How Lord Essenden was peeved,
and Simon Templar received a visitor
1
NOW, once upon a time Lord Essenden had fired a revolver at Simon Templar with intent to qualify him for a pair of wings and a white nightie. Simon bore Lord Essenden no malice for that, for the Saint was a philosopher, and he was philosophically ready to admit that on that occasion he. had been in the act of forcing open Lord Essenden's desk with a burglarious instrument, to wit, a jemmy; so that Lord Essenden might philosophically be held to have been within his rights. Besides, the bullet had missed him by a yard.
No, Simon Templar's interest in Essenden, and particularly in Essenden's trips to Paris, had always been commonplace and practical. Simon, having once upon a time watched and pried into Lord Essenden's affairs conscientiously and devotedly for some months, knew that Essenden, on his return from every visit he paid to Paris (and these visits were more frequent than the visits of a respectably married peer should rightly have been), was wont to pay large numbers of French francs into his bank in London. And the Saint, who had been younger than he was at this time, knew that Englishmen who are able to pay large numbers of French francs into their London banks when they return from a short visit to Paris are curiosities; and collecting curiosities was the Saint's vocation.
So Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney went to Paris and stayed two days at the Crillon in the Place de la Concorde, which they chose because Lord Essenden chose it. Also, during those two days the Saint held no conversation with Lord Essenden beyond once begging his pardon for treading on his toes in the lift.
It was during the forty-ninth hour of their residence at the Crillon that Simon learnt that Essenden was leaving by the early train next morning.
His room was on the same floor as Essenden's. He retired to it when Essenden retired, bidding the peer an affable good-night in the corridor, for that night the Saint had met Essenden in the bar and relaxed his aloofness. In fact, they had drunk whisky together. This without any reference to their previous encounter. On that occasion the Saint had been masked; and now, meeting Essenden in more propitious circumstances, he had no wish to rake up a stale quarrel.
So they drank whisky together, which was a dangerous thing for anyone to do with Simon Templar; and retired at the same hour. Simon undressed, put on pajamas and a dressing gown, gave Essenden an hour and a half in which to feel the full and final benefit of the whisky. Then he sauntered down the corridor to Essenden's room, knocked, received no answer, sauntered in, and found the peer sleeping peacefully. Essenden had not even troubled to undress. The Saint regarded him sadly, covered him tenderly with the quilt, and went out again some minutes later, closing the door behind him.
And that was really all that happened on that trip to Paris which is of importance for the purposes of this chronicle; for, on the next day Lord Essenden duly went back to London, and he went with a tale of woe that took him straight to an old acquaintance.
Mr. Assistant Commissioner Cullis, of Scotland Yard, disliked having to interview casual callers. Whenever it was possible he evaded the job. To secure an appointment to see him was, to a private individual, a virtual impossibility. Cullis would decide that the affair in question was either so unimportant that it could be adequately dealt with by a subordinate, or so important that it could only be adequately coped with by the chief commissioner, for he was by nature a retiring man. In this retirement he was helped by his rank; in the days when he had been a more humble superintendent, it had not been so easy to avoid personal contact with the general public.
To this rule, however, there were certain exceptions, of which Lord Essenden was one.
Lord Essenden could obtain audience with Mr. Assistant Commissioner Cullis at almost any hour; for Essenden was an important man, and had occupied a seat on more than one royal commission. Indeed, it was largely due to Essenden that Mr. Cullis held his present appointment. Essenden could not be denied. And so, when Essenden came to Scotland Yard that evening demanding converse with Mr. Cullis, on a day when Mr. Cullis was feeling more than usually unfriendly towards the whole wide world, he was received at once, when a prime minister might have been turned away unsatisfied.
He came in, a fussy little man with a melancholy moustache, and said, without preface: "Cullis, the Angels of Doom are back."
He had spoken before he saw Teal, who was also present, stolidly macerating chicle beside the commissioner's desk.
"What Angels of Doom?" asked Cullis sourly.
Essenden frowned.
"Who is this gentleman, Cullis?" he inquired. He appeared to hesitate over the word "gentleman."
"Chief Inspector Teal, who has taken charge of the case."
Cullis performed the necessary introduction briefly, and Essenden fidgeted into a chair without offering to shake hands.
"What angels of what doom?" repeated Cullis.
"Don't be difficult," said Essenden pettishly. "You know what I mean. Jill Trelawney's gang—"
"There never has been a gang," said Cullis. "Trelawney and Weald and Pinky Budd were the only Angels of Doom. Three people can't be called a gang."
"There were others—"
"To do the dirty work. But they weren't anything."
Essenden drummed his finger tips on the desk in an irritating tattoo.
"You know what I mean," he repeated. "Jill Trelawney's back, then — if you like that better. And so is the Saint."
"Where?"
"I came back from Paris yesterday—"
"And I went to Brixton last night," said Cullis annoyingly. "We do travel about, don't we? But what's that got to do with it?"
"The Saint was in Paris — and Trelawney was with him."
"That's better. You actually saw them?"
"Not exactly—"
Cullis bit the end off a cigar with appalling restraint.
"Either you saw her or you didn't," he said. "Or do you mean you were drunk?"
"I'd had a few drinks," Essenden admitted. "Fellow I met in the bar. He must have been the Saint — I can see it all now. I'm certain I drank more than whisky. Anyway, I can only remember getting back to my room, and then — I simply passed out. The next thing I knew was that the valet was bringing in my breakfast, and I was lying on the bed fully dressed. I don't know what the man must have thought."
"I do," said Cullis.
"Anyhow," said Essenden, "they'd taken a couple of hundred thousand francs off me — and a notebook and wallet as well, which were far more important."
Cullis sat up abruptly.
"What's that mean?" he demanded.
"It was all written up in code, of course—"
"What was written up in code?"
"Some accounts — and some addresses. Nothing to do with anything in England, though."
The assistant commissioner leaned back again.
"Someone's certainly interested in you," he remarked.
"I've told you that before," said Essenden peevishly. "But you never do anything about it."
"I've offered you police protection."
"I've had police protection, and one of your men was on guard outside my house the night I found a man breaking open my desk. That's all your police protection is worth!"
Cullis tugged at his moustache.
"Still," he said, "there's nothing to connect the Saint with that burglary, any more than there's anything to connect either him or Trelawney with your — er — accident in Paris."
Essenden fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk beneath Cullis's eyes.
"What about that?" he asked.
Cullis looked at a little drawing that was already familiar to him — a childish sketch of a little skeleton man with a symbolical halo woven round his head. But beside this figure there was another such as neither Cullis nor Teal had ever seen before in that context — a figure that wore a skirt and had no halo. And under these drawings were three words: "April the First."
"What about that?" asked Essenden again.
Teal raised his sleepy eyes to the calendar on the wall.
"A week next Friday," he said. "Are you superstitious?"
Essenden was pardonably annoyed.
"If you're supposed to be in charge of this case, Mr. Teal," he said testily, "I don't think much of the way you do your job. Is this the way you train your men to work, Cullis?"
"I didn't train him," said Cullis patiently. "April the first is All Fool's Day, isn't it?"
"I don't see the joke."
"It may be explained to you," said Cullis.
He stood up with a businesslike air, meaning that, so far as he was concerned, the interview had served its purpose. As a matter of fact, this story was a mere variation on a theme which Cullis was already finding wearisome. He had heard too much in a similar strain of late to be impressed by this repetition, although he was far from underestimating its significance. But he could not discuss that with Essenden, for there was something about Lord Essenden which sometimes made Cullis think seriously of murder.
"Let me know any developments," he said with curt finality.
Lord Essenden, it should be understood, though important enough to be able to secure interviews with the assistant commissioner, was not important enough to be able to dictate the course which any interview should take, and this fact was always a thorn in Essenden's vanity.
"You treat it all very lightly," he complained weakly. "I do think you might make some sort of effort, Cullis."
"Every policeman in England is looking for Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney," said the assistant commissioner. "If and when we find them they will be arrested and tried. We can't do more than that. Write down your story and give it to Sergeant Berryman downstairs on your way out, and we'll see that it's added to the dossier. Good-evening."
"I tell you, Cullis, I'm scared—"
Cullis nodded.
"They certainly seem to have it in for you," he said. "I wonder why? Good-evening!"
Essenden felt his hand vigorously shaken, and then he found himself in the stone corridor outside, blinking at a closed door.
He went downstairs and wrote out his formal report, as he had been directed, but with a querulous lack of restraint which spoilt the product as a literary effort. Then he drove to his club and dined and wined himself well before he returned to his waiting car and directed a cold and sleepy chauffeur to take him home.
"Home" was on the borders of Oxfordshire, for Essenden preferred to live away from the social life of London. Lady Essenden had objections to this misanthropy, of which Lord Essenden took no notice. In his way, he was almost as retiring a character as Mr. Cullis.
Through all that drive home, Lord Essenden sat uncomfortably upright in one corner of his car, sucking the knob of his umbrella and pondering unpleasant thoughts.
It was after midnight when he arrived, and the footman who opened the door informed him that Lady Essenden had gone to bed with a headache two hours earlier.
Essenden nodded and handed over his hat and coat. In exchange, he received one solitary letter, and the handwriting on the envelope was so familiar that he carried it to his study to open behind a locked door. The letter contained in the envelope was not so surprising to him as it would have been a month before:
Have a look at the safe behind the dummy row in your bookcase.
And underneath were the replicas of the two drawings that he had seen before.
Essenden struck a match and watched the paper curl and blacken in an ashtray. Then, with a perfectly impassive fatalism, he went to the bookcase and slid back the panel which on one shelf replaced a row of books. He had no anxiety about any of the papers there, for since the first burglary he had transferred every important document in his house to a safer place.
He opened the safe and looked at the notebook he had lost in Paris.
Thoughtfully he flicked through the pages.
Every entry had been decoded, and the interpretation written neatly in between the lines.
Essenden studied the book for some minutes; and then he dropped it into his pocket and began to pace the room with short bustling strides.
The notebook had not been in the safe when he arrived back from Paris that afternoon. He knew that, for he had deposited some correspondence there before he left again to interview the commissioner. And yet, to be delivered that night, the letter which told him to look in the safe must have been posted early that morning. And early that morning Jill Trelawney and the Saint were in Paris — and the letter was post-marked in London. There was something terrifying about the ruthless assurance which emerged from the linking of those two facts.
A gentle knock on the door almost made Essenden jump out of his skin.
"Would there be anything else tonight, my lord?" inquired the footman, tactfully.
"A large brandy and soda, Falcon."
"Very good, my lord."
In a few moments the tray was brought in.
"Thank you, Falcon."
"I have cut some sandwiches for you, my lord."
"Thank you."
"Is there nothing else, my lord?"
Essenden picked up his glass and looked at it under the light.
"Have there been any callers today?"
"No, my lord. But the young man you sent down from London to inspect your typewriter came about six o'clock."
Essenden nodded slowly.
He dismissed the servant, and when the door had closed again, he went to another bookcase and extracted a couple of dusty volumes. Reaching into the cavity behind the other books, he brought out an automatic pistol and a box of cartridges. The books he replaced. Carrying the gun over to the table, he first carefully tested the action and then loaded the magazine, bringing the first cartridge into the chamber and then thumbing in the safety catch.
With the gun in his pocket he experienced a slight feeling of relief.
But for hours afterwards he sat in the study, staring at the embers of the dying fire, sipping brandy and smoking cigarette after cigarette, till the fire died altogether, and he began to shiver as the room grew colder. And thus, alone, through those hours, he pondered fact upon fact, and formed and reviewed and discarded plan after plan, until at last he had shaped an idea with which his weary brain could at the moment find no fault.
It was a wild and desperate scheme, the kind of scheme which a man only forms after a sleepless night fortified with too many cigarettes and too much strong drink taken alone and in fear; but it was the only answer he could find to his problem. He was quite calm and decided about that. When at last he dragged himself to bed, he was more calm and cold and decided than he had ever been before in all his life, was Lord Essenden, that fussy and peevish little man.
2
Simon Templar picked up the sheet of paper on which he had been working spasmodically during the return from Paris, and cleared his throat.
"We understand," he said, "that the following lines have been awarded the Dumbbell Prize for Literature:
"The King sits in the silent town, Sipping his China tea: 'And where shall I find a fearless knight To bear a sword for me? 'The beasts are leagued about my gates, The vultures seek the slain, Till a perfect knight shall rise and ride To find the Grail again.' Then up and spake a Minister, Sat at the King's right knee: 'Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil Has a splendid pedigree. 'His brother is Baron de Bathmat Boil, Who owns the Daily Squeal, And everybody knows he is Impeccably genteel.' 'Has he been with my men-at-arms, Has he borne scars for me, That I should take this Basil Boil Among my chivalry?' 'Sire, in a war some years ago You called him to the fray, And he would have served you loyally, But his conscience bade him nay. 'And they took him before the judges, Because he did rebel, And he lay a year in prison To save his soul from hell.' 'Then what have I for a portent, What bring you me for a sign, That I should take this coistril To be a knight of mine?' 'Sire, we are bringing in a bill Which the Daily Squeal could foil, And it might be wise to wheedle Baron de Bathmat Boil.' Then the King rose up in anger And seared them with his gaze: 'You have taken the wine and the laughter, The pride and the grace of days; 'The last fair woman is faded, And the last man dead for shame, But a dog from the gutter shall serve me Before this man you name.' They heard, and did not answer; They heard, and did not bend; And he saw their frozen stillness And knew it was the end. Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil They brought upon a day, And the King gave him the accolade And turned his face away. And saw beyond his windows The tattered flags unfurled; And on his brow was a crown of iron And the weariness of the world."
"What's that supposed to be?" asked the girl blankly.
"If you don't recognize poetry when you hear it," said the Saint severely, "you are beyond salvation. But I'll admit it's rather an amorphous product — my feelings got too strong for gentle satire as I went along. If you saw a — paper the other day, you'll notice that a sometime pacifist has recently received a knighthood. A violent atheist will probably be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and a confirmed teetotaller is going to be the chairman of the next Liquor Commission. After which I shall put my head in a gas oven."
Jill Trelawney selected two lumps of sugar from a silver bowl.
"Something seems to have upset you," she remarked.
"The bleary organization of this wall-eyed world is always upsetting me. It would upset anyone who hadn't been spavined from birth."
"But apart from that?"
"Apart from that," said Simon Templar luxuriously, "I feel that life is very good just now. I have about a hundred thousand francs in my pocket, waiting to be translated into English as soon as the banks open in the morning. I have had a drive in the country. I have discovered that, if all else fails, I can always earn an honest living as an inspector of typewriters. I have bathed, changed, and refreshed myself from my toils and travels with a trio of truly superb kippers cooked with a dexterity that might have made me famous as a chef. My latest poetic masterpiece gives me great satisfaction. And finally, I have your charming company. What more could any man ask?"
He sat at ease in the comfortable little flat near Sloane Square, which he had established long ago as a reserve base against the day when a hue and cry might make his home in Upper Berkeley Mews too hot to hold him. A cup of coffee stood in front of him and a cigarette was between his fingers; and, across the table, he looked into the golden eyes of Jill Trelawney, and made his speech.
"But, Jill," he protested, "there is a far-away look about you. Is it indigestion or love?"
She smiled abstractedly.
"I'm thinking about Essenden," she said.
"So it's love," said the Saint.
"I'm wondering—"
"Seriously, why? In the last twenty-four hours we've devoted ourselves entirely to Essenden. Personally, I'm ready to give the subject a rest. We've done our stuff, for the moment. The egg, so to speak, is on hatch. The worm is on the hook. All we can do now, for a while, is to sit tight and wait."
"Do you think he'll rise?"
"I've told you," said the Saint extravagantly, "he'll rise like a loaf overloaded with young and vigorous yeast. He'll rise so high that pheasants and red herrings won't be in the same street with him. When he's finished rising, he'll have such an altitude that he'll have to climb a ladder to take his shoes off. That's what I say. Take it from me, Jill."
The girl stirred her coffee reflectively.
"All the same," she said, "like all fishing, it's a gamble."
"Not with that fish and that bait, it isn't," answered the Saint. "It's a cinch. Look here. We put the wind up his lordship. We fan into his pants a vertical draught strong enough to lift him through his hat. There's no error about that. So what can he do? He must either (a) sit tight and get ready to face the music, ( b ) go out and get run over by a bus, or (c) prepare a counter-attack. Well, he's not likely to do (a). If he does (b), we're saved a lot of trouble and hard work. If he does (c) — "
"Yes," said the girl. "If he does (c) —"
"He plays right into our hands. He comes out of balk. And once he's in play, we can make our break. Burn it—!"
Simon put out his cigarette and leaned forward.
"This isn't like you, Jill," he said. "It isn't like anything I've ever heard about you; and it certainly isn't a bit like the form you were showing this time last week. Don't tell me your nerve's going soft in the small of the back, because I shan't believe you."
"But what's he likely to do?"
Simon shrugged.
"Heaven knows," he said. "I tell you, our job is just to stand around the landscape and wait. And who cares?"
Jill Trelawney lighted a cigarette and smiled.
"You're right, Simon Templar," she said. "I'm getting morbid. I'm starting to get the idea that things have been just a bit too easy for me — all along. You know how much I've got away with already, and you ought to know that nobody ever gets away with the whole works for ever."
"I do," said the Saint cheerfully.
She nodded absently. For a moment the tawny eyes looked right through him. It was extraordinarily humiliating, and at the same time provocative, that feeling which, the eyes gave him for an instant — that, for a moment, he was not there at all, or she was not there at all. Although she heard him, she was quite alone with what she was thinking.
And then she saw him again.
"Do you know, you're the last partner I ever thought I should have," she said; and the Saint inhaled gently.
"I shouldn't be surprised."
"And yet… you remember when you reminded me of that boy of mine back in the States?" The golden eyes absorbed his smile. "That was a mean crack… I suppose I deserved it."
"You did."
"It made a difference."
Simon raised his eyebrows; but the mockery was without malice.
"After which," he murmured, "you shot Stephen Weald."
"Wouldn't you have done the same?"
"I should. Exactly the same. And that's the point. You might have left it to me, but I stood aside because I figured he was your onion… Which was half-witted, if you come to think of it, because if we'd kept him we could have made him squeal. But who am I to spoil sport."
"I know."
"But we go on with the good work, so why worry?"
She nodded slowly.
"Yes, we go on. Maybe it won't be long now."
"And that boy of yours?"
"He thinks I'm travelling around improving my mind." She laughed. "I suppose I am, if you look at it that way…"
And there was a silence.
And in that simple silence began an understanding that needed no explanations. For the Saint always knew exactly what to leave unsaid… And when, presently, he reached out a long arm to crush his last cigarette into an ashtray, glanced at the clock, and stood up, the movement fitted spontaneously into the comfortable quiet which had settled down upon the evening.
"Do you realize," he said easily, "that's it's nearly midnight, and we've had a busy day?"
Her smile thanked him, and he remembered it after she had left the room and he sat by the fire smoking a final cigarette and meditating the events of the last twenty-four hours.
Adventures to the adventurous. Simon Templar called himself an adventurer. What other people called him is nobody's business. Certainly he had had what he wanted, in more ways than one, and the standard of enterprise and achievement which he had set himself from the very beginning of his career showed no signs of slacking off. It was only recently that he had started to realize that there was more for him to do in life than he had ever known… And yet, just then, he was quite contented. Simon Templar's philosophical outlook on life was his strong suit. It kept him young. As long as something interesting was happening he was quite happy. He was quite happy that night.
For complete contentment he required well-balanced alternations of excitement and peaceful self-satisfaction. At the beginning of his cigarette he was enjoying the peaceful self-satisfaction. Halfway through the cigarette, the front door bell rang curtly and crisply, and the Saint came slowly to his feet with a speculative little frown.
He was not expecting to receive callers at that address, apart from tradesmen, because it had never been registered in his own name. And in any case, when he came back to London this time there had been no notices in the newspapers to say that Mr. Simon Templar had returned to town and would be delighted to hear from any friends and/or acquaintances who cared to look him up. For obvious reasons. The Saint had never been notorious for hiding his light under any unnecessary bushels, but he always knew precisely when to remain discreetly in the background. He had learnt the art in his cradle, and this was one of the periods when he applied it energetically. It was therefore a practical certainty that the visitor would be unwelcome; but Simon opened the door with a bland smile, for he was always interested to meet any trouble that happened to be coming his way.
"Why, if it isn't Claud Eustace!" he exclaimed, and stood aside to allow the caller to enter.
"Yes, it's me," said Mr. Teal heavily.
He came in, and oozed through the miniature hall into the sitting room. Simon Templar followed him in.
"What can I do for you? Do you want a tip for the Two Thousand, or have you come to borrow money?"
Inspector Teal carefully unwrapped a wafer of chewing gum and posted — it in his red face.
"Saint," said Teal drowsily, "I hear you've been a naughty boy again."
"Not me," said the Saint. "You must be thinking of someone else. I'll admit I've been to Paris, but—"
Teal's lower jaw ruminated rhythmically.
"Yes," he said, "some of it was in Paris."
Simon leaned against the mantelpiece with a little twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
"Well?"
"In Paris," said Teal, "you doped Lord Essenden and took a couple of hundred thousand francs off him. Before that, while acting as a police officer, you abandoned your duty and connived at the escape of a woman who's wanted for murder. You can't go on doing that sort of thing, Saint, I'm afraid I shall have to bother you again."
"Well?"
The detective's shoulders moved in a ponderous shrug.
"The best thing about you, Templar," he said, "is that you always come quietly."
Simon fingered his chin.
"What d'you mean — 'come quietly'?" he asked, with childlike innocence.
"Come for a walk," said Teal. "Or, if you like, we'll take a taxi. I'm sorry to have to pull you in at this hour, but you were out when I called earlier, and if I left it till tomorrow morning you might have gone away again.
"And where are we going to take this walk — or this taxi drive?"
Mr. Teal blinked. He seemed to find it a tremendous effort to keep awake.
"Rochester Row police station."
"In Pimlico?" protested the Saint. "Not that. I'm only taken to West End police stations."
"Not Pimlico," said Teal. "Westminster."
"Worse still," said the Saint. "Members of Parliament get taken there."
Mr. Teal settled his hat, which, like the traditional detective, he had not removed when he entered the flat.
"Coming?" he inquired lethargically.
"Can't," said the Saint. "Sorry, old dear."
"Simon Templar," said Teal, "I arrest you on a charge of— "
"Let's see it on the warrant."
"Which warrant?"
The Saint grinned.
"The warrant for my arrest," he said.
"I haven't got a warrant."
"I guessed that. And how are you going to arrest me without a warrant?"
"I can take you into custody—"
"You can't," said the Saint pleasantly. "I'm behaving myself. I'm in my own flat, just about to go to bed like any respectable citizen. There's nothing you can accuse me of. What you're doing, Teal, is to put up a very thin bluff, and I'm calling the bluff. Laugh that off."
Teal closed his eyes.
"In Paris—"
"In Paris," said Simon calmly, "I stole two hundred thousand francs from Lord Essenden. I admit it. If you like, I'll put it in writing, and you can take it home with you to show the chief commissioner. But you can't do anything about it. The hideous crime was committed on French soil and it's a matter for the French police alone. I'm in England. An Englishman cannot be extradited from England. Sorry to disappoint you, I'm sure, but you shouldn't try to put things like that over on me."
"In Birmingham—"
"In Birmingham," said the Saint, in the same equable manner, "a man known lately as Stephen Weald and formerly as Waldstein was shot by Jill Trelawney. Whether it was in self-defense or not is a matter for the jury which may or may not try her — I suppose you had some sort of a story from Donnell. However, I did my duty and arrested her. I thought I had disarmed her, but in the taxi she produced another gun and stuck me up. I was forced to get into a train with her. Not far north of London, she forced me to jump out. I don't know what happened after that. I lay stunned beside the track for several hours —"
"What kind of a gag," demanded Teal, "are you trying to put over?"
The Saint beamed.
"I'm merely giving you a free sample of my defense, which will also be the means of getting you thoroughly chewed up in the courts if you get nasty, Claud Eustace, old corpuscle. The commissioner should have had my letter of resignation, in which I explained that I was so overcome with shame that I couldn't face him to hand it in personally. It was posted the same evening. I admit I proved to be the duddest of all possible dud policemen, but my well known desire to save my own skin at all costs —"
Teal spread a scrap of paper on the table.
"And this — your receipt to Essenden? I know one of these pictures, Templar, but the other—"
"My wife," said the Saint breezily.
"Oh, yes. And when were you married?"
"Not yet. The tense is future."
The detective closed his eyes again.
"So that's your story, is it?"
"And a darn good story it is, too," said Simon Templar complacently.
"And what about this new home of yours?"
"Since when has it been illegal for a respectable citizen to have a second establishment — or even an alias?.. But I wouldn't mind knowing how you located it so quickly, all the same."
"I've known about it for months," said the detective sleepily. "When I drew blank at Upper Berkeley Mews, I came straight here."
The Saint laughed.
"And then you go straight home again. Teal, that's too bad!.. But you ought to have known better, honey, really you ought. Now, are you going to take Uncle's advice and have a glass of barley water before you go, or do you want to argue some more?"
For some moments there was a gigantic silence — on the part of Chief Inspector Teal. The Saint could feel the tremendousness of it; and he was amused, for he knew exactly where he stood. And in his trouser pockets there were two iron fists quietly bunched up ready to prove the courage of his convictions if the challenge were offered…
And then Teal opened his eyes, and his mouth widened half an inch momentarily.
He nodded.
"You always were a bright boy," he said.
"I know," said the Saint.
Teal's smile remained in position. He hitched his overcoat round, and buttoned a button that must have had a tiring day. His heavy-lidded eyes roved boredly over the furnishings of the apartment.
"Sorry you've wasted your time," said the Saint sympathetically. "Don't let me keep you any longer if you're really in a hurry."
"I won't," said Teal. And then his eyes fell on the chair where Jill Trelawney had been sitting.
Simon followed his gaze.
"Been entertaining a friend?" asked Teal, without a change of expression.
"My Auntie Ethel," said the Saint blandly. "She left just before you came in. Isn't it a pity? Still, maybe you'll be able to meet her another day."
"How old is this Auntie Ethel?"
"About fifty," said the Saint. "A bit young for you, but you might try your luck. I'll send you her address. She might like to see round Rochester Row."
Teal took his hands out of his pockets and locomoted across the room. Only a man like Teal can possibly be said to locomote.
This locomotion was deceptive. It appeared to be very heavy off the mark, and very slow and clumsy in transit, but actually it was remarkably agile. Teal picked a bag up from the chair and inspected it soberly.
"Your Auntie Ethel has a gaudy taste in bags," he remarked. "How old did you say she was?"
"About a hundred and fifty," said the Saint.
Teal opened the bag and proceeded to examine the contents, extracting them one by one, and laying them on the table after the inspection. Lipstick, powder puff, mirror, comb case, handkerchief, cigarette case, gold pencil, some visiting cards.
"Princess Selina von Rupprecht," Teal read off one of the visiting cards. "Where does she come from?"
"Lithuania," said the Saint fluently. "I have some very distinguished relations in Czecho-Slovakia, too," he added modestly.
Teal put the bag down and turned with unusual briskness.
"I should like to meet this Princess," he said.
"Call her Auntie," said Simon. "She likes it. But you can't meet her here tonight because she's gone home."
"She'll come back for her bag," said Teal comfortably. "I'll wait. And while I'm waiting I'd like to see round some of the other rooms in this flat."
Simon Templar pulled himself off the mantelpiece, against which he had been leaning, and looked Teal deliberately in the eyes.
"You won't wait," he said, "because I happen to want to go to bed, and I prefer to see you off the premises first. And you won't search this flat, not on any excuse, because you haven't a search warrant."
Teal stood squarely by the table.
"I have reason to believe," he said, "that you're sheltering a woman who's wanted for murder."
"You haven't a search warrant," repeated the Saint. "Don't be foolish, Teal. I may be a suspicious character, but you've got nothing definite against me, apart from the little show in Paris, which isn't your business — nothing in the wide, wide world. If you try to search this flat I shall resist you by force. What's more, I shall throw you down the stairs and out into the street with such violence that you will bounce from here to Harrod's. And if you try to get me for that, the beak will soak you good and proper. Once upon a time you might have got away with it, but not now. The police aren't so popular these days. You'd better watch your step."
"I can get a warrant," said Teal, "within two hours."
"Then get it," said the Saint shortly. "And don't come in here again bothering me until you've got it in your pocket. Goodnight."
He crossed the room and opened the door, and Teal, after a few seconds of frightful hesitation, passed out into the hall.
Simon opened the front door for him also; and there Teal paused on the threshold.
"You are a bright boy, Saint," said Teal somnolently. "Don't go to bed. I shall be back with that warrant inside two hours."
"Goodnight," said the Saint again, and closed the door in the detective's face.
He came back into the sitting room and found the girl putting her possessions into her bag.
"I heard," she said.
"In five minutes," said the Saint, "Teal will have a man outside this front door to watch the place while he goes off to get a warrant. Meanwhile—"
The shrill, sharp scream of a police whistle sounded in the street outside, and a little smile touched Simon Templar's mouth.
"At this moment," said the Saint, "he's standing on the steps blowing that whistle. He's not taking any chances. He's not going to look for a man — he's going to wait till a man comes to him. He's going to make quite sure that whoever's in here isn't going to slip out behind his back. And the person they want to find here is you."
Jill Trelawney nodded.
"On a charge of murder," she said softly.