"Well," she said sweetly, "don't you owe us all some thanks? I won't say anything about an apology."
"I suppose I do," Teal said grudgingly. It wasn't easy for him to say it, or even to convince himself that he meant it. The sadly acquired suspiciousness that had become an integral part of his souring nature had driven its roots too deep for him to feel really comfortable in any situation where there was even a hint of the involvement of any member of the Saint's entourage. But for once he was trying nobly to be just. He grumbled halfheartedly: "But you had us in the wrong house, all the same. If Uniatz hadn't happened to notice them coming in here—"
"But he did, didn't he?"
"It was a risk that none of you had any right to take," Teal said starchily. "Why didn't the Saint tell me what he knew this morning?"
"I've told you," she said. "He felt pretty hurt about the way you were trying to pin something on to him. Of course, since he knew he'd never been to Verdean's house, he figured out that the second two men the maid saw were just a couple of other crooks trying to hijack the job. He guessed that Kaskin and Dolf had scared them off and taken Verdean away to go on working him over in their own time—"
That hypersensitive congenital suspicion stabbed Mr Teal again like a needle prodded into a tender boil.
"You never told me he knew their names!" he barked. "How did he know that?"
"Didn't I?" she said ingenuously. "Well, of course he knew. Or at any rate he had a pretty good idea. He'd heard a rumour weeks ago that Kaskin and Dolf were planning a bank holdup with an inside stooge. You know how these rumours get around; only I suppose Scotland Yard doesn't hear them. So naturally he thought of them. He knew their favourite hideouts, so it wasn't hard to find them. And as soon as he knew they'd broken Verdean down, he had me get hold of you while he went on following them. He sent Hoppy to fetch us directly he knew they were coming here. Naturally he thought they'd be going to Verdean's house, but of course Verdean might always have hidden the money somewhere else close by, so that's why I had Hoppy watching outside. Simon just wanted to get even with you by handing you the whole thing on a platter; and you can't really blame him. After all, he was on the side of the law all the time. And it all worked out, Now, why don't you admit that he got the best of you and did you a good turn at the same time?"
Chief Inspector Teal scowled at the toes of his official boots. He had heard it all before, but it was hard for him to believe. And yet it indisputably fitted with the facts as he knew them… He hitched his gum stolidly across to the other side of his mouth.
"Well, I'll be glad to thank him," he growled; and then a twinge of surprising alarm came suddenly into his face. "Hey, where is he? If they caught him following them—"
"I was wondering when you'd begin to worry about me," said the Saint's injured voice.
Mr Teal looked up.
Simon Templar was coming down the stairs, lighting a cigarette, mocking and immaculate and quite obviously unharmed.
But it was not the sight of the Saint that petrified Mr Teal into tottering stillness and bulged his china-blue eyes half out of their sockets, exactly as the eyes of all the other men in the hall were also bulged as they looked upwards with him. It was the sight of the girl who was coming down the stairs after the Saint.
It was Angela Lindsay.
The reader has already been made jerry to the fact that the clinging costumes which she ordinarily affected suggested that underneath them she possessed an assortment of curves and contours of exceptionally enticing pulchritude. This suggestion was now elevated to the realms of scientifically observable fact. There was no further doubt about it, for practically all of them were open to inspection. The sheer and diaphanous underwear which was now their only covering left nothing worth mentioning to the imagination. And she seemed completely unconcerned about the exposure, as if she knew that she had a right to expect a good deal of admiration for what she had to display.
Mr Teal blinked groggily.
"Sorry to be so long," Simon was saying casually, "but our pals left a bomb upstairs, and I thought I'd better put it out of action. They left Verdean lying on top of it. But I'm afraid he didn't really need it. Somebody hit him once too often, and it looks as if he has kind of passed away… What's the matter, Claud? You look slightly boiled. The old turn-turn isn't going back on you again, is it?"
The detective found his voice.
"Who is that you've got with you?" he asked in a hushed and quivering voice.
Simon glanced behind him.
"Oh, Miss Lindsay," he said airily. "She was tied up with the bomb, too. You see, it appears that Verdean used to look after this house when the owner was away — it belongs to a guy named Hogsbotham — so he had a key, and when he was looking for a place to cache the boodle, he thought this would be as safe as anywhere. Well, Miss Lindsay was in the bedroom when the boys got here, so they tied her up along with Verdean. I just cut her loose—"
"You found 'er in 'Ogsbotham's bedroom?" repeated one of the local men hoarsely, with his traditional phlegm battered to limpness by the appalling thought.
The Saint raised his eyebrows.
"Why not?" he said innocently. "I should call her an ornament to anyone's bedroom."
"I should say so," flared the girl stridently. "I never had any complaints yet."
The silence was numbing to the ears.
Simon looked over the upturned faces, the open mouths, the protruding eyeballs, and read there everything that he wanted to read. One of the constables finally gave it voice. Gazing upwards with the stalk-eyed stare of a man hypnotized by the sight of a miracle beyond human expectation, he distilled the inarticulate emotions of his comrades into one reverent and pregnant ejaculation.
"Gor-blimy!" he said.
The Saint filled his lungs with a breath of inexorable peace. Such moments of immortal bliss, so ripe, so full, so perfect, so superb, so flawless and unalloyed and exquisite, were beyond the range of any feeble words. They flooded every corner of the soul and every fibre of the body, so that the heart was filled to overflowing with a nectar of cosmic content. The very tone in which that one word had been spoken was a benediction. It gave indubitable promise that within a few hours the eyewitness evidence of Ebenezer Hogsbotham's depravity would have spread all over Chertsey, within a few hours more it would have reached London, before the next sunset it would have circulated over all England; and all the denials and protestations that Hogsbotham might make would never restore his self-made pedestal again.
XI
Simon Templar braked the Hirondel to a stop in the pool of blackness under an overhanging tree less than a hundred yards beyond the end of Greenleaf Road. He blinked bis lights three times, and lighted a cigarette while he waited. Patricia Holm held his arm tightly. From the back of the car came gurgling sucking sounds of Hoppy Uniatz renewing his acquaintance with the bottle of Vat 69 which he had been forced by circumstances to neglect for what Mr Uniatz regarded as an indecent length of time.
A shadow loomed out of the darkness beside the road, whistling very softly. The shadow carried a shabby valise in one hand. It climbed into the back seat beside Hoppy.
Simon Templar moved the gear lever, let in the clutch; and the Hirondel rolled decorously and almost noiselessly on its way.
At close quarters, the shadow which had been added to the passenger list could have been observed to be wearing a policeman's uniform with a sergeant's stripes on the sleeve, and a solid black moustache which obscured the shape of its mouth as much as the brim of its police helmet obscured the exact appearance of its eyes. As the car got under way, it was hastily stripping off these deceptive scenic effects and changing into a suit of ordinary clothes piled on the seat.