"Then who was it told you to come here and play tea-parties?"
"I dunno… Listen!" begged McGuire frantically. "This is a squeal, ain't it? Well, why won't yer believe me? I tell yer, I don't know. It was someone who met me when I come out of stir. I dunno wot is name is, an' in this business yer don't arsk questions. He ses to me, would I like fifty quid a week to do any dirty work there is going, more er less. I ses, for fifty quid a week I'll do anythink he can think of. So he gives me twenty quid on account, an' tells me to go anywhere where there's a telephone an' just sit there beside it until he calls me. So tonight he rings up—"
"And you never knew who he was?"
"Never in me life, strike me dead—"
"How do you get the rest of your money?"
"He just makes a date to meet me somewhere an' hands it over."
"And you don't even know where he lives?"
"So help me, I don't. All I got is a phone number where I can ring him."
"What is this number?"
"Berkeley 3100."
Simon studied him calculatingly. The story had at least a possibility of truth, and the way McGuire told it it sounded convincing. But the Saint didn't let any premature cameraderie soften his implacably dissecting gaze.
He said: "What sort of a guy is he?"
"A tall thin foreign-looking bloke wiv a black beard."
It still sounded possible. Whatever Mr Osbett's normal appearance might be, and whatever kind of racket he might be in, he might easily be anxious not to have his identity known by such dubiously efficient subordinates as Red McGuire.
"And exactly how," said the Saint, "did your foreign-looking bloke know that I had any miracles in the house?"
"I dunno—"
Patricia Holm came back into the room with a curling-iron that glowed dull red.
Simon turned and reached for it.
"You're just in time, darling," he murmured. "Comrade McGuire's memory is going back on him again."
Comrade McGuire gaped at the hot iron, and licked his lips.
"I found that out meself, guv'nor," he said hurriedly. "I was goin' to tell yer —"
"How did you find out?"
"I heard somethink on the telephone." The Saint's eyes narrowed.
"Where?"
"In the fust house I went to — somewhere near Victoria Station. That was where I was told to go fust an' swop over the tea. I got in all right, but the bloke was there in the bedroom. I could hear 'im tossing about in bed. I was standin' outside the door, wondering if I should jump in an' cosh him, when the telephone rang. I listened to wot he said, an' all of a sudding I guessed it was about some tea, an' then once he called you 'Saint', an' I knew who he must be talkin' to. So I got out again an' phoned the guvnor an' told him about it; an' he ses, go ahead an' do the same thing here."
Simon thought back over his conversation with Mr Teal; and belief grew upon him. No liar could have invented that story, for it hung on the fact of a telephone call which nobody else besides Teal and Patricia and himself could have known about.
He could see how the mind of Mr Osbett would have worked on it. Mr Osbett would already know that someone had interrupted the attempt to recover the package of tea from Chief Inspector Teal on his way home, that that someone had arrived in a car, and that he had presumably driven Teal the rest of the way after the rescue. If someone was phoning Teal later about a packet of tea, the remainder of the sequence of accidents would only have taken a moment to reconstruct… And when the Saint thought about it, he. would have given a fair percentage of his fifteen hundred pounds for a glimpse of Mr Osbett's face when he learned into what new hands the packet of tea had fallen.
He still looked at Red McGuire.
"How would you like to split this packet of tea with me?" he asked casually.
McGuire blinked at him.
"Blimey, guv'nor, wot would I do wiv art a packet of tea?"
Simon did not try to enlighten him. The answer was enough to consolidate the conclusion he had already reached. Red McGuire really didn't know what it was all about — that was also becoming credible. After all, any intelligent employer would know that Red McGuire was not a man who could be safely led into temptation.
The Saint had something else to think about. His own brief introductory anonymity was over, and henceforward all the attentions of the ungodly would be lavished on himself — while he was still without one single solid target to shoot back at.
He sank into a chair and blew the rest of his cigarette into a meditative chain of smoke rings; and then he crushed the butt into an ashtray and looked at McGuire again.
"What happens to your fifty-quid-a-week job if you go back to stir, Red?" he inquired deliberately.
The thug chewed his teeth.
"I s'pose it's all over with, guv'nor."
"How would you like to phone your boss now — for me?"
Fear swelled in McGuire's eyes again as the Saint's meaning wore its way relentlessly into his understanding. His mouth opened once or twice without producing any sound.
"Yer carn't arsk me to do that!" he got out at last. "If he knew I'd double-crorst 'im — he said—"
Simon rose with a shrug.
"Just as you like," he said carelessly. "But one of us is going to use the telephone, and I don't care which it is. If I ring up Vine Street and tell 'em to come over and fetch you away, I should think you'd get about ten years, with a record like yours. Still, they say it's a healthy life, with no worries
"Wait a minute," McGuire said chokily. "What do you do if I make this call?"
"I'll give you a hundred quid in cash; and I'll guarantee that when I'm through with your boss he won't be able to do any of those things he promised."
McGuire was no mathematician, but he could do simple arithmetic. He gulped something out of his throat.
"Okay," he grunted. "It's a bet."
Simon summed him up for a moment longer, and then hauled his chair over to within reach of the table where the telephone stood. He picked up the microphone and prodded his forefinger into the first perforation of the dial.
"All you're going to do," he said, as he went on spelling out BER 3100, "is tell the big bearded chief that you've been through this place with a fine comb, and the only tea-leaf in it is yourself. Do you get it? No Saint, no tea — no soap… And I don't want to frighten you or anything like that, Red, but I just want you to remember that if you try to say any more than that, I've still got you here, and we can easily warm up the curling-tongs again."
"Don't yer think I know wot's good for me?" retorted the other sourly.
The Saint nodded warily, and heard the ring of the call in the receiver. It was answered almost at once, in a sharp cultured voice with a slight foreign intonation.
"Yes? Who is that?"
Simon put the mouthpiece to McGuire's lips.
"McGuire calling," said the burglar thickly.
"Well?"
"No luck, guv'nor. It ain't here. The Saint's out, so I had plenty of time. I couldn't 've helped findin' it if it'd been here."
There was a long pause.
"All right," said the voice curtly. "Go home and wait for further orders. I'll call you tomorrow."
The line went down with a click.
"And I wouldn't mind betting," said the Saint, as he put the telephone back, "that that's the easiest hundred quid you ever earned."
"Well, yer got wot yer wanted, didn't yer?" he snarled. "Come on an' take off these ruddy bracelets an' let me go."
The Saint shook his head.
"Not quite so fast, brother," he said. "You might think of calling up your boss again and having another chat with him before you went to bed, and I'd hate him to get worried at this hour of the night. You stay right where you are and get some of that beauty sleep which you need so badly, because after what I'm going to do tomorrow your boss may be looking for you with a gun!"