If there was any joke in sight it was beyond the range of Mr Teal's sense of humour. He stood clinging to the telephone like a drowning man attached to a waterlogged straw. However it had been managed, somehow it had been done again: the Saint had been right in his hands and had slipped through them like a trickle of water. It was impossible, incredible, inhuman, unfair, unjust — but it had happened. Teal's head buzzed with the petrifying impact of the blow. He swallowed voicelessly, trying to think of something to say or do, but his brain seemed to be taking a temporary siesta. All he could think of was that he wanted to find some peaceful place in which to die. And at the same time he was bitterly aware that the Saint would probably still be capable of making him turn in his grave.
The Saint had enough confirmation of his hunch in the expression on Mr Teal's stricken face. He took the receiver gently out of the detective's hand and placed it to his own ear.
"I was half expecting you to ring, fair lady," he said easily. "If ever we meet again I hope you will make full compensation for that look you gave me—"
"I just told you, Mr Templar, that it was only a silly joke," interrupted the girl's breathless voice. "Please forget all about it."
"That's not so easy. If there's anything I could do to help—"
"Help?" The girl forced a laugh, and to the Saint it sounded almost hysterical. "Why should I want any help? It was just an idiotic practical joke, and it went wrong. That's all, Mr Templar. I'm afraid I made a dreadful little fool of myself, and I shall be eternally grateful if you'll forget the whole thing."
"Is it as bad as that, darling?" Simon asked softly. "Because—"
"Thank you so much, Mr Templar. Good-bye."
Simon slid a cigarette into his mouth as he turned away from the instrument. In the fuliginous silence that followed, as the Saint lighted his smoke, Chief Inspector Teal's pudgy fingers slowly and laboriously unwrapped a fresh wafer of spearmint. Mr Teal was making a game effort to recover his composure, and it was brutally hard going. He was tied in a knot, and he knew it. It was an old, old knot, and he was familiar with every twist of it. Once again he had believed that triumph was within his grasp, and once again that debonair outlaw had cheated him. And it would happen again and again and again and forever. The knowledge percolated into Mr Teal's interior like a liquid cannon ball, solidifying into its original shape in the lower region of his stomach. He thrust the wafer of gum into his mouth and glared murderously at the unemotional Sergeant Barrow.
"Well?" he demanded sulphurously. "What are we waiting for?"
"Don't take it so much to heart, Claud, old dear," said the Saint, his voice surprisingly innocent of raillery. "Don't be in a hurry to dash off either. You're not bursting with anxiety to have that chat with the assistant commissioner, are you? I'm not going to prod you in the waistcoat—"
"You'd better not try!" said Mr Teal hoarsely as he shifted his ample paunch well out of range of the Saint's questing forefinger.
"Have a drink, and let's get together," pleaded the Saint. "The mistake you made was natural enough — and if the worst comes to the worst you can always shove the blame onto Sergeant Barrow. You probably will anyhow. Hut that doesn't make it up to me. The thing which pains me is that you should have mistaken me for this bird of prey who calls himself the Z-Man. A bloke who can cause a girl full of charm and glamour and a hard-boiled detective to frizzle me with a couple of looks like the interior of a sewage incinerator must be pretty epizootic. Tell me, Claud, who is this descendant of Dracula?"
But something else had settled upon Mr Teal's tortured presence — something oddly stubborn and impenetrable that didn't fit in with his earlier demonstrations any more than it belonged to the stunned paralysis which had since overcome him. It was as if he had drawn back inside himself and locked a door.
"Forget it," he said stonily.
"I can't forget something 1 don't know. Be reasonable, dear old nitwit. It's only fair to me—"
"I don't know anything about the Z-Man, and nobody else knows anything about the Z-Man," Teal said deliberately. "I was just trying to be funny. Understand?"
He nodded sleepily, jerked his head towards Sergeant Barrow, and they both left. As the front door gave a vicious slam Hoppy Uniatz reached for the whisky decanter and thrust the neck of it into his capacious mouth.
"Boss," he said, coming to the surface, "I don't get nut'n."
"Except the whisky," murmured the Saint, rescuing the decanter. "For once, Hoppy, I'm right in your street. I don't get nut'n either."
"Why ja let dem bums get away wit' it?" asked Mr Uniatz discontentedly. "Dey got a noive, bustin' in like dat. Say, if we knew some politicians we could have dose mugs walkin' a beat again so fast—"
Simon was not listening. He was pacing up and down like a tiger, inhaling deeply from his cigarette; and as Mr Uniatz watched him a slow smile of appreciation illuminated his homely face. He could see that his boss was thinking, and, knowing from his own experience what a painful ordeal this was, he relapsed into a sympathetic and respectful silence.
It was clear enough to the Saint that Mr Teal had been disturbed by certain dimensions of his blunder which hadn't been apparent at first sight. The very existence of the Z-Man, it seemed, had been a closely guarded secret — until Teal had let the cat peep out of the bag and wink at Simon Templar, of all people. Unable to undo the damage which he had done in his first excess of confidence, the detective had taken the only remedy he had left and had escaped from the Saint's magnetic presence before he could be lured into any more mistakes. But as far as the Saint was concerned he had still left plenty of interesting ideas behind him.
A key turned in the front door, and a moment later Patricia Holm walked into the living room. She looked at the Saint accusingly.
"I met Teal downstairs," she said. "What are we going to be arrested for now?"
"Nothing," answered the Saint peacefully. "Claud Eustace thought I was, though, until I showed him the error of his ways. Sit down, lass, and listen to the tale of how a perfectly respectable buccaneer was mistaken for the ungodliest of the ungodly."
Patricia sat down with the patience that she had learned through years of testing it. She had known the Saint too long to be surprised by any story he had to tell; and she knew him too well to be deceived by the transparency of his present calm. There was the unmistakable hell-for-leather lilt in his voice, hinting at battle, murder and sudden death; and when that lilt was there it was as useless to oppose him as it would have been useless to argue with a cyclone.
"We're going after the Z-Man," he said dreamily.
"Who's the Z-Man?"
"I don't know."
"That ought to give us a flying start then," said Patricia kindly. "Do you know what it's all about, Hoppy?"
"I don't know nut'n," answered Mr Uniatz as though he were a phonograph record with a crack in it.
It didn't take the Saint long to give a full and vivid recital of what he knew. He was always fond of his own voice, but this time there wasn't much for him to tell. The girl listened with growing interest; but at the finish, when he asked for her opinion, she had none to offer.
"You still don't really know anything," she objected.
"Exactly," agreed the Saint, unabashed. "It was only by chance that I heard anything about the Z-Man at all — and that was mostly because Claud dropped a brick. It's just another proof, Pat, old cherub, that my guardian angel never falls down on the job. Something tells me that this game is Big, and I should be lacking in moral duty if I didn't sit in on it. Observe the reactions of Beatrice Avery and Claud Eustace Teal — two people who have just about as much in common as a gazelle and a hippopotamus. Both of them closed up as enthusiastically as a couple of lively clams. Both of them refused to discuss the subject of the Z-Man. Both of them told me it was all a joke."
The Saint rose to his feet and lighted another cigarette. His eyes were mere slits of steel.
"A joke!" he repeated. "If you'd seen the look in Beatrice Avery's eyes, Pat, you'd know how much of a joke the Z-Man is! Teal, too. He was fool enough to think I was the Z-Man, and he didn't want to put the bracelets on me because he'd have to touch me! By God, this bird must be something that 'd make Jack the Ripper look like a Salvation Army drummer boy."
"You still don't know anything useful," Patricia said practically. "What are you going to do — advertise for him?"
"I don't know… There's a hell of a lot I don't know," answered the Saint, scowling. "I don't even know what the Z-Man's racket is — excepting that it must be damned profitable. It's no good asking Teal for information; he's in trouble enough already. I can't go to Beatrice Avery — or at least, if I did she wouldn't see me or tell me anything."
"She might see me."
"She won't see anybody," said the Saint. "After what has happened today she'll be scared as stiff as a corpse. Don't you get it, darling? She had an appointment with the Z-Man or one of his agents, and she knows she failed to keep it. The Z-Man won't know that she actually did keep it, and he'll start turning on the heat. This girl will have extra locks and bolts on her doors—"
"Didn't you say that she and I look a bit alike?"
"Only in height and build and fair-headedness and general beauty and all that sort of thing," replied Simon. "You're both the same type, that's all."
"Then leave it to me," said Patricia calmly. "I'll show you what a real detective can do."
It was the conventional tea hour when she entered the handsome new apartment house in the neighbourhood of Marble Arch known as Parkside Court. Number 21 was on the sixth floor, and Patricia went up in the elevator in spite of the fact that the porter had warned her that Miss Avery had given instructions that she was not at home to anybody. The porter had put it more broadly than this; he had declared that Miss Avery had gone down to Cornwall for a holiday — or up into Aberdeenshire, he wasn't sure which. But Patricia had looked at him with her sapphire-blue eyes, so remarkably like the Saint's, and her bewitching smile, and the unfortunate man had dried completely up.
In the carpeted corridor, outside the door of number 21 a man was repairing a vacuum cleaner. Patricia was sorry for him. He had taken the vacuum cleaner apart into so many pieces that it was very doubtful whether it could ever be put together again. Notwithstanding his workmanlike overalls, Patricia had no difficulty in recognizing him as an employee of some private detective agency. He had "ex-policeman" stamped all over him in embossed lettering.
"No good you ringing that bell, miss," he said gruffly as Patricia placed her finger on the button. "There's nobody at home. Miss Avery's gone into the country."
He had looked at her very hard at first with a somewhat startled expression on his face. Patricia knew why. She went on smiling at him.
"Is there any special way of ringing?" she enquired sweetly. "I don't think she'll refuse to see her own sister."
The man suddenly grinned.
"Well, of course that's different, miss," he said hastily. "I thought there was a likeness. Why, when you came round the corner I took you for Miss Avery herself."
He gave three short rings, a long one and three more short. The door was almost immediately opened by a nervous-looking maid.
"Okay, Bessie, it's Miss Avery's sister."
Patricia walked straight in, just as the Saint might have done, and her complete assurance gave the maid no chance to reply. A moment later, in the artistically lighted living room, she was face to face with Beatrice Avery.
"I'm quite harmless, and I hope you'll forgive me for getting in by a trick, Miss Avery," she said directly. She opened her bag and produced a card. "This will tell you who I am — and perhaps you'll guess why I'm here."
The film star's frightened eyes looked up from the card.
"Yes, I've heard your name," she whispered. "You work with the Saint, don't you? Sit down, please, Miss Holm. I don't know why you've come. I told Mr Templar over the phone that it was all a silly joke—"
"And I'm here because the Saint didn't believe you," Patricia interrupted gently. "If you've heard of him you must know that you can trust him. Simon thinks that something ought to be done about the Z-Man, and he's the one man in all the world to do it."
Beatrice Avery's breasts stirred shakily under her clinging satin negligee, and her grey eyes grew obstinate — with the dreadful obstinacy of utter fear.
"It's all very absurd, Miss Holm," she said, trying to speak carelessly. "There's no such person as the Z-Man. How did Mr Templar know… I mean, there's nothing I can tell you."
"You'd rather pay ten thousand pounds—"
"There's nothing I can tell you," repeated the girl, rising to her feet. "Nothing! Nothing at all! Please leave me alone!"
Her voice was almost shrill, and Patricia saw at a glance that it would be hopeless to prolong the interview. Beatrice Avery was a great deal more frightened than even the Saint had realized or Patricia had expected. Patricia was shrewd and understanding, and she knew when she was wasting her time. Anybody less clever would have persisted and only hardened Beatrice Avery's obstinacy. All Patricia did was to point to her card on the table.
"If you change your mind," she said, "there's the phone number. We'll do anything we can to help you — and we keep secrets."
She was not feeling very satisfied with herself as she rode down in the elevator. It wouldn't be pleasant to go back to the Saint and report failure after the boast she had made. But it couldn't be helped. It was just one of those things. The Saint would think of some other approach…
The hall was deserted when she reached it, and she walked out into the evening dusk and paused uncertainly on the sidewalk in the glow of the red and green neon lights that decorated the entrance. A taxi crawled by, and she signalled. The driver swung round in the road and pulled in.
"Cornwall House, Piccadilly," said Patricia.
"Yes, miss," answered the driver, reaching round and opening the door.
She got in, and the cab was off before she had fairly closed the door. Something hard and round pressed into her side, and she looked quickly into the shadows. A smallish man with ferretlike eyes was sitting beside her.
"One scream, sister, and you're for it," said the man in a flat matter-of-fact voice. "This thing in your side is a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it."
"Oh!" said Patricia faintly, and she sagged into limpness.
She had done it so well that Ferret Eyes was completely taken in. Patricia, her brain working like oiled machinery, did not blame herself for having fallen into such a simple trap. She had had no reason to be on the alert for one; and she knew that it had not been laid for her at all. The ungodly had mistaken her for Beatrice Avery! And why shouldn't they? She was the same height and colouring, close enough to have deceived even the Saint at a distance, and she had emerged from the apartment house where Beatrice Avery lived. With the added help of the dim light she might have deceived anyone — and might go on deceiving him for a while, so long as she kept her mouth shut. It was to avoid being forced to talk too much that she had feigned that rapid faint, to give herself a chance to think over her next move.
She was aware of a throb of excitement within her. There was no fear in her — the Saint had taught her to forget such things. Instead he had bequeathed her so much of his own blithe recklessness that she saw in a flash that while she had failed with Beatrice Avery she might yet succeed in this new and unexpected quarter. It amused her to think that while the enemy wouldn't have dared to use the taxicab trick with her, they had thought it good enough for the film star, who was naturally unversed in the ways of the ungodly. And yet it was she, Patricia Holm, who had fallen for it! It was a twist that might provide the Saint with the scent he was looking for.
She was preparing to come naturally out of her faint when the taxi bumped heavily and swung giddily round in a sharp arc. Then it came to a jerky stop, and Pat heard some doors closing. She sat half forward with a dazed look on her face.
"Take it easy, sister," said Ferret Eyes gratingly. "Nobody's going to hurt that lovely face of yours — yet."
"Where am I? What are you going to do to me?" she gasped, her voice faltering. "I'll pay!" she went on hysterically. "I tried to pay at the Dorchester. You didn't come. I had the money—"
"Tell it to somebody else," he said callously.
He forced her to get out, and she saw that the cab had been driven into an ancient garage and the doors closed on it. There was a ramshackle door at the rear, just against the cab's radiator; and he gripped her by the arm and hustled her through it and down a steep flight of stairs into a low, malodorous cellar. The taxi driver followed. An electric torchlight flashed on her out of the black darkness as she stumbled down to the bottom — and a man who was already down there behind the light drew his breath through his teeth in a long sibilant hiss.
"Who's the damn fool responsible for this?" His harsh voice came from behind the blaze. "This girl is not Beatrice Avery!"
The taxi driver lurched forward.
"You're crazy!" he growled. "I recognized 'er as soon as she came out…" He swung Patricia round and stared into her face with the light full on it; and then he swore savagely. "God, it isn't! But it's just like 'er. I never sore 'er in a light like this…"
Ferret Eyes stiffened and swore also, more fluently. His grip on the girl's arm tightened.
"Well, who is she?" he rasped. "She knows what it's about — she was gabbing about the money as if she knew everything!"
The man behind the torch reached out a clawlike hand and seized Patricia's bag. He opened it. The card she had given to Beatrice Avery was not the only one. She could feel him staring from the card to her face in the silence that followed.
"Patricia Holm!" said the man in the darkness with a dry, sandy grit in his voice. "That's who she is. A fine pair of saps you've turned out to be!" His voice quivered with rising fury. "No wonder she fooled you! Don't you know who she is? Haven't you ever heard of the Saint?"
There was a silence that descended like a fog. It seemed to throb and vibrate through the cellar, filling it with a choking stillness broken only by the heavy breathing of the three men. It was something, Patricia reflected wryly, to know that the Saint's name alone was capable of creating such panic. At that moment it was about the only asset she had.
"You know what he'll say when he finds out that your blasted blundering has brought the Saint down on us!" snapped the man behind the torch. "You'd better do something about it. I'll hold this girl here. You two get straight out and go after Templar. And get him before he gets you. Understand? Don't come back until you've got him!"
"Why bother?" drawled a voice that cut through the air like the thrust of a rapier blade. "I've already invited myself. And just which of you is planning to be the hero?"
Three gasps sounded in unison, and the beam of the electric flashlight jerked round as if it had been snatched by an invisible wire. On the mouldering stairs stood the Saint, immaculate and deadly.