The process was satisfactorily completed under the Saint's expert supervision. Simon had found Mr. Lamantia's cigar-case; and while the knots were being tested he talked and smoked.
"I notice that the welkin hasn't rung with your shrieks for help, Julian. Can it be that you have something on your conscience?.. I'm sorry about all these formalities, but we don't really want a disturbance, and in the heat of the moment you might have been tempted to do something rash which we should all regret. The staff are sure to find you in a year or two, and then you can explain that some pals did this to you for a joke. I'm sure you'll decide that's the best story to tell, but you need a little time to think it over."
He strolled round the room examining the items of Mr. Lamantia's baggage, and eventually chose the smallest bag.
"Is this the one, Peter?"
"That's it."
Simon turned the lock with an instrument he had in his pocket, and glanced inside. The notes were there, in thick bundles, exactly as they had been passed across the counter of the bank. With a sigh of righteous satisfaction the Saint closed the attache case again and picked it up.
"Let's go."
He bowed politely to the speechless man on the bed, replaced the excellent cigar between his teeth, and sauntered to the door. Without a care in the world he opened it — and looked straight into the face of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.
If there had been any competition for grades of paralysis in that doorway, it would have been a thankless task for the judge. Mr. Lamantia had already given his own rendering of a man being kicked in the mid-section by an invisible mule; and now for two or three strung seconds Simon Templar and Chief Inspector Teal gazed at each other in an equally cataleptic immobility. Out in the great world around them, ordinary policemen scurried innocently about their beats, the London traffic dashed hither and thither at a rate of hundreds of yards an hour, the surface of the earth was rotating at five hundred miles every half-hour, whizzing around the sun at seventy-six miles a minute, and tearing through space with the rest of the solar system at over twelve miles per second; but in the midst of all this bustle of cosmic activity those two historic antagonists stared at each other across a yard of empty air without the movement of a muscle.
On Mr. Teal's rubicund features showed no visible emotion beyond the isolated, slow, incredulous expansion of his eyes: the Saint's tanned face was debonairly impassive: but behind the Saint's steady blue eyes his brain was covering ground at a speed it had already been required to make before.
Once before, and once only, in Simon's hectic career, Teal had caught him red-handed; but then there had been a perfect alibi prepared, a grim challenge ready, and a clear getaway in the offing. At other times, of course, there had been close calls, but they had also been anticipated and legislated for in advance. And, with that alibi or getaway at hand, events had taken their natural course. Teal had been baited, defied, dared, punched in the tummy, or pulled by the nose: those were the rich rewards of foresight. But there was none of that now.
And the Saint smiled.
Teal's right hand was still poised in mid-air, raised for the official and peremptory knock that he had been about to deliver when the door opened so astonishingly in front of him: he might have forgotten its existence. But the Saint reached out and drew it down and shook it, with that incomparable Saintly smile lighting his face again with as gay a carelessness as it had ever held.
"Come in, Claud," he said. "You're just in time."
And with that breaking of the silence Teal came back to earth with a jolt that closed his mouth almost with a snap. He advanced solidly into the room, and another burly man in plain clothes who was with him followed him in. They took in the scene in a couple of purposeful glances.
"Well?"
The interrogation broke from the detective's mouth with a curt bluntness that was as self-explanatory as a cannonball. The Saint's eyebrows flickered.
"This," he murmured, with the air of a Cook's guide conducting a tour, "is Mr. Julian Lamantia, who recently revived the ancient game of inviting suckers to —"
"I know all that," said Teal thuddingly. "That's what I came here about. What I want to know is why you're here."
Simon's brow puckered.
"But did you really know all about it? Why, I thought I was doing you a good turn. In the course of my private and philanthropic investigations I happened to learn that the affairs of Julian were not all that they might be, so in order to protect his clients without risking a libel action I decided to have him watched. And this very morning my energetic agents informed me that he had drawn all the J. L. Investment Bureau's capital out of the bank and was preparing to skip with the simoleons — I mean abscond with the cash."
"Go on," said Teal dourly. "It sounds interesting."
The Saint hitched one leg onto the table, and drew appreciatively on Mr. Lamantia's cigar.
"It is interesting, Claud. We also learned that Julian was catching a boat train at two-thirty, so our time was limited. The only thing seemed to be for us to toddle along and grab him before he slipped away, and phone you to come over and collect him as soon as we had him trussed. I admit it may have been a bit rash of us to take the law into our own hands like that; but you must have a spot of excitement now and again in these dull days, and we were thinking of nothing but the public weal."
"And what have you got in that bag?"
"This?" Simon glanced down. "This contains the aforesaid simoleons, or mazuma. We were going to take it downstairs and ask the manager to stow it away in his safe till you arrived."
Mr. Teal took the bag from the Saint's hand and opened it. He sniffed, reminding himself of the Assistant Commissioner.
"That's a great story," he said.
"It's a swell story," said the Saint quietly. "And it'll keep the Home Office guessing for a while. Remember that I'm a reformed character now, so far as the public are concerned, and any nasty suspicions you may have are like the flowers that bloom in the spring. They have nothing to do with the case My reputation is as pure as the driven snow. Perhaps, as I admitted, we have been rash. The magistrate might rebuke me. He might even be rude." The Saint sighed. "Well, Claud, if you feel you must expose me to that tragic humiliation — if you must let the newspapers tell of the magistrate's severe criticism —"
"I don't want to hear any more of that," barked the detective.
"Just a word-picture," explained the Saint apologetically.
Teal bit down forcefully on his chewing gum. He knew that the Saint was right — knew that the last useful word on the subject had been uttered — and the clear blue mocking eyes of the smiling Saint told him that Simon Templar also knew. The knowledge went down into Teal's stomach like gall, but in the days gone by he had learned a certain fatalistic wisdom.
And' this time, for the first time in their long duel, the honours were fairly even.
"If you're quite satisfied," murmured the Saint persuasively, "Peter and I have a date for lunch with a beautiful lady."
"That's your own business," said Mr. Teal with all the restraint of which he was capable.
He turned his broad back on them and moved over to the bed, where his assistant was wrestling with the knots that held the empurpled Mr. Lamantia; and Simon winked at Peter Quentin and removed himself from the table. They Sauntered unopposed to the door; and from there, without a shadow on his face, Simon turned back for his irrepressibly gay farewell. "Send my medal along in the mail, Claud," he said.