Simon Templar's experience as a burglar was strictly limited. On the rare occasions when he had unlawfully introduced himself into the houses of his victims, it had nearly always been in quest of information rather than booty. And he set out to explore the abode of the man called Jones with the untainted zest of a man to whom the crime was still an adventure.
With one hand still resting lightly in the side pocket of his coat, he opened the opposite door soundlessly and admitted himself to a large, dimly illuminated central hall. A broad marble staircase wound up and around the sides of the hall, climbing from gallery to gallery up the three floors of the house until it was indistinguishable against the great shrouded emptiness of what was probably an ornate stained-glass skylight in the roof. Everything around was wrapped in the silence of death, and the atmosphere had the damply naked feel of air that has not been breathed for many months. A thin smear of dust came off on his fingers from everything he touched; and when he flashed his torch over the interior of one of the ground-floor rooms he found it bare and dilapidated, with the paint peeling off the walls and cobwebs festooning an enormous dingy gilt chandelier.
"Rented for the job," he diagnosed. "They wouldn't bother about the ground floor at all-not with kid-napped prisoners."
He flitted up the staircase without so much as a tap from his feather-weight crepe-soled shoes. A strip of cheap carpet had been roughly laid around the gallery which admitted to the first-floor rooms; and the Saint walked softly over it, listening at door after door.
Then he heard, with startling clarity, a voice that he recognized.
"You have nothing to be afraid of, Miss Holm, so long as you behave yourself. I'm sorry to have had to take the liberty of abducting you, but you doubtless know one or two reasons why I must discourage your friend's curiosity."
He heard the girl's calm reply: "I think you could have invented a less roundabout way of committing suicide."
The man's bass chuckle answered her. Perhaps only the Saint's ears could have detected the iron core of ruthless menace that hardened the overtones of its full-throated heartiness.
"I'm glad you're not hysterical." A brief pause. "If there's anything within reason that you want, I hope you'll ask for it. Are you feeling hungry?"
"Thanks," said the girl coolly. "I should like a couple of sausages, some potatoes, and a cup of coffee."
Simon darted along the gallery and whipped open the nearest door. Through the gap which he left open he saw a heavily built, grey-haired man emerge from the next room, lock the door after him, and go down the stairs. As the man bent to the key, the Saint had a photographic impression of a dark, large-featured, smooth-shaven face; then he could only see the broad, well-tailored back passing downwards out of view.
The man's footsteps died away; and Simon returned to the landing. He stood at the door of Patricia's room and tapped softly on the wood with his fingernails.
"Hullo, Pat!"
Her dress rustled inside the room.
"Quick work, boy. How did you do it?"
"Easy. Are you all right?"
"Sure."
"How's the window in there?"
"There's a sort of cage over it-I couldn't reach the glass. The taxi was the same. There's a divan bed and a couple of wicker armchairs. The table's very low-the legs wouldn't reach through the bars. He's thought of everything. Washbasin and jug of water on the floor-some towels-cigarettes --"
"What happened to the taxi driver?"
"That was Mr. Jones."
The Saint drew a thoughtful breath.
"Phew! And what a solo worker! . . . Can you hold on for a bit? I'd like to explore the rest of the establishment before I start any trouble."
"Go ahead, old chap. I'm fine."
"Still got your gun?"
"Sure."
"So long, lass."
The Saint tiptoed along the landing and prowled up the second flight of stairs.
CHAPTER VI THERE were no lights burning on the tipper gallery, but a dull glimmer of twilight filtered up from the lamps below and relieved the darkness sufficiently for him to be able to move as quickly as he wanted to. With his slim electric flash in his hand he went around the story from room to room, turning the door handles with infinite care and probing the apartments with the dancing beam of his torch. The first one he opened was plainly but comfortably furnished as a bedroom: it was evidently occupied, for the bed had not been made since it was last slept in, and a shaving brush crested with a mound of dried lather stood on the mantelpiece. The second room was another bedroom, tidier than the first, but showing the ends of a suit of silk pyjamas under the pillow as proof that it also was used. The door of the third room was locked; and Simon delved in his pocket again for a skeleton key. The lock was of the same type as that on the back door by which he had entered the house-one of those ponderously useless contraptions which any cracksman can open with a bent pin-and in a second or two it gave way.
Simon pushed the door ajar and saw that the room was in darkness. He stepped boldly in, quartering the room with his weaving pencil of light. The flying disk of luminance danced along the walls and suddenly stopped, splashing itself in an irregular pool over the motionless form of a man who lay quietly on the floor as if asleep. But the Saint knew that he was dead.
He knelt down and made a rapid examination. The man had been dead about forty-eight hours-there was no trace of a wound, but with his face close to the dead man's mouth he detected the unmistakable scent of prussic acid. It was as he was rising to go that he accidentally turned over the lapel of the dead man's coat, and saw the thin silver badge underneath-the silver greyhound of a King's Messenger.
The Saint came to his feet again rather slowly. The waters were running deeper than he had ever expected, and he felt an odd sense of shock. That slight silver badge had transformed the adventure at one glance from a more or less ordinary if still mysterious criminal problem to an intrigue that might lead anywhere.
As he left the room he heard the man called Jones coming up the stairs again. Peeping over the wooden balustrade, he saw that the man carried a tray-the catering arrangements in that house appeared to be highly commendable, even if nothing else was.
Simon slipped along the gallery without a sound. He opened two more rooms and found them both empty; then he paused outside another and saw a narrow line of light under the door.
He stood still for a few seconds, listening. He heard an occasional faint chink of glass or metal, and the shuffling of slippered feet over the carpet; but there were no voices. Almost mechanically he tried the door, and had one of the biggest surprises of his life when he felt it opening.
The Saint froze up motionless, with a dry electric tingle glissading over the surface of his skin. The way the door gave back under his light touch disintegrated the very ground from under his nebulous theory about the occupant of that room. In the space of four seconds his brain set up, surveyed, and bowled over a series of possible explanations that were chiefly notable for their complete uselessness. In the fifth second that ultimate fact impressed itself unanswerably on his consciousness, and he acknowledged it with a wry shrug and the decimal point of a smile. Theories were all very well in their place; but he had come to the house of Mr. Jones on a quest for irrefutable knowledge, and an item of irrefutable knowledge was awaiting his attention inside that room. It remained for him to go in and get introduced-and that was what he had given up a peaceful evening in his own home to do.
He glanced downwards into the hall. There was no sound or movement from below. For a minute or two he might consider he had the field to himself-if he was quick and quiet about taking it over.