her wrist.
    “Perhaps you have Joris’ ticket?” he snarled.
    She shrank back until the wall stopped her, staring at him as if she had been hypnotised by a snake, with the breath labouring in her throat. And at that moment there was a knock on the door.
    Involuntarily her eyes turned towards the sound. Simon saw her take a quick breath that could have only one purpose, and flung himself off the wall against which he had been lounging as if a spring had been released behind him.
    In three strides he was across the room and between Graner and the girl. He clapped one hand over her mouth and spun her round. His other arm whipped round her waist and lifted her off her feet. The bathroom door was ajar, and he moved on towards it almost without a check.
    “Tell ‘em to come back presently,” he snapped over his shoulder.
    In another second he was inside the bathroom and kicking the door shut behind him.
    He still held the girl, but the feel of her slim young body under his arm pressed against him fought a duel with his resolution that she could never have been aware of. He bent his head so that his lips touched her ear, and the smell of her hair filled his nostrils.
    “For heaven’s sake don’t give me away!” he whispered. “This is a gag-d’you understand?”
    He had no idea how much she understood or believed, but he had no chance to say more. He heard the closing of the outer door of the room, and a moment later the bathroom door opened.
    “All right,” said Graner.
    Simon carried the girl out and let her go. He straightened his coat and opened his cigarette case.
    “Now, Graner,” he said, “we’ll hear from you.”
    Graner looked at him unblinkingly. His right hand still rested in his jacket pocket, but the Saint’s keyed-up senses registered every fraction of the change in his manner. The man was still intrinsically the same, but for the time being, at any rate, he had been bluffed over one point in the game. The Saint’s trick of hitting back at a catastrophe with a riposte of such incredible audacity that his opponent could never make himself believe that it was nothing but the last desperate resource of a cornered man had worked for the latest of countless similar occasions in his life; even if it really provided no more than a spidery tightrope on which the abyss had still to be crossed. But it had worked; and his swift, decisive action in silencing the girl must have driven it home.
    “There is nothing more to say,” Graner rapped at him. “We shall take the young lady back with us-that is all.”
    “Why?”
    “I thought we settled that last night,” answered Graner stonily. “While you’re working for me you will obey all my orders-without argument.”
    The Saint smiled at him.
    “And suppose I don’t?”
    Graner’s hand came out of his pocket.
    Simon gazed at the gun with blue eyes full of mockery. He flicked his lighter and held the flame placidly under the end of his cigarette.
    “I thought we’d arranged all that,” he murmured. “But if you want to go over it again I suppose I can’t stop you.” He sauntered over to the bed, where he lay down and settled himself comfortably. “If I fix myself like this I shan’t hurt myself when I fall down,” he explained. “Oh, and there’s just one other thing. Before you let off that little popgun and fetch all the hotel in, you must tell me the name of your tailor. I couldn’t