The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

His glance whipped from side to side. He was standing again approximately where he had been when the shot cracked out, but facing the opposite way. On his right quarter was the window that had been broken, with the shards of glass scattered on the floor below it — he ought to have understood everything when he heard them hit the floor. Turning the other way, he saw that the line from the window to himself continued on through the open door.

He look a long drag on his cigarette.

“It kind of spoils the scene,” he said quietly, “but I’m afraid we’ve both been making the same mistake. You thought I fired at you—”

“I don’t have—”

“All right, you don’t have to think. You heard the bullet whizz past your head. You said that before. You’re certain I shot at you. Okay. Well, I was just as certain that you shot at me. But I know now I was wrong. You never had a gun until you got mine. It was that shot that let you bluff me. I’d heard the bullet go past my head, and so it never even occurred to me that you were bluffing. But we were both wrong. The shot came through that window — it just missed me, went on out through the door and just missed you. And somebody else fired it!”

The other’s face was stupid with stubborn incredulity.

“Who fired it?”

“The murderer.”

“That means you,” retorted the young man flatly. “Hell, I don’t want to listen to you. You see if you can make the police believe you. Go on and call them, Rosemary. I can take care of these two.”

The girl hesitated.

“But, Jim—”

“Don’t worry about me, darling. I’ll be all right. If either of these two washouts tries to get funny, I’ll give him plenty to think about.”

The Saint’s eyes were narrowing.

“You lace-pantie’d bladder of hot air,” he said in a cold even voice that seared like vitriol. “It isn’t your fault if God didn’t give you a brain, but he did give you eyes. Why don’t you use them? I say the shot was fired from outside, and you can see for yourself where the broken win-dowpane fell. Look at it. It’s all on the floor in here. If you can tell me how I could shoot at you in the doorway and break a window behind me, and make the broken glass fall inwards, I’ll pay for your next marcel wave. Look at it, nitwit.”

The young man looked.

He had been working closer to the Saint, with his free fist clenched and his face flushed with wrath, since the Saint’s first sizzling insult smoked under his skin. But he looked. Somehow, he had to do that. He was less than five feet away when his eyes shifted. And it was then that Simon jumped him.

The Saint’s lean body seemed to lengthen and swoop across the intervening space. His left hand grabbed the Luger, bent the wrist behind it agonisingly inwards, while the heel of his open right hand settled under the other’s chin. The gun came free; and the Saint’s right arm straightened jarringly and sent the young man staggering back.

Simon reversed the automatic with a deft flip and held it on him. Even while he was making his spring, out of the corner of his eye he had seen Hoppy Uniatz flash away from him with an electrifying acceleration that would have stunned anyone who had misguidedly judged Mr. Uniatz on the speed of his intellectual reactions; now he glanced briefly aside and saw that Hoppy was holding his gun again and keeping the girl pinioned with one arm.

“Okay, Hoppy,” he said. “Keep your Betsy and let her go. She’s going to call the police for us.”

Hoppy released her, but the girl did not move. She stood against the wall, rubbing slim wrists that had been bruised by Mr. Uniatz’ untempered energy, looking from Simon to the striped blazer with scared, desperate eyes.

“Go ahead,” said the Saint impatiently. “I won’t damage little Jimmy unless he makes trouble. If this was one of my murdering evenings, you don’t think I’d bump him and let you get away, do you? Go on and fetch your policeman — and we’ll see whether the boy friend can make them believe his story!”