Saint and the Fiction Makers (24 page)

‘Yes,’ Simon managed. He pointed numbly to some ash on the metal slab to which Amity had been clamped when he left. ‘Is that …’

Amity frowned, then burst into laughter.

‘Galaxy? Oh, no. I just used her sweater to try the thing out on. There she is.’

Simon looked. Galaxy Rose, looking as voluptuous as ever in spite of mussed hair, a gag in her mouth, and ropes binding her ankles and wrists, was sitting in the corner.

She said ‘Mump, mump,’ and glared.

‘I’ve been wanting to shut her up ever since we got here,’ Amity said. ‘And I’ve been wanting to do this, too—right in front of her.’ She had come up to Simon now, and she put her arms around his neck. ‘Well?’ she murmured. ‘Aren’t you going to thank me for writing you into such lovely adventures?’

He kissed her somewhat hastily.

‘And for all the loot we’re going to collect from Warlock’s safe before the police get here?’ she persisted.

He kissed her again, thinking that to thank her properly just for being herself would take considerably more than that.

‘But please,’ said the Saint, with almost frantic restraint, ‘how did you get off that table?’

Her dazzlingly ingenuous smile would have been absolute justification for homicide.

‘Oh, that,’ she said carelessly. ‘Well, to find that out, I’m afraid you’ll just have to buy my next book.’

Photoset, printed and bound in Great Britain by redwood burn limited, Trowbridge, Wiltshire