The door opened in a few moments; and circumstances proceeded to provide for him so completely and surprisingly that he was ready for some unpleasantness.
The man who looked out of the door was rather small and wiry, with thin grey hair and a sallow bird-like Cockney face on which the reddish tint of his nose stood out so unexpectedly that it looked at first sight like one of those ageless carnival "novelties" which give so much harmless pleasure to adult infants engaged in the laborious business of having a good time. With his threadbare and baggy trousers, and his pink shirt fastened together with a stud at the neck but virginally innocent of collar or tie, he looked like the very last sort of man who ought to be answering a door-bell in that expensive slum.
"I want to see Mr. Ellshaw," said the Saint, with sublime directness; and knew at once that he was talking to the man he wanted.
His first surprise was when this was admitted.
"I'm Ellshaw," said the man at once. "You're Mr. Templar, ain't yer?"
The Saint drew at his cigarette with a certain added thoughtfulness. He never forgot a face; and he was sure that this little bird with the carmine beak could not have slipped out of his mind very easily if their paths had ever crossed before. But he acknowledged the identification with outwardly unaltered amiability.
"How did you know that, Archibald?"
"I was just comin' round to see yer, guv'nor." The little man opened the door wider, and stepped back invitingly. "Would yer like ter step inside fer a minute?-I've got somefink to tell yer."
The Saint stepped inside. He put his hands in his pockets as he crossed the threshold, and one of them rested on the butt of his gun.
Ellshaw led him through the uncarpeted hall to the nearest door, which brought them into the front ground-floor room. There was hardly any furniture in it-a piece of cheap hair carpet, a painted deal table carrying a bottle and glasses and the scars of cigarette-ends, and a couple of ancient armchairs with soiled chintz covers, would have formed a practically complete inventory. There were grimy lace curtains nailed up on the windows at the street end, and a door communicating with the back room at the other. From the oak parquet floor, the tinted ceiling and tasteful electric light fittings, it was obvious that the room had once been lived in by someone of a definite class, but everything in it at that moment spoke loudly of the shoddiest stock of the secondhand sale room.
"Sit down, guv'nor," said Ellshaw, moving over to the chair nearer the window and leaving Simon no choice about the other. " 'Ow abaht a drink?"
"No, thanks," said the Saint, with a faint smile. "What is it you were so anxious to tell me?"
Ellshaw settled himself in his chair and lighted a drooping fag.
"Well, guv'nor, it's abaht me ole woman. I left 'er a year ago. Between you an' I, she 'ad a lot of bad points, not that I want to speak evil of the dead-oh, yush, I know 'ow she committed suicide," he said, answering the slight lift of the Saint's eyebrows. "I sore it in the pypers this mornin'. But she 'ad 'er faults. She couldn't never keep 'er mouf shut. Wot could I do? The rozzers was lookin' for me on account of some bloke that 'ad a grudge against me an' tried ter frame me up, an' I knew if she'd knowed where I'd gorn she couldn't 'ave 'elped blabbin' it all over the plyce."
Simon was beginning to understand that he was listening to a speech in which the little Cockney had been carefully rehearsed-there was an artificial fluency about the way the sentences rattled off the other's tongue which gave him his first subtle warning. But he lay back in his chair and crossed his legs without any sign of the urgent questions that were racing through his mind.
"What was the matter?" he asked.
"Well, guv'nor, between you an' I, seein' as you understands these things, I used ter do a bit of work on the rice trains. Nothink dishonest, see?-just a little gamble wiv the cards sometimes. Well, one dye a toff got narsty an' said I was cheatin', an' we 'ad a sort of mix-up, and my pal wot I was workin' wiv, 'e gets up an' slugs this toff wiv a cosh an' kills 'im. It wasn't my fault, but the flatties think I done it, an' they want me for murder."
"That's interesting," said the Saint gently. "I was talking to Chief Inspector Teal only a little while ago about you, and he didn't tell me you were wanted."
Ellshaw was only disconcerted for a moment.
"I don't spect 'e would've told yer, knowin' wot you are, guv'nor-if you'll ixcuse me syin' so. But that's Gawd's troof as sure as I'm sittin' 'ere; an' I wanted to come an' see yer-"
Simon was watching his eyes, and saw them wavering to some point behind his shoulder. He saw Ellshaw's face twitch into a sudden tension, and remembered the communicating door behind him in the same instant. With a lightning command of perfectly supple muscles he threw himself sideways over the arm of the chair, and felt something swish past his head and thud solidly into the upholstery, beating out a puff of grey dust.
In a flash he was on his feet again, in time to see the back of a man ducking through the door. His gun was out in his hand, and his brain was weighing out pros and cons with cool deliberation even while his finger tightened on the trigger. The cons had it-it was no use shooting unless he aimed to hit his target, and at that embryonic stage of the developments a hospital capture would be more of a liability than an asset. He dropped the automatic back in his pocket and jumped for the door empty-handed. It slammed in his face as he reached it, and a bottle wildly thrown from behind smashed itself on the wall a foot from his head. Calmly ignoring the latter interruption, Simon stepped back and put his heel on the lock with his weight behind it. The door, which had never been built to withstand that kind of treatment, surrendered unconditionally, and he went through into a chamber barely furnished as a bedroom. There was nobody under the bed or in the wardrobe; but there was another door at the side, and this also was locked. Simon treated it exactly as he had treated the first, and found himself back in the hall-just at the moment when the front door banged.
Ellshaw himself had vanished from the front room when he reached it; and the Saint leaned against the wreckage of the communicating door and lighted a fresh cigarette with a slow philosophical grin for his own ridiculous easiness.
As soon as they learned that the bomb had failed to take effect, of course, they were expecting him to follow up the clue which Mrs. Ellshaw must have given him. Probably she had been followed from Duchess Place the previous morning, and it would not have been difficult for them to find out whom she went to see. The rest was inevitable; and the only puzzle in his mind was why the attempt had not been made to do something more conclusive than stunning him with a rubber truncheon while he sat in that chair with his back to the door.
But who were "they"? He searched the house from attic to basement in the hope of finding an answer, but he went through nothing more enlightening than a succession of empty rooms. Inquiries about the property at neighbouring estate agents might lead on to a clue, but there was none on the premises. The two ground-floor rooms were the only ones furnished-apparently Ellshaw had been living there for some time, but there was no evidence to show whether this was with or without the consent and knowledge of the landlord.
Simon went out into the street rather circumspectly, but no second attack was made on him. He walked back to Cornwall House to let Patricia Holm know what was happening, and found a message waiting for him.
"Claud Eustace Teal rang up-he wants you to get in touch with him at once," she said, and gazed at him accusingly. "Are you in trouble again, old idiot?"
He ruffled her fair hair.
"After a fashion I am, darling," he confessed. "But it isn't with Claud-not yet. What the racket is I don't know, but they've tried to get me twice in the last twelve hours, which is good going."
"Who are 'they'?"