The Saint yawned, stretched himself like a cat, and saw with half-closed eyes that a stream of sunlight was pouring in through the embrasure which did duty for a window. The optimism of Orace being justified, Simon Templar sighed, stretched himself again, and after a moment’s indecision leapt out of bed. He shaved rapidly, sipping his tea in between whiles, and then pulled on a bathing costume and went out into the sun, picking up a length of rope on his way out. He skipped energetically on the grass outside for fifteen minutes. Then he shadow-boxed for five minutes. Then he grabbed a towel, knotted it loosely round his neck, sprinted the couple of dozen yards that lay between the Pill Box and the edge of the cliff, and coolly swung himself over the edge. A hundred and fifty foot drop lay beneath him, but handholds were plentiful, and he descended to the beach as nonchalantly as he would have descended a flight of stairs. The water was rippling calm. He covered a quarter of a mile at racing speed, turned on his back and paddled lazily shorewards, finishing the last hundred yards like a champion. Then he lay at the edge of the surf, basking in the strengthening sun. All these things he had done as regularly on the two previous mornings, and he was languidly pondering the deadliness of regular habits when the thing happened that proved to him quite conclusively that regular habits could be more literally deadly than he had allowed for. _Phhhew-wuk!_ Something sang past his ear, and the pebble at which he had been staring in an absent-minded sort of way leapt sideways and was left with a silvery streak scored across it, while the thing that had sang changed its note and went whining seawards. “Bad luck, sonny,” murmured the Saint mildly. “Only a couple of inches out. . . .” But he was on his feet before the sound of the shot had reached him. He was on one of the arms of the bay, which was roughly semi-circular. The village was in the centre of the arc. A quick calculation told him that the bullet had come from some point on the cliff between the Pill Box and the village, but he could see nothing on the skyline. A moment later a frantic silhouette appeared at the top of the tor, and the voice of Orace hailed down an anxious query. The Saint waved his towel in response and, making for the foot of the cliff, began to climb up again. He accomplished the difficult ascent with no apparent effort, quite unperturbed by the thought that the unknown sniper might essay a second round. And presently the Saint stood on the grass above, hands on hips, gazing keenly down the slope towards the spot where the bullet had seemed to come from. A quarter of a mile away was a broad clump of low bushes; beyond the copse, he knew, was a cart-track leading down to the village. The Saint shrugged and turned to Orace, who had been fuming and fidgeting around him. “The Tiger knows his stuff,” remarked Simon Templar with a kind of admiration.