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was conscious of the crunching of broken glass under his feet; but he didn't
think much about it until he noticed some of the crowd glancing upwards, and
he glanced upwards with them and saw the jagged gaping hole in the shattered
marquee overhead. Then with the advantage of his height he looked over a few
heads and shoulders and saw the thing that was the nucleus of the assembly. A
rather shapeless lump of something in the center of a clear circle of
blood-spattered sidewalk, with one foot sticking out from under a blanket that
covered its grosser deformations.
Even then, he knew; but he had to ask.
"What gives?" he said to the nearest bystander.
"Guy just got discouraged," was the laconic answer. "Walked outa his window
on the eighth floor. I didn't see him jump, but I saw him light. He came
through that marquee like a bomb."
Simon didn't even feel curious about getting the blanket moved for a glimpse
of anything identifiable that might have been left as a face. He observed the
uniformed patrolman standing rather smug guard over the remains, and said
quite coldly: "How long ago did this happen?"
"Only about five minutes ago. They're still waitin' for the ambulance. I was
just goin' by on the other side of the street, and I happened to look
around "
The Saint didn't weary his ears with the rest of the anecdote. He was too
busy consuming the fact that one more character in that particular episode had
elected to go voyaging into the Great Beyond in the middle of another of those
unfinished revelations which only the most corny of scenario cookers would
have tolerated for a moment. Either he had to take a very dim view of the
writing talent in the books of Destiny, or else it would begin to seem that
the abrupt transmigration of Nick Vaschetti was just another cog in a divine
conspiracy to make life tantalising for Simon Templar.
9The links went clicking through Simon's brain as if they were meshing over
the teeth of a perfectly fitted sprocket.
The ungodly had ransacked his room at the Alamo House while they knew he
would be out of the way, and had drawn a blank. But they would have had plenty
of time to pick him up again, and it would have been childishly simple for
them to do it, because they knew he was with Olga Ivanovitch, and the place
where she was going to steer him for dinner had been decided in advance. The
Saint had been alert for the kind of ambuscade that would have been
orchestrated with explosions and flying lead, but not for ordinary trailing,
because why should the ungodly trail him when one of them was already with him
to note all his movements? He had left Olga Ivanovitch in his car outside
theTimes-Tribune building, as he said, for a front and a cover: it hadn't
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occurred to him that she might be a front and a cover for others of the
ungodly. She sat there covering the front while they took the precaution of
covering the other exits. When he came out by the back alley, they followed.
When he went to the City Jail, they remembered Vaschetti and knew that that
must have been the man he had gone to see. Therefore one of them had waited
for a chance to silence Vaschetti; and when Vaschetti was released and led
back to the Campeche, the opportunity had been thrown into their laps. It had
been as mechanically simple as that.
And Olga Ivanovitch had done a swell job all the way through. All those items
went interlocking through his mind as he stood at the desk inside and faced an
assistant manager who was trying somewhat flabbily to look as though he had
everything under perfect control.
Simon flipped his lapel in a conventional gesture, but without showing
anything, and said aggressively: "Police Department. What room was Vaschetti
in?"
"Eight-twelve," said the assistant manager, in the accents of a harassed
mortician. "The house detective is up there now. I assure you, we "
"Who was with him when he jumped?"
"No one that I know of. He was brought in by one of the men from
theTimes-Tribune, who redeemed his check. Then the reporter left, and------"
"He didn't have any visitors after that?"
"No, nobody asked for him. I'm sure of that, because I was standing by the
desk all the time. I'd just taken the money for his check, and told Mr
Vaschetti that we'd like to have his room in the morning; and I was chatting
with a friend of mine "
"Where are the elevators?"
"Over in that corner. I'll be glad to take you up, Mr "
"Thanks. I can still push my own buttons," said the Saint brusquely, and
headed away in the direction indicated, leaving the assistant manager with
only one more truncated sentence in his script.
He had very little time to spare, if any. It could be only a matter of
seconds before the accredited constabulary would arrive on the scene, and he
wanted to verify what he could before they were in his hair.
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