The man in the centre smiled.
"Surely, Professor Smith," he remarked, "you aren't going to leave me out of your series of brief biographical sketches?"
"For the moment I prefer to," answered the Saint steadily. "At any moment, however, I may change my mind. When I do, you'll hear from me soon enough. Good-morning, my lovely ones."
. He turned his back on them and walked quietly to the door; but he opened the door with an unexpectedly sudden jerk, and the movement was so quick that Basher Tope had no time to recover his balance and fell sprawling into the room. Simon caught him by the collar and yanked him to his feet.
"This reminds me," said the Saint, turning. "There was another man skulking around when I came down this morning. I know him, too."
The other three were plainly surprised.
"Everyone here of importance is presently in this room," said Raxel. "You must be suffering from a delusion."
"The man I saw was no delusion," Smith replied. "His name is Duncarry. He's a much-wanted American gun artist who's come to England for his health. We still don't know how he slipped into the country, but he's one of the men I'm taking back to London with me when I go. There's a seat reserved for him in the hot chair at Sing Sing, and if you see him loafing around here again you can tell him I said so!"
With that parting shot he left them, and as he closed the door softly behind him he began to whistle.
"Now I guess I've rubbed the menagerie right on the raw!" Simon Templar thought cheerfully. "If my after-breakfast speech doesn't make those gay birds hop, I wonder what will?"
Simon spent the morning reading and drinking beer. The three men and the girl sat late over breakfast, and he guessed that his arrival had been the occasion for a council of war. When they came out of the dining room, however, they walked straight past him without speaking, and ignored his existence. They went upstairs, and none of them even looked back.
They did not appear again for the rest of the morning; but at about twelve o'clock Detective Duncarry was ushered upstairs by Basher Tope. He was there twenty minutes, and when he came down again he was peeling off his coat and generally conveying the impression of being here to stay. Simon shrewdly surmised that the congregation of the ungodly was now increased by one, but Basher Tope took no notice of the Saint, and led Duncarry round in the direction of the public bar without speaking a word. It must be recorded that Simon Templar took a notably philosophic view of this sudden passion for ignoring his existence.
He lunched early, and Basher Tope returned exclusively monosyllabic replies to the cheerfully aimless conversation with which Simon rewarded his ministrations. After about the fourth unprofitable attempt to secure the observation of the conversational amenities, the Saint sighed resignedly and gave it up as a bad job.
After lunch he put on his hat and went out for a brisk walk, for he had decided that there was nothing he could do in broad daylight as long as the whole gang were in the house. With characteristic optimism, he refused to consider what particular form of unpleasantness they might be preparing for his entertainment that night, and devoted himself whole-heartedly to the enjoyment of his exercise. He covered ten miles at a brisk pace, and ended up with a ravenous appetite at the only other ina which the village boasted.
The proprietor and his wife were clearly surprised by his demand for a meal, but after first being met with the information that they were not prepared to cater for visiting diners, he successfully contrived to blarney them into accommodating him. The Saint thought that that was only a sensible precaution to take, for by that time no one could tell what curious things might be happening to the food at the Beacon.
He ate simply and well, stood the obliging publican a couple of drinks, and went home about ten o'clock.
As he approached the Beacon he took particular note of the lighting in the upstairs windows. Lights showed in only two of them, and these were two of the three that had been lighted up on the night he arrived. There were few lights downstairs--since the change of management, the Beacon had become very unpopular. The Saint had gathered the essential reasons for this from his conversation with the villagers in the rival tavern. The new proprietor of the Beacon was clearly running the house not to make money but to amuse himself and entertain his friends, for visitors from outside had met with such an uncivil welcome that a few days had been sufficient to bring about a unanimous boycott, to the delight and enrichment of the proprietor of the George on the other side of the village.
The door was locked, as before, but the Saint hammered on it in his noisy way, and in a few moments it was opened.
"Evening, Basher," said the Saint affably, walking through into the parlour. "I'm too late for dinner, I suppose, but you can bring me a pint of beer before I go to bed."
Tope shuffled off, and returned in a few moments with a tankard.
"Your health. Basher," said the Saint, and raised the tankard.
Then he sniffed at it, and set it carefully down again.
"Butyl chloride," he remarked, "has an unmistakable odour, with which all cautious detectives make a point of familiarizing themselves very early in their careers. To vulgar people like yourself, Basher, it is known as the knockout drop, and one of the most important objections that I have to it is that it completely neutralizes the beneficial properties of good beer."
"There's nothing wrong with that beer," growled Basher.
"Then you may have it," said the Saint generously. "Bring me a bottle of whisky. A new one--and I'll draw the cork myself."
Basher Tope was away five minutes, and at the end of that time he came back and banged an unopened bottle of whisky and a corkscrew down on the table.
"Bring me two glasses," said the Saint.
Basher Tope was back in time to witness the extraction of the cork; and Simon poured a measure of whisky into each glass and splashed water into it.
"Drink with me, Basher," invited the Saint cordially, taking up one of the glasses.
Tope shook his head.
"I don't drink."
"You're a liar, Basher," said the Saint calmly. "You drink like a particularly thirsty fish. Look at your nose!"
"My nose is my business," said Tope truculently.
"I'm sorry about that," said Simon. "It must be, rotten for you. But I want to see you have a drink with me. Take that glass!"
"I don't want it," Tope retorted stubbornly.
Simon put his glass down again.
"I thought the lead cap looked as if it had been taken off very carefully, and put back again," he said. "I just wanted to verify my suspicions. You can go. Oh, and take this stuff with you and pour it, down the sink."
He left Basher Tope standing there and went straight upstairs. The fire ready-laid in his bedroom tempted him almost irresistibly, for he was a man who particularly valued the creature comforts, but he felt that it would be wiser to deny himself that luxury. Anything might happen in that place at night, and Simon decided that the light of a dying fire might not be solely to his own advantage.
He undressed, shivering, and jumped into bed. He had locked his door, but he considered that precaution of far less value than the tiny little super-sensitive silver bell which he had fixed into the woodwork of the door by means of a metal prong.
He had blown out the lamp, and he was just dozing when the first alarm came, for he heard the door rattle as someone tried the handle. There followed three soft taps which he had to strain to hear.