"What for, Desmond?" He leaned one elbow on the desk at his side, and brought the wooden-faced janitor into the party with a shift of his lazy smile. "You can't shock Sam Outrell-he knew me before you ever did. And Miss Holm is quite broad-minded, too. By the way, have you met Miss Holm? Pat, this is Miss Desdemona Pryke, the Pride of the Y.W.C.A.-----"
"I'd rather see you alone, if you don't mind," said the detective.
He was beginning to go a trifle white about the mouth; and Simon's eyes marked the symptom with a wicked glitter of unhallowed mischief. It was a glitter that Mr. Teal would have recognised only too easily, if he had been there to see it; but for once that long-suffering waist-line of the Law was not its victim.
"What for?" Simon repeated, with a puzzled politeness that was about as cosy and reliable as a tent on the edge of a drifting iceberg. "If you've got anything to say to me that this audience can't hear, I'm afraid you're shinning up the wrong leg. I'm not that sort of a girl."
"I know perfectly well what I want to say," retorted Pryke chalkily.
"Then I hope you'll say it," murmured the Saint properly. "Come along, now, Desmond-let's get it over with. Make a clean breast of it-as the bishop said to the actress. Unmask the Public School Soul. What's the matter?"
Pryke's hands clenched spasmodically at his sides. "Do you know a man called Enderby?" "Never heard of him," said the Saint unblushingly. "What does he do-bore the holes in spaghetti, or something?"
"At about ten minutes to three this afternoon," said Pryke, with his studiously smooth University accent burring jaggedly at the edges, "a man entered his office, falsely representing himself to be an agent of the Southshire Insurance Company, and took away about twenty-seven thousand pounds' worth of precious stones."
Simon raised his eyebrows.
"It sounds like a tough afternoon for Comrade Enderby," he remarked. "But why come and tell me? D'you mean you want me to try and help you recover these jools?"
The antarctic effrontery of his innocence would have left nothing visible in a thermometer but a shrunken globule of congealed quicksilver. It was a demonstration of absolute vacuum in the space used by the normal citizen for storing his conscience that left its audience momentarily speechless. Taking his first ration of that brass-necked Saintliness which had greyed so many of the hairs in Chief Inspector Teal's dwindling crop, Desmond Pryke turned from white to pink, and then back to white again.
"I want to know what you were doing at the time," he said.
"Me?" Simon took out his cigarette-case. "I was at the Plaza, watching a Mickey Mouse. But what on earth has that got to do with poor old Enderby and his jools?"
Suddenly the detective's hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist.
"That's what you've got to do with it. That scar on your forearm. Miss Weagle-Mr. Enderby's secretary-saw it on this fake insurance agent's arm when he picked up the parcel of stones. It was part of the description she gave us!"
Simon looked down at his wrist in silence for a moment, the cigarette he had chosen poised forgotten in mid-air, gazing at the tail of the furrowed scar that showed beyond the edge of his cuff. It was a souvenir he carried from quite a different adventure, and he had usually remembered to keep it covered when he was disguised. He realised that he had underestimated both the eyesight of Miss Weagle and the resourcefulness of Junior Inspector Pryke; but when he raised his eyes again they were still bantering and untroubled.
"Yes, I've got a scar there-but I expect lots of other people have, too. What else did this Weagle dame say in her description?"
"Nothing that couldn't be covered by a good disguise," said Pryke, with a new note of triumph in his voice. "Now are you coming along quietly?"
"Certainly not," said the Saint.
The detective's eyes narrowed.
"Do you know what happens if you resist a police officer?"
"Surely," said the Saint, supple and lazy. "The police officer gets a thick ear."
Pryke let go his wrist, and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Do you want me to have you taken away by force?" he asked.
"I shouldn't want you to try anything so silly, Desmond," said the Saint. He put the cigarette between his lips and struck a match with a flick of his thumbnail, without looking at it. "The squad hasn't been hatched yet that could take me away by force without a good deal of commotion; and you know it. You'd get more publicity than a Hollywood divorce- or is that what you're wanting?"
"I'm simply carrying out my orders-------"
"Whose orders?"
46
"That's none of your business," Pryke got out through his teeth.
"I think it is," said the Saint mildly. "After all, I'm the blushing victim of this persecution. Besides, Desmond, I don't believe you. I think you're misguided. You're behind the times. How long have you been here waiting for me?"
"I'm not here to be cross-examined by you," spluttered the detective furiously.
"I'm not cross-examining you, Desmond. I'm trying to lead you into the paths of reason. But you don't have to answer that one if it hurts. How long has this petunia-blossom been here, Sam?"
The janitor glanced mechanically at the clock.
"Since about four o'clock, sir."
"Has it received any message-a telephone call, or anything like that?"
"No, sir."
"Nobody's come in and spoken to it?"
"No, sir."
"In fact, it's just been sitting around here all on its own-some, like the last rose of summer"
Junior Inspector Pryke thrust himself up between them, along the desk, till his chest was almost touching the Saint's. His hands were thrust into his pockets so savagely that the coat was stretched down in long creases from his shoulders.
"Will you be quiet?" he blazed quiveringly. "I've stood asmuch as I can"
"As the bishop said to the actress."
"Are you coming along with me," fumed the detective, "or am I going to have you dragged out?"
Simon shook his head.
"You miss the idea, Desmond." He tapped the other firmly on the lower chest with his forefinger, and raised his eyebrows. "Hullo," he remarked, "your stomach hasn't got nearly so much bounce in it as dear old Teal's."
"Never mind my stomach!" Pryke almost screamed.
"I don't mind it," said the Saint generously. "I admit I haven't seen it in all its naked loveliness; but in its veiled state, at this distance, there seems to be nothing offensive about it."
The noise that Pryke made can only be likened to that of a kettle coming to the boil.
"I'll hear that another time," he said. "Simon Templar, I am taking you into custody------"
"But I'm trying to show you that that's exactly what you mustn't do, Desmond," said the Saint patiently. "It would be fatal. Here you are, a rising young officer on the threshold of your career, trying to pull a flivver that'll set you back four years' seniority. I can't let you do it. Why don't you curb the excessive zeal, Rosebud, and listen to reason? I can tell you exactly what's happened."
"I can tell you exactly what's going to happen--------"
"It was like this," continued the Saint, as if the interruption not merely fell on deaf ears, but had failed miserably in its effort to occur at all. "This guy Enderby was robbed, as you say. Or he thought he was. Or, still more exactly, his secretary thought he was. A bloke calling himself an insurance agent blew into the office, and breezed out again with a parcel of jools. On account of various complications, the secretary was led to believe that this insurance agent was a fake, and the jools had been pinched. Filled with the same misguided zeal that's pulling the buttons of that horrible waistcoat of yours, Desmond, she called the police. Hearing of this, you come puffing round to see me, with your waistcoat bursting with pride and your brain addled with all the uncomplimentary fairy-tales that Claud Eustace Teal has told you about me."
"Who said so?"
"I did. It's a sort of clairvoyant gift of mine. But you must listen to the rest of it. You come blowing round here, and wait for me from four o'clock onwards. Pepped up with the idea of scoring a solo triumph, you haven't said anything to anyone about your scheme. Consequently, you don't know what's happened since you left Headquarters. Which is this. Shortly after the secretary female called for the police, Comrade Enderby himself returned to the office, the shemozzle was explained to him, he explained the shemozzle, and the long and the short of it was that the insurance agent was found to be perfectly genuine, the whole misunderstanding was cleared up, the whole false alarm exposed; and it was discovered that there was nothing to arrest anybody for-least of all me."