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“I didn’t mention it before, but I
thought they picked us up just after we left the hotel. They must have got
out of your room faster than we thought.”
    “The Keystone Stormtroops?” said
Simon. “It doesn’t seem very likely.”
    “They’re probably just staying back there
waiting till we stop someplace where they can get me.”
    In the rear view mirror Simon could see two
pairs of headlights several hundred feet behind. He slowed his own car as a test of the
others’ reactions, and they began closing the
distance at a normal rate.
    “If they were following us,” he
said, “they probably wouldn’t catch up like that.”
    He increased the pressure of his foot on the accelerator.
    “I can’t help it,” said Mildred. “I still think I
saw them.”
    “And I still think you’re looking for ways to avoid talk ing about yourself, Miss Hitler.” He glanced
at her. “Or is it Anastasia?
Bridey Murphy?”
    Mildred gave a sigh, let her shoulders slump
for a moment, and then sat up straighter and looked at him.
    “I think you know who I am,” she
said.
    “I’m touched by your confidence.”
    Mildred’s voice had lost some of its
little-girl quality.
    “You saw me react when my father walked
into the lobby at the hotel.”
    “SS F ü hrer
Kleinschmidt is your father?”
    “Eugene Drew is my father,” she
replied patiently. “And I think you’ve known all along.”
    The Saint nodded.
    “You seemed a little young to be Hitler’s daughter— though there was a family resemblance.”
    “Thanks.”
    They were driving through Leixlip, and Mildred pointed to a pub on a corner just ahead.
    “Oh, let’s stop in there a minute I I
feel like a beastly mess after all that sniveling—and I could use a shot of something.”
    Simon slowed the car.
    “I thought you were so worried about
those goons you
claim are following us.”
    She looked back.
    “Maybe I was wrong—and we’ve got to stop
sometime. Anyway, what can they do in the middle of town? Drag me
kicking and screaming out of the local?” She gave him a stern look,
like a child threatening its parent. “And if you won’t stop here I’ll
never tell you why they’re after me—and all the other juicy
tidbits.”
    Simon turned off the main street and pulled up
across from the pub.
    “All right, Mildred, or whatever your
name is at the moment …”
    “It is Mildred,” she interrupted.
    Simon came around and opened her door.
    “I guess we should celebrate your
dropping old Adolf from your family tree,” he said.
    “Righto! And where are we going from
here?”
    “To Kelly’s place, of course, unless
you’ve changed your
mind.”
    They crossed the quiet street, and Simon
failed to see any sign of a lurking Mercedes in any direction.
    “I mean where is Kelly’s place?”
Mildred asked.
    “Somewhere east of Athlone, in the
middle of nowhere. Why?”
    “Well, naturally I’m curious.”
    Simon was sure that his own curiosity at least
equaled hers, and by now it involved much more than the simple questions
of why she was so anxious to avoid her father, and why a certain pair
of rather bumbling bloodhounds were so anxious to have her not avoid them.
Two or three obvious explanations were at the top of his consciousness, but something told him that where Mildred was involved the
obvious could never be automatically taken on trust.
    He was content with the way things were
going, though, and saw no reason to push the natural unfolding of events.
The peace of his holiday was probably irre trievably lost, but
peace had been replaced by the fas cination of a Chinese magician’s
puzzle, in which illusion and reality were intriguingly mixed. Simon
hoped, as a matter of fact, that the sleight-of-hand would not be entirely
unmasked too soon. To be involved as he was gave the thrill of
baiting a trout with a little brightly colored imitation of
life on the rippled surface of a stream.
    It required patience, but a man of Simon Templar’s
relaxed