The benevolent burglary
"Louis Umbert?" Simon Templar repeated vaguely. "I don't know…. I think 1 read something about him in a newspaper some time ago, but I'm blowed if I can remember what it was. I can't keep track of every small-time crook in creation. What's he been doing?"
"I just thought you might know something about him," Chief Inspector Teal answered evasively.
He sat on the edge of a chair and turned his bowler hat in his pudgy hands, looking almost comically like an elephantine edition of an office-boy trying to put over a new excuse for taking an afternoon off. He glowered ferociously around the sunny room in which Simon was calmly continuing to eat breakfast, and racked his brain for inspiration to keep the interview going.
For the truth was that Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal had not called on the Saint for information about Mr. Louis Umbert. Or anybody else in the same category. He had a highly efficient Records Office at his disposal down at Scotland Yard, which was maintained for the sole purpose of answering questions like that. The name was simply an excuse that he had grabbed out of his head while he was on his way up in the lift. Because there was really only one lawbreaker about whom Teal needed to go to Simon Templar for information — and that was the Saint himself.
Not that even that was likely to be very profitable, either; but Teal couldn't help it. He made the pilgrimage in the same spirit as a man who had lived under the shadow of a volcano that had been quiescent for some time might climb up to peep into the crater, with the fond hope that it might be good enough to tell him when and how it next intended to erupt. He knew he was only making a fool of himself; but that was only part of the cross he had to bear. There were times when, however hard he tried to master them, the thoughts of all the lawless mischief which that tireless buccaneer might be cooking up in secret filled his mind with such horrific nightmares that he had to do something about them or explode. The trouble was that the only thing he could think of doing was to go and have another look at the Saint in person, as if he hoped that he would be lucky enough to arrive at the very moment when Simon had decided to write out his plans on a large board and wear them hung round his neck. The knowledge of his own futility raised Mr. Teal's blood pressure to the point that actively endangered his health; but he could no more have kept himself away from the Saint's apartment, when one of those fits of morbid uneasiness seized him, than he could have danced in a ballet.
He stuck a piece of chewing gum into his mouth and bit on it with massive violence, knowing perfectly well that the Saint knew exactly what was the matter with him, and that the Saint was probably trying politely not to laugh out loud. His smouldering eyes swivelled back to the Saint with belligerent defiance. If he caught so much as the shadow of a grin on that infernally handsome face…
But the Saint wasn't grinning. He wasn't paying any particular attention to Teal at all. He was reading his newspaper again; and Teal heard him murmur: "Well, isn't that interesting?"
"Isn't what interesting?" growled the detective aggressively.
Simon folded the sheet.
"I see that the public is invited to an exhibition of Mr. Elliot Vascoe's art treasures at Mr. Vascoe's house in Hammersmith. Admission will be five shillings, and all the proceeds will go to charity. The exhibition will be opened by Princess Eunice of Greece."
Teal stiffened. He had the dizzy sense of unreality that would overwhelm a man who had been day-dreaming about what he would do if his uncle suddenly died and left him a million pounds, if a man walked straight into his office and said, "Your uncle has died and left you a million pounds."
"Were you thinking of taking over any of those art treasures?" he inquired menacingly. "Because if you were—"
"I've often thought about it," said the Saint shamelessly. "I think it's a crime for Vascoe to have so many of them. He doesn't know any more about art than a cow in a field, but he's got enough dough to buy anything his advisers tell him is worth buying, and it gives him something to swank about. It would be an act of virtue to take over his collection; but I suppose you wouldn't see it that way."
Mr. Teal's brow blackened. He could hardly believe his ears, and if he had stopped to think he wouldn't have believed them. He didn't stop.
"No, I wouldn't!" he squeaked. "Now get this, Saint. You can get away with just so much of your line and no more. You're going to leave Vascoe's exhibition alone, or by God—"
"Of course I'm going to leave it alone," said the Saint mildly. "My paths are the paths of righteousness, and my ways are the ways of peace. You know me, Claud. Vascoe will get what's coming to him in due time, but who am I to take it upon myself to dish it out?"
"You said—"
"I said that I'd often thought about taking over some of his art treasures. But is it a crime to think? If it was, there'd be more criminals than you could build jails for. Pass the marmalade. And try not to look so disappointed." The mockery in Simon's blue eyes was bright enough now for even Teal to realise that the Saint was deliberately taking him over the jumps once again. "Anyone might think you wanted me to turn into a crook — and is that the right attitude for a policeman to have?"
Between Simon Templar and Mr. Elliot Vascoe, millionaire and self-styled art connoisseur, no love at all was lost. Simon disliked Vascoe on principle, because he disliked all fat loudmouthed parvenus who took care to obtain great publicity for their charitable works while they practised all kinds of small meannesses on their employees. Vascoe hated the Saint because Simon had once happened to witness a motor accident in which Vascoe was driving and a child was injured, and Vascoe had made the mistake of offering Simon a hundred pounds to forget what he had seen. That grievous error had not only failed to save Mr. Vascoe a penny of the fines and damages which he was subsequently compelled to pay, but it had earned him a punch on the nose which he need not otherwise have suffered.
Vascoe had made his money quickly, and the curse of the nouveau riche had fallen upon him. Himself debarred for ever from the possibility of being a gentleman, either by birth or breeding or native temperament, he had made up for it by carrying snobbery to new and rarely equalled heights. Besides works of art, he collected titles: for high-sounding names, and all the more obvious trappings of nobility, he had an almost fawning adoration. Therefore he provided lavish entertainment for any undiscriminating notables whom he could lure into his house with the attractions of his Parisian chef and his very excellent wine cellar, and contrived to get his name bracketed with those who were more discriminating by angling for them with the bait of charity, which it was difficult for them to refuse.
In a great many ways, Mr. Elliot Vascoe was the type of man whose excessive wealth would have been a natural target for one of the Saint's raids on those undesirable citizens whom he included in the comprehensive and descriptive classification of 'the ungodly'; but the truth is that up till then the Saint had never been interested enough to do anything about it. There were many other undesirable citizens whose unpleasantness was no less immune from the cumbersome interference of the Law, but whose villainies were on a larger scale and whose continued putrescence was a more blatant challenge to the Saint's self-appointed mission of justice. With so much egregiously inviting material lying ready to hand, it was perhaps natural that Simon should feel himself entitled to pick and choose, should tend to be what some critics might have called a trifle finicky in his selection of the specimens of ungodliness to be bopped on the bazook. He couldn't use all of them, much as he would have liked to.
But in Simon Templar's impulsive life there was a factor of Destiny that was always taking such decisions out of his hands. Anyone with a less sublime faith in his guiding star might have called it Coincidence, but to the Saint that word was merely a chicken-hearted half truth. Certain things were ordained; and when the signs pointed there was no turning back.
Two days after Teal's warning he was speeding back to the city after an afternoon's swimming and basking in the sun at the Oatlands Park pool, when he saw a small coupe of rather ancient vintage standing by the roadside. The bonnet of the coupй was open, and a young man was very busy with the engine: he seemed to be considerably flustered, and from the quantity of oil on his face and forearms the success of his efforts seemed to bear no relation to the amount of energy he had put into them. Near the car stood a remarkably pretty girl, and she was what really caught the Saint's eye. She seemed distressed and frightened, twisting her hands nervously together arid looking as if she was on the verge of tears.
Simon had flashed past before he realised that he knew her — he had met her at a dance some weeks before. His distaste for Mr. Elliot Vascoe did not apply to Vascoe's slim auburn-haired daughter, whom Simon would have been prepared to put forward in any company as a triumphant refutation of the theories of heredity. He jammed on his brakes and backed up to the breakdown.
"Hullo, Meryl," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"
"If you can make this Chinese washing machine go," said the young man, raising his smeared face from the bowels of the engine, "you are not only a better man than I am, but I expect you can invent linotypes in your sleep."
"This is Mr. Fulton — Mr. Templar." The girl made the introduction with breathless haste. "We've been here for three-quarters of an hour—"
The Saint started to get out.
"I never was much of a mechanic," he murmured. "But if I can unscrew anything or screw anything up…"
"That wouldn't be any good — Bill knows everything about cars, and he's already taken it to pieces twice." The girl's voice was shaky with dawning hope. "But if you could take me home yourself… I've simply got to be back before seven! Do you think you could do it?"
Her tone was so frantic that she made it sound like a matter of life and death.
Simon glanced at his watch, and at the milometer on the dashboard. It would be about fifteen miles to Hammersmith, and it was less than twenty minutes to seven.
"I can try," he said, and turned to Fulton. "What about you — will you come on this death-defying ride?"
Fulton shook his head. He was a few years older than the girl, and Simon liked the clean-cut good looks of him.
"Don't worry about me," he said. "You try to get Meryl back. I'm going to make this prehistoric wreck move under its own steam if I stay here all night."
Meryl Vascoe was already in the Saint's car; and Simon returned to the wheel with a grin and a shrug. For a little while he was completely occupied with finding out just how high an unlawful speed he could make through traffic. When the Saint set out to do some fast travelling it was a hair-raising performance: but Meryl Vascoe's hair was fortunately raise-proof. She spent some minutes repairing various imperceptible details of her almost flawless face, and then she touched his knee anxiously.
"When we get there, just put me down at the comer," she said. "I'll run the rest of the way. You see, if Father saw you drive up to the door he'd be sure to ask questions."
" 'What are you doing with that scoundrel?' " Simon said melodramatically. " 'Don't you know that he can't be trusted with a decent woman?' "
She laughed.
"That isn't what I'm worried about," she said. "Though I don't suppose he'd be very enthusiastic about our being together — I haven't forgotten what a scene we had about that dance where you picked me up and took me off to the Cafй de Paris for the rest of the night. But the point is that I don't want him to know that I've been out driving at all."
"Why not?" asked the Saint, reasonably. "The sun is shining. London is beginning to develop its summer smell. What could you do that would be better and healthier than taking a day in the country?"
She looked at him guardedly, hesitating.
"Well — then I ought to have gone out in my own car, with one of the chauffeurs. But he'd be furious if he knew I'd been out with Bill Fulton, so when I went out this afternoon I told him that I was going shopping with an old school friend."
Simon groaned.
"That old school friend — she does work long hours," he protested. "I should have thought you could have invented something better than that. However, I take it that Papa doesn't like Bill Fulton, and you do, so you meet him on the quiet. That's sensible enough. But what's your father got against him? He looked good enough to me. Does he wash, or something?"
"You don't have to insult my father when I'm listening," she said stiffly; and then, in another moment, the emotions inside overcame her loyalty. "I suppose it's because Bill isn't rich and hasn't got a title or anything… And then there's the Comte de Beaucroix "
Simon swerved the car dizzily under the arm of a policeman who was trying to hold them up.
"Who?" he demanded.
"The Comte de Beaucroix — he's staying with us just now. He had to go and see some lawyers this afternoon, but he'll be back for dinner; and if I'm not home and dressed when they ring the gong, Father 'll have a fit."
"Poor little rich girl," said the Saint sympathetically. "So you have to dash home to play hostess to another of your father's expensive phonies."
"Oh no; this one's perfectly genuine. He's quite nice, really, only he's so wet. But Father's been caught too often before. He got hold of this Count's passport and took it down to the French Consulate, and they said it was quite all right."
"The idea being," Simon commented shrewdly, "that Papa doesn't want any comebacks after he's made you the Comtesse de Beaucroix."
She didn't answer at once; and Simon himself was busy with the task of passing a truck on the wrong side, whizzing over a crossing while the lights changed from amber to red, and making a skidding turn under the nose of a taxi at the next red light. But there was some queer gift of humanity about him that had always had an uncanny knack of unlocking other people's conventional reserves; and besides, they had once danced together and talked much delightful nonsense while all the conventional inhabitants of London slept.
She found herself saying: "You see, all Bill's got is his radio business, and he's invented a new valve that's going to make him a fortune; but I got Father to lend him the five thousand pounds Bill needed to develop it. Father gave him the money, but he made Bill sign a sort of mortgage that gave Father the right to take his invention away from him if the money wasn't paid back. Now Father says that if Bill tries to marry me he'll foreclose, and Bill wouldn't have anything left. I know how Bill's getting on and I know if he only has a few months more he'll be able to pay Father back ten times over."
"Can't you wait those few months?" asked the Saint. "If Bill's on to something as good as that—"
She shook her head.
"But Father says that if I don't marry the Comte de Beaucroix as soon as he asks me to — and I know he's going to — he'll foreclose on Bill anyway, and Bill won't get a penny for all his work." Her voice broke, and when Simon glanced at her quickly he saw the shine of tears in her eyes. "Bill doesn't know — if you tell him, I'll kill you! But he can't understand what's the matter with me. And I–I—" Her lovely face tightened with a strange bitterness. "I always thought these things only happened in pictures," she said huskily. "How can any man be like that?"
"You wouldn't know, darling," said the Saint gently.
That was all he said at the time; but at the same moment he resolved that he would invest five of his shillings in an admission to Mr. Elliot Vascoe's exhibition. Certain things were indubitably Ordained…
He arrived just after the official opening, on the first day. The rooms in which the exhibition was being held were crowded with aspiring and perspiring socialites, lured there either in the hope of collecting one of Mr. Vascoe's bacchanalian invitations to dinner, or because they hoped to be recognised by other socialites, or because they hoped to be mistaken for connoisseurs of Art, or just because they hadn't the courage to let anyone think that they couldn't spend five shillings on charity just as easily as anyone else. Simon Templar shouldered his way through them until he sighted Vascoe. He had done some thinking since he drove Meryl home, and it had only confirmed him in his conviction that Nemesis was due to overtake Mr. Vascoe at last. At the same time, Simon saw no reason why he shouldn't deal himself in on the party.
With Vascoe and Meryl was a tall and immaculately dressed young man with a pink face whose amiable stupidity was accentuated by a chin that began too late and a forehead that stopped too soon. Simon had no difficulty in identifying him as the Comte de Beaucroix, and that was how Meryl introduced him before Vascoe turned round and recognised his unwelcome visitor.
"How did you get in here?" he brayed.
"Through the front door," said the Saint genially. "I put down my five bob, and they told me to walk right in. It's a public exhibition, I believe. Did you come in on a free pass?"
Vascoe recovered himselfwith difficulty, but his large face remained an ugly purple.
"Come to have a look round, have you?" he asked offensively. "Well, you can look as much as you like. I flatter myself this place is burglar-proof."
Meryl turned white; and the Count tittered. Other guests who were within earshot hovered expectantly — some of them, one might almost have thought, hopefully. But if they were waiting for a prompt and swift outbreak of violence, or even a sharp and candid repartee, they were doomed to disappointment. The Saint smiled with unruffled good humour.
"Burglar-proof, is it?" he said tolerantly. "You really think it's burglar-proof. Well, well, well!" He patted Mr. Vascoe's bald head affectionately. "Now I'll tell you what I'll do, Fatty. I'll bet you five thousand pounds it's burgled within a week."
For a moment Vascoe seemed to be in a tangle with his own vocal chords. He could only stand and gasp like a fish.
"You — you have the effrontery to come here and tell me you're going to burgle my house?" he spluttered. "You — you ruffian! I'll have you handed over to the police! I never heard of such — such — such—"
"I haven't committed any crime yet, that I know of," said the Saint patiently. "I'm simply offering you a sporting bet. Of course, if you're frightened of losing—"
"Such God-damned insolence!" howled Vascoe furiously. "I've got detectives here—"
He looked wildly around for them.
"Or if five thousand quid is too much for you," Simon continued imperturbably.
"I'll take your five thousand pounds," Vascoe retorted viciously. "If you've got that much money. I'd be glad to break you as well as see you sent to jail. And if anything happens after this, the police will know who to look for!"
"That will be quite a change for them," said the Saint.
"And now, in the circumstances, I think we ought to have a stakeholder."
He scanned the circle of faces that had gathered round them, and singled out a dark cadaverous-looking man who was absorbing the scene from the background with an air of disillusioned melancholy.
"I see Morgan Dean of the Daily Mail over there," he said. "Suppose we each give him our cheques for five thousand pounds. He can pay them into his own bank, and write a cheque for ten thousand when the bet's settled. Then there won't be any difficulty about the winner collecting. What about it, Dean?"
The columnist rubbed his chin.
"Sure," he drawled lugubriously. "My bank 'll probably die of shock, but I'll chance it."
"Then we're all set," said the Saint, taking out his cheque-book. "Unless Mr. Vascoe wants to back out—"
Mr. Vascoe stared venomously from face to face. It was dawning on him that he was in a corner. If he had seen the faintest encouragement anywhere to laugh off the situation, he would have grabbed at the opportunity with both hands; but he looked for the encouragement in vain. He hadn't a single real friend in the room, and he was realist enough to know it. Already he could see heads being put together, could hear whispers… He knew just what would be said if he backed down… and Morgan Dean would put the story on the front page —
Vascoe drew himself up, and a malignant glitter came into his small eyes.
"It suits me," he said swaggeringly. "Mr. Dean will have my check this afternoon."
He stalked away, still fuming; and Morgan Dean's long sad face came closer to the Saint.
"Son," he said, "I like a good story as much as anyone. And I like you. And nobody 'd cheer louder than me if Vascoe took a toss. But don't you think you've bitten off more than you can chew? I know how much Vascoe loves you, and I'd say he'd almost be glad to spend five thousand pounds to see you in jail. Besides, it wouldn't do you any good. You couldn't sell stuff like this."
"You could sell it without the slightest trouble," Simon contradicted him. "There are any number of collectors who aren't particular how they make their collections, and who don't care if they can't show them to the public. And I've never been in jail, anyway — one ought to try everything once."
He spent the next hour going slowly round the exhibition, making careful written notes about the exhibits in his catalogue, while Vascoe watched him with his rage rising to the brink of apoplexy. He also examined all the windows and showcases, taking measurements and drawing diagrams with a darkly conspiratorial air, and only appearing to notice the existence of the two obvious detectives who followed him everywhere when he politely asked them not to breathe so heavily down his neck.
Teal saw the headlines, and nearly blew all the windows out of Scotland Yard. He burst into the Saint's apartment like a whirling dervish.
"What's the meaning of this?" he bugled brassily, thrusting a crumpled copy of the Daily Mail under the Saint's nose. "Come on — what is it?"
Simon looked at the quivering sheet.
" 'Film Star Says She Prefers Love'," he read from it innocently. "Well, I suppose it means just that, Claud. Some people are funny that way."
"I mean this!" blared the detective, dabbing at Morgan Dean's headline with a stubby forefinger. "I've warned you once, Templar; and by God if you try to win this bet I'll get you for it if it's the last thing I do!"
The Saint lighted a cigarette and leaned back.
"Aren't you being just a little bit hasty?" he inquired reasonably; but his blue eyes were twinkling with imps of mockery that sent cold shivers up and down the detective's spine. "All I've done is to bet that there'll be a burglary at Vascoe's within the week. It may be unusual, but is it criminal? If I were an insurance company—"
"You aren't an insurance company," Teal said pungently. "But you wouldn't make a bet like that if you thought there was any risk of losing it."
"That's true. But that still doesn't make me a burglar. Maybe I was hoping to put the idea into somebody else's head. Now if you want to give your nasty suspicious mind something useful to work on, why don't you find out something about Vascoe's insurance?"
For a moment the audacity of the suggestion took Teal's breath away. And then incredulity returned to his rescue.
"Yes — and see if I can catch him burgling his own house so he can lose five thousand pounds!" he hooted. "Do you know what would happen if I let my suspicious mind have its own way? I'd have you arrested as a suspected person and keep you locked up for the rest of the week!"
The Saint nodded enthusiastically.
"Why don't you do that?" he suggested. "It'd give me a gorgeous alibi."
Teal glared at him thoughtfully. The temptation to take the Saint at his word was almost overpowering. But the tantalising twinkle in the Saint's eyes, and the memory of many past encounters with the satanic guile of that debonair freebooter, filled Teal's heated brain with a gnawing uneasiness that paralysed him. The Saint must have considered that contingency: if Teal carried out his threat, he might be doing the very thing that the Saint expected and wanted him to do — he might be walking straight into a baited trap that would elevate him to new pinnacles of ridiculousness before it turned him loose. The thought made him go hot and cold all over.
Which was exactly what Simon meant it to do.
"When I put you in the cooler," Teal proclaimed loudly, "you're going to stay there for more than a week."
He stormed out of the apartment and went to interview Vascoe.
"With your permission, sir," he said, "I'd like to post enough men round this house to make it impossible for a mouse to get in."
Vascoe shook his head.
"I haven't asked for protection," he said coldly. "If you did that, the Saint would be forced to abandon the attempt. I should prefer him to make it. The Ingerbeck Agency is already employed to protect my collection. There are two armed guards in the house all day, and another man on duty all night. And the place is fitted with the latest burglar alarms. The only way it could be successfully robbed would be by an armed gang, and we know that the Saint doesn't work that way. No, Inspector. Let him get in. He won't find it so easy to get out again. And then I'll be very glad to send for you."
Teal argued, but Vascoe was obstinate. He almost succeeded in convincing the detective of the soundness of his reasoning. There would be no triumph or glory in merely preventing the Saint from getting near the house; but to catch him red-handed would be something else again. Nevertheless, Teal would have felt happier if he could have convinced himselfthat the Saint was possible to catch.
"At least, you'd better let me post one of my own men outside," he said.
"You will do nothing of the sort," Vascoe said curtly. "The Saint would recognise him a mile off. The police have had plenty of opportunities to catch him before this, and I don't remember your making any brilliant use of them."
Teal left the house in an even sourer temper than he had entered it, and if he had been a private individual he would have assured himself that anything that happened to Vascoe or his art treasures would be richly deserved. Unfortunately his duty didn't allow him to dispose of the matter so easily. He had another stormy interview with the Assistant Commissioner, who for the first time in history was sympathetic.
"You've done everything you could, Mr. Teal," he said. "If Vascoe refuses to give us any assistance, he can't expect much."
"The trouble is that if anything goes wrong, that won't stop him squawking," Teal said gloomily.
Of all the persons concerned, Simon Templar was probably the most untroubled. For two days he peacefully followed the trivial rounds of his normal law-abiding life; and the plain-clothes men whom Teal had set to watch him, in spite of his instructions, grew bored with their vigil.
At about two o'clock in the morning of the third day his telephone rang.
"This is Miss Vascoe's chauffeur, sir," said the caller. "She couldn't reach a telephone herself, so she asked me to speak to you. She said that she must see you."
Simon's blood ran a shade faster — he had been half expecting such a call.
"When and where?" he asked crisply.
"If you can be in Regent's Park near the Zoo entrance in an hour's time, sir — she'll get there as soon as she has a chance to slip away."
"Tell her I'll be there," said the Saint.
He hung up the instrument and looked out of the window. On the opposite pavement, a man paced wearily up and down, as he had done for two nights before, wondering why he should have been chosen for a job that kept him out of bed to so little purpose.
But on this particular night the monotony of the sleuth's existence was destined to be relieved. He followed his quarry on a brief walk which led to Soho and into one of the many night haunts which crowd a certain section of that fevered district, where the Saint was promptly ushered to a favoured table by a beaming head waiter. The sleuth, being an unknown and unprofitable-looking stranger, was ungraciously hustled into an obscure corner. The Saint sipped a drink and watched the dancing for a few minutes, and then got up and sauntered back through the darkened room towards the exit. The sleuth, noting with a practised eye that he had still left three-quarters of his drink and a fresh packet of cigarettes on the table, and that he had neither asked for nor paid a bill, made the obvious deduction and waited without anxiety for his return. After a quarter of an hour he began to have faint doubts of his wisdom; after half an hour he began to sweat; and in forty-five minutes he was in a panic. The lavatory attendant didn't remember noticing the Saint, and certainly he wasn't in sight when the detective arrived; the doorman was quite certain that he had gone out nearly an hour ago, because he had left him ten shillings to pay the waiter.
An angry and somewhat uncomfortable sleuth went back to the Saint's address and waited for some time in agony before the object of his attention came home. As soon as he was relieved at eight o'clock, he telephoned headquarters to report the tragedy; but by then it was too late.
Chief Inspector Teal's eyes swept scorchingly over the company that had collected in Vascoe's drawing-room. It consisted of Elliot Vascoe himself, Meryl, the Comte de Beaucroix, an assortment of servants, and the night guard from Ingerbeck. "I might have known what to expect," he complained savagely. "You wouldn't help me to prevent anything like this happening, but after it's happened you expect me to clean up the mess. It'd serve you right if I told you to let your precious Ingerbeck do the cleaning up. If the Saint was here now—"
He broke off, with his jaw dropping and his eyes rounding into reddened buttons of half-unbelieving wrath.
The Saint was there. He was drifting through the door like a pirate entering a captured city, with an impotently protesting butler fluttering behind him like a flustered vulture — sauntering coolly in with a cigarette between his lips and blithe brows slanted banteringly over humorous blue eyes. He nodded to Meryl, and smiled over the rest of the congregation.
"Hullo, souls," he murmured. "I heard I'd won my bet, I toddled over to make sure."
For a moment Vascoe himself was gripped in the general petrification; and then he stepped forward, his face crimson with fury.
"There you are," he burst out incoherently. "You come here — you — There's your man, Inspector. Arrest him!"
Teal's mouth clamped up again.
"You don't have to tell me," he said grimly.
"And just why," Simon inquired lazily, as the detective — moved towards him, "am I supposed to be arrested?"
"Why?" screamed the millionaire. "You — you stand there and ask why? I'll tell you why! Because you've been too clever for once, Mr. Smarty. You said you were going to burgle this house, and you've done it — and now you're going to prison where you belong!"
The Saint leaned back against an armchair, ignoring the handcuffs that Teal was dragging from his pocket.
"Those are harsh words, Comrade," he remarked reproachfully. "Very harsh. In fact, I'm not sure that they wouldn't be actionable. I must ask my lawyer. But would anybody mind telling me what makes you so sure that I did this job?"
"I'll tell you why," Teal spoke. "Last night the guard got tired of working so hard and dozed off for a while." He shot a smoking glance at the wretched private detective who was trying to obliterate himself behind the larger members of the crowd. "When he woke up again, somebody had opened that window, cut the alarms, opened that centre showcase, and taken about twenty thousand pounds' worth of small stuff out of it. And that somebody couldn't resist leaving his signature." He jerked out a piece of Vascoe's own notepaper, on which had been drawn a spidery skeleton figure with an elliptical halo poised at a rakish angle over its round blank head. "You wouldn't recognise it, would you?" Teal jeered sarcastically.
Even so, his voice was louder that it need have been. For in spite of everything, at the back of his mind there was a horrible little doubt. The Saint had tricked him so many times, had led him up the garden path so often and then left him freezing in the snow, that he couldn't make himself believe that anything was certain. And that horrible doubt made his head swim as he saw the Saint's critical eyes rest on the drawing.
"Oh, yes," said the Saint patiently. "I can see what it's meant to be. And now I suppose you'd like me to give an account of my movements last night."
"If you're thinking of putting over another of your patent alibis," Teal said incandescently, "let me tell you before you start that I've already heard how you slipped the man I had watching you — just about the time that this job was done."
Simon nodded.
"You see," he said, "I had a 'phone message that Miss Vascoe wanted to see me very urgently, and I was to meet her at the entrance of the Zoo in Regent's Park."
The girl gasped as everyone suddenly looked at her.
"But Simon — I didn't—"
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Teal's eyes lighted with triumph as they swung back to the Saint.
"That's fine," he said exultantly. "And Miss Vascoe doesn't know anything about it. So who else is going to testify that you spent your time waiting there — the man in the moon?"
"No," said the Saint. "Because I didn't go there."
Teal's eyes narrowed with the fog that was starting to creep into his brain.
"Well, what—"
"I was expecting some sort of call like that," said the Saint. "I knew somebody was going to knock off this exhibition — after the bet I'd made with Vascoe, the chance of getting away with it and having me to take the rap was too good to miss. I meant it to look good — that's why I made the bet. But of course, our friend had to be sure I wouldn't have an alibi, and he was pretty cunning about it. He guessed that you'd be having me shadowed, but he knew that a message like he sent me would make me shake my shadow. And then I'd have a fine time trying to prove that I spent an hour or so standing outside the Zoo at that hour of the night. Only I'm pretty cunning myself, when I think about it; so I didn't go. I came here instead."
Teal's mouth opened again.
"You—"
"What are we wasting time for?" snorted Vascoe. "He admits he was here—"
"I was here," said the Saint coolly. "You know how the back of the house goes practically down to the river, and you have a little private garden there and a landing stage? I knew that if anything was happening, it'd happen on that side — it'd be too risky to do anything on the street frontage, where anybody might come by and see it. Well, things were happening. There was a man out there, but I beat him over the head and tied him up before he could make a noise. Then I waited around; and somebody opened the window from inside and threw out a parcel. So I picked it up and took it home. Here it is."
He took it out of his hip pocket — it was a very large parcel, and the bulge would have been easy to notice if anyone had got behind him.
Vascoe let out a hoarse yell, jumped at it, and wrenched it out of his hands. He ripped it open with clawing fingers.
"My miniatures!" he sobbed. "My medallions — my cameos! My—"
"Here, wait a minute!"
Teal thrust himself forward again, taking possession of the package. For a second or two the denouement had blown him sky-high, turned him upside down, and left him with the feeling that the pit of his stomach had suddenly gone away on an unauthorised vacation; but now he had his bearings again. He faced the Saint with homicidal determination.
"It's a fine story," he said raspily. "But this is one time you're not going to get away with it. Yes, I get the idea. You pull the job so you can win your bet, and then you bring the stuff back with that fairy tale and think everything's going to be all right. Well, you're not going to get away with it! What happened to the fellow you say you knocked out and tied up, and who else saw him, and who else saw all these things happen?"
The Saint smiled.
"I left him locked up in the garage," he said. "He's probably still there. As for who else saw him, Martin Ingerbeck was with me."
"Who?"
"Ingerbeck himself. The detective bloke. You see, I happened to help him with a job once, so I didn't see why I shouldn't help him with another.{See Saint Overboard (a PAN Book).} So as soon as I guessed what was going to happen I called him up, and he met me at once and came along with me. He even recognised the bloke who opened the window, too."
"And who was that?" Teal demanded derisively; but somehow his derision sounded hollow.
The Saint bowed.
"I'm afraid," he said, "it was the Comte de Beaucroix."
The Count stared at him pallidly.
"I think you must be mad," he said.
"It's preposterous!" spluttered Vascoe. "I happen to have made every inquiry about the Comte de Beaucroix. There isn't the slightest doubt that he's—"
"Of course he is," said the Saint calmly. "But he wasn't always. They do it the same way in France as we do in England — a fellow can go around with one name for most of his life, and then he inherits a title and changes his name without any legal formalities. It's funny that you should have been asking me about him, Claud. His name used to be Louis Umbert. As soon as Meryl mentioned the Comte de Beaucroix, I remembered what it was that I'd read about him in the papers. I'd noticed that he came into the title when his uncle died. That's why I thought something like this might happen, and that's why I made that bet with Vascoe."
The night guard fizzed suddenly out of retirement.
"That's right!" he exploded excitedly. "I'll bet it was him.
I wondered why I went off to sleep like that. Well, about two o'clock he came downstairs — said he was looking for something to read because he couldn't get to sleep — and got me to have a drink with him. It was just after he went upstairs again that I fell off. That drink must 've been doped!"
De Beaucroix looked from side to side, and his face twitched. He made a sudden grab at his pocket; but Teal was too quick for him.
Simon Templar hitched himself off the armchair as the brief scuffle subsided.
"Well, that seems to be that," he observed languidly. "You'll have to wait for another chance, Claud. Go home and take some lessons in detecting, and you may do better next time." He looked at Vascoe. "I'll see my lawyers later and find out what sort of a suit we can cook up on account of all the rude things you've been saying, but meanwhile I'll collect my check from Morgan Dean." Then he turned to Meryl. "I'm going to lend Bill Fulton the profits to pay off his debts with," he said. "I shall expect a small interest in his invention, and a large slice of wedding cake."
Before she could say anything he was gone. Thanks didn't interest him: he wanted breakfast