"His house is only about a mile away — a big modern place with four or five acres of garden. And whatever you like to think about him yourself, the fact remains that he has fairly important work to do. Things go through his office that it's sometimes important to keep absolutely secret until the proper time comes to publish them."
Simon Templar had never been called slow. "Good Lord, Teal — is this a stolen treaty business?"
The detective nodded slowly. "That sounds a little sensational, but it's about the truth of it. The draft of our commercial agreement with the Argentine is going before the House tomorrow, and Whipplethwaite brought it down here on Saturday night late to work on it — he has the pleasure of introducing it for the Government. I don't know much about it myself, except that it's to do with tariffs, and some people could make a lot of money out of knowing the text of it in advance."
"And it's been stolen?"
"On Sunday afternoon."
Simon reached thoughtfully for his cigarette-case. "Teal, why are you telling me this?"
"I don't really know," said the detective, looking at him sombrely.
"When you walked in and found me here, I suppose you thought I was the man."
"No — I didn't think that. A thing like that is hardly in your line, is it?"
"It isn't. So why bring me in?"
"I don't really know," repeated the detective stubbornly, watching his empty porridge plate being replaced by one of bacon and eggs. "In fact, if you wanted to lose me my job you could go right out and sell the story to a newspaper. They'd pay you well for it."
The Saint tilted back his chair and blew a succession of smoke-rings towards the ceiling. Those very clear and challenging blue eyes rested almost lazily on the detective's somnolent pink half-moon of a face.
"I get you, Claud," he said seriously, "and for once the greatest criminal brain of this generation shall be at the disposal of the Law. Shoot me the whole works."
"I can do more than that," said Teal, with a certain relief. "I'll show you the scene presently. Whipplethwaite's gone to London for a conference with the Prime Minister."
The detective finished his breakfast, and refused a cigarette.
After a few minutes they set out to walk to Whipplethwaite's house, where Teal had already spent several hours of fruitless searching for clues after a special police car had brought him down from London.
Teal, having given his outline of the barest facts, had become taciturn, and Simon made no attempt to force the pace. The Saint appreciated the compliment of the detective's confidence — although perhaps it was only one of many occasions on which those two epic antagonists had been silent in a momentary recognition of the impossible friendship that might have been just as epic if their destinies had lain in different paths. Those were the brief interludes when a truce was possible between them; and the hint of a sigh in Teal's silent ruminations might have been taken to indicate that he wished the truce could have been extended indefinitely.
In the same silence they turned in between the somewhat pompous concrete gate-pillars that gave entrance to the grounds of Sir Joseph Whipplethwaite's country seat. From there, a gravelled carriage drive led them in a semicircular curve through a rough, densely-grown plantation and brought them rather suddenly into sight of the house, which was invisible from the road. A uniformed local constable was patrolling in front of the door; he saluted as he saw Teal, and looked at the Saint inquiringly.
Teal, however, was uncommunicative. He stood aside for the Saint to pass, and ushered him personally through the front door — a performance which, from the village constable's point of view, was sufficient introduction to one who could scarcely have been less than an Assistant Commissioner.
The house was not only modern, as Teal had described it — it was almost prophetic. From the outside, it looked at first glance like the result of some close in-breeding between an aquarium, a wedding cake, and a super cinema. It was large, white and square, with enormous areas of window and erratic balconies which looked as if they had been transferred bodily from the facade of an Atlantic liner. Inside, it was remarkably light and airy, with a certain ascetic barrenness of furnishing that made it seem too studiously sanitary to be comfortable, like a hospital ward.
Teal led the way down a long wide white hall, and opened a door at the end. Simon found himself in a room that needed no introduction as Sir Joseph's study. Every wall had long bookshelves let into its depth in the modern style, and there was a glass-topped desk with a steel-framed chair behind it; the upper reaches of the walls were plastered with an assortment of racquets, bats, skis, skates, and illuminated addresses that looked oddly incongruous.
"Is this architecture Joseph's idea?" asked the Saint.
"I think it's his wife's," said Teal. "She's very progressive."
It certainly looked like a place in which any self-respecting mystery should have died of exhaustion looking for a suitable place to happen. The safe in which the treaty had reposed was the one touch about it that showed any trace of fantasy, for it was sunk in flush with the wall and covered by a mirror, which, when it was opened, proved to be the door of the safe itself, and the keyhole was concealed in a decorative scroll of white metal worked into a frame of the glass which slid aside in cunningly-fashioned grooves to disclose it.
Teal demonstrated its working; and the Saint was interested.
"The burglars don't seem to have damaged it much," he remarked, and Teal gave him a glance that seemed curiously lethargic.
"They haven't damaged it at all," he said. "If you go over it with a magnifying glass you won't find a trace of its having been tampered with."
"How many keys?"
"Two. Whipplethwaite wears one on his watch-chain, and the other is at his bank in London."
For the first time that day two thin hair-lines of puzzlement cut vertically down between the Saint's level brows. They were the only outward signs of a wild idea, an intuition too ludicrous even to hint at, that flickered through his mind at the tone of the detective's voice.
"Whipplethwaite went to church on Sunday morning," said Teal, with an expressionless face, "and worked over the treaty when he came back. He took it to lunch with him; and then he locked it up in the safe and went upstairs to his room to rest. He was rather taken up with the importance of secrecy, and he had demanded two guards from the local police. One of them was at the front door, where we came in. The other was outside here."
Teal walked towards the tall windows which filled nearly the whole of one wall of the room. Right in the centre of these windows, on the stone-flagged terrace outside, the back of a seated man loomed against the light like a statuette in a glass case.
Simon had noticed him as soon as they entered the room: he appeared to be painting a scene of the landscape, and as they went through the windows and came out behind him Simon observed that the canvas on his easel was covered with brightly-coloured daubs of paint in various abstruse geometrical shapes. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps, gave the Saint a casual nod, and bowed politely to the detective.
"Well, sir," he said, with a trace of mockery, "how are the investigations going?"
"We're doing the best we can," said Teal vaguely, and turned to Simon. "This is Mr. Spencer Vallance, who was painting exactly where you see him now when the robbery took place. Down there" — he pointed to a grass tennis-court which was cut bodily, like a great step, out of the fairly steep slope below them—"those same four people you see were playing. They're finalists in the South of England Junior Championships, and they're staying here as Whipplethwaite's guests for a week."