One of the cardinal articles of Simon Templar's philosophy, however, was that the more elaborately insoluble such complex problems became, the more pellucidly simple the one and only key to the riddle became -if one could only see it. And in this case the solution was so staggeringly elementary that it left the Saint dumb with awe for a full half-minute.
And then, very deliberately and accurately, he placed the end of his forefinger on the bell beside the gateway, and pushed.
There was an interval of silence before he heard the sound of footsteps advancing over flagstones towards the gate. A grille opened in the smaller door, but it was too dark to see the face that looked out from behind it.
"żQuién es?"
For the time being the Saint saw no need to advertise the fact that he spoke Spanish as well as any Castilian.
"Mr Graner is expecting me," he said.
"Who is it?" repeated the voice, in English.
"Mr Felson sent me."
"Just a minute."
There was another pause. Simon heard a low whistle, the scuffle of claws on the stone, and the tinkle and creak of chains. Then a key was turned, bolts thudded back and the small door opened.
"Come in."
Simon ducked through the narrow opening and straightened up inside. The man who had admitted him was bending to close the door and fasten the bolts. The Saint noted that there were no less than five of them-two on the lock side, one on the hinge side, and one each in the centre of the top and bottom of the door-and all of them were connected with curious bright metal contacts.
He glanced thoughtfully around him. The dogs had been tied up to a post set in the flagged pathway with short loops of chain riven through rings in their collars. They were huge, bristling grey brutes, larger than police dogs-he had no idea what breed they were. The chains scraped and rattled as they strained steadily towards him, their slavering jaws a little open and their lips curled snarling back from glistening white fangs; but even then neither of them gave tongue. They simply leaned towards him, their feet scrabbling on the paving, quivering with a voiceless intensity of lusting ferocity and power that was more vicious than anything of its kind that the Saint had ever seen before. And a grim little smile touched his lips as he mentally acknowledged the fact that if it was difficult enough to get into that garden, it would be just about as difficult to get out. . . .
"Come this way," said the man who had let him in; and they walked along the paved pathway that ran around the house. "I'm Graner. What's your name?"
"Tombs," said the Saint.
He had cherished for years an eccentric affection for that morbid alias.
There was a light over the porch outside the front door, and for the first time he was able to inspect his host, while Graner looked at him. From Simon's side the inspection was something of a shock.
Reuben Graner was a full head shorter than himself, and as thin as a lath; and his skinny shape was accentuated by a mauve-striped suit which fitted him so tightly that it looked as if it had been shrunk on to him. Between his green suede shoes and the ends of his clinging trousers appeared a pair of bright yellow spats; and what could be seen of his shirt behind a tie like a patchwork quilt was a pale rose pink. Above that, his sallow face was as thin and sharp as an axe blade. From either side of his inordinately long and narrow nose hard, deeply graven lines ran down like brackets to enclose a mouth that was merely a horizontal slit in the tight-drawn skin, which was so smoothly stretched over the forehead and high cheek-Hones that it seemed as if there was no flesh between it and the skull. At that first inspection, only his eyes seemed to justify the uncontrollable horror with which Christine Vanlinden had spoken of him; they peered out with an odd unblinking intentness from behind large tortoise-shell spectacles, black and beady and inscrutable as damp pebbles.
"Come in," Graner said again.
He opened the door, which led into a bare narrow hall beyond which Simon could see palm trees in a dimly illuminated patio. On either side of the hall there were other doors, and one of them was ajar-Simon saw the strip of light along the edge of the frame. And as he crossed the threshold the Saint heard something that made him feel as if he had been hurled suddenly into the air and spun round three or four times before he was dumped back on the doorstep with a jar that left his heart thumping. It was a man's voice raised in blustering anger, with a subtle note of fear pulsing it in. Simon heard every word as distinctly as if the speaker had been standing next to him.
"I tell you I never had the blasted ticket. I was hunting through Joris' pockets for it when that swine jumped on me. If anybody's got it, he has!"
III How Simon Templar Read a Newspaper, and Reuben Graner Put on His Hat
BY SOME SUPERHUMAN EFFORT of unconscious will, the Saint let his weight follow the step he had started to take. He never quite knew how it was done, but somehow he went on his way into the house without an instant's check in the natural flow of his movements; and since Graner had stood aside to let him go first it was impossible for his face to give him away. By the time he was in the hall and had turned round so that Graner could see him again, the dizzy moment had passed. He stood there lighting a cigarette, aware of the sudden sharp scrutiny of Graner's beady eyes, without giving any sign that he noticed it. He might have heard nothing more than a meaningless fragment of any commonplace conversation. Only the vertiginous whirl that was still turning his mind upside down remained to bear witness to the quality of the shock that he had received.
Graner seemed to be satisfied that the words had made no particular impression. He turned away and pressed a button switch beside the door; and the Saint was momentarily puzzled, for no lights went on or off. Then he heard a swift scurrying outside, a light thud on the door and the scratch of claws; and all at once he understood the pressing of the switch and the reason for those unusually short chains on the post to which the dogs had been fastened. Doubtless the switch released them again by some electrical mechanism after any visitor had been taken inside the house.
No other voice had spoken from the room opening off the hall, and the dead silence continued as Graner strutted towards it in his pompous, affected way and pushed open the door.
"These are some friends of mine, Mr Tombs."
Simon took in the room with a leisured glance. It was furnished in the modern style, but with a garishness that contrived to be more eye-aching than chintz and brocades. The curtains were bright scarlet, the carpet was chequered purple and orange, the chairs were upholstered in grass-green tapestry. The solid comfort of the chairs was mixed up with little spindle-legged, glass-topped tables which looked as if a sneeze would blow them over; and every available horizontal surface was littered with a collection of cheap nondescript vases and tasteless bits of china that might have been taken straight out of an old-fashioned, middle-class drawing room. It was a room into which Reuben Graner fitted so perfectly that, after seeing him in it, it was impossible to imagine him in any other setting.
But Simon Templar was not looking so much at the room, as at the men in it. There were three of them; he suppressed a smile of unholy glee as he noted that at least two of them showed unmistakable signs of having been on a party.
"Mr Palermo," said Graner, in his high-pitched, mincing voice.
He indicated a dark, slender gentleman with a swarthy skin and a natty little moustache, whose beauty was somewhat impaired by the radiant sunset effects surrounding his right eye and the swollen heelprint on the other side of his face "Mr Aliston --"