"Did you have to get the police to fish her dead body out of the Thames as well-just to make it more convincing?" asked the Saint coldly.
He was not quite sure what answer he expected-certainly he had not looked at the question as a vital thrust in the argument. The reaction which it obtained startled him, and he was surprised to find that he could still be startled.
For some seconds Ellshaw did not speak at all; and then his voice was shockingly different from the defiant whine in which he had been talking before.
"Go on," he said huskily. "Yer carn't tike me in wiv a yarn like that."
"My dear sap," said the Saint slowly, "I don't want to take you in with any yarn. I'm only telling you. Your wife's body was taken out of the river last night. It was supposed to be suicide at first, but now they're pretty sure it was murder."
There was another silence at the opposite end of the canoe; and Simon Templar drew his cigarette to an instant's bright gleam of red in which the lines of his mouth could be seen as intent and inexorable as a stone mask, and went on without a change in the purring level of his voice.
"If you keep your mouth shut I wouldn't give you a bad penny for your chance. You can put a lot of things over on a jury, but somehow or other they never take a great shine to a fellow who kills his own wife. Of course, they say hanging isn't such a bad death-----"
Ellshaw was making queer noises in his throat, as if he was struggling to do something with his voice. "Oh Gawd!"
His feet shuffled on the bottom. His breath was whistling through his teeth with a weird harshness that chilled something dormant in the Saint's heart.
"You ain't tryin' to scare me, are yer? Yer just tellin' me the tile to make me talk. She ain't-dead?" "I'm afraid she is." Ellshaw gulped. "My Gawd . . ." His voice went shrill. "The dirty lyin'
swine! The rat! He told me-----"
There was a sound as if he flopped over a thwart. In another moment he was sprawled across the Saint's feet, clutching aimlessly at Simon with crazy shaking hands.
"I didn't do it," he blubbered. "I swear I didn't! I didn't wish 'er dead. I believed wot I told yer. I thought she was just 'idden away somewhere, like I was. I ain't never murdered nobody!"
"Didn't you know that Lord Ripwell was to be murdered?" said the Saint relentlessly. "Didn't you know that I was to be murdered?"
"Yes, I did!" shouted the other wildly. "But I wouldn't 'ave murdered Florrie. I wouldn't 'ave stood for killin' me own missus. That filthy double-crossin'"
Simon gripped him by the shoulders. "Will you squeal, Ellshaw?"
He could feel the man's stupefied eyes straining to find him in the darkness.
"Yes, I'll squeal. My Gawd, I'll squeal!" "You're a bright boy after all," said the Saint. He pushed the demented man away and took up his paddle again. Driving the canoe back up the stream with cool steady strokes, he felt a great ease of triumph. It was the same quiet thrill that a chess-player must feel on mastering an intricate problem. He realised with a touch of humour that it was one of the very few episodes in which success could not conceivably bring him one pennyworth of boodle; but it made no difference to his satisfaction. He had taken one of his impulsively wholehearted likings to Lord Ripwell.
The red light in the back upper window swam into view again past a clump of trees, and he turned the canoe into the bank and drove the paddle-blade into the shallow river bed to hold it. Ellshaw was still moaning and muttering incoherently; and, for his own sake, Simon hauled him up out of the canoe and shook him vigorously.
"Snap out of it, brother. This is your chance to get even- and shift yourself off the high jump at the same time " "I'm going to squeal," repeated Ellshaw dazedly The Saint kept hold of him.
"Okay. Then come up to the house and let Teal listen to it." He rushed the trembling man over the rough lawn and up the side of the house to the french window of the living-room. There was an exclamation somewhere in the middle distance, and heavy feet pounded after him. The beam of a bullseye lantern picked him up.
"Oh, it's you, sir," said the police guard, illuminatingly.
"I thoughtGosh, what have you got there?"
"A tandem bicycle," said the Saint shortly. "Get back to your post."
Teal, startled by the noise, was on his feet when he thrust his prize into the room. The detective's jaw hung open, and for a second or two he stopped chewing.
"Good Lord-is that"
"Yes, it is, Claud. A new gadget for punching holes in cellophane. If I could go on thinking up questions like that, I might be a policeman myself. Which God forbid. Don't you know your boy friend?"
For once in his life Chief Inspector Teal was incapable of being offended.
"Ellshaw! Was he outside?"
"No, he was baked into the middle of a sausage-roll in the pantry perfectly disguised as a new genius from Scotland Yard."
"How did you know he'd be there?"
"Oh, my God!" Simon pushed the harvest of his brain work into a chair like a sack of beans, and subsided against the table. "Have I got to do everything for you? All right. It was only this morning that I crashed into Duchess Place. I ought to have been killed last night. Since that failed, they hoped to get me this morning when I went nosing around. When that fell through, they had to make a quick getaway. I assumed that they were so far from expecting trouble that they hadn't got a spare bolthole waiting to move into. Therefore they had to do something temporary. The Grand Panjandrum couldn't have been a Grand Panjandrum at all if he hadn't known that Ellshaw was a bit of a dim bulb. Therefore he wouldn't want to risk letting him far out of his reach. He knew he was coming down here this afternoon, so naturally he'd park Ellshaw somewhere locally where he could get in touch with him, while he figured out what they were going to do next. Having made up his mind, he'd have to tell Ellshaw. Therefore Ellshaw would have to come to him for instructions-it would probably be easier than him going to see Ellshaw, and at the time he'd think it was just as safe. Therefore Ellshaw had to come here. Therefore he probably had to come here soon. Therefore he'd probably come to-night. And even if he didn't, I couldn't do any harm by waiting. Therefore I waited. Q. E. D. Or do you want a dictionary to help you out with the two-syllable words?"
Teal swallowed.
"Then he was"
His eyes travelled to a carefully corked bottle on a side table. Simon knew at once that it must be a sample of whisky corked for analysis, and smiled faintly.
"You needn't bother with that," he said. "I can tell you what's in it. It's nitroglycerine ... as used in making the best bombs. If Irelock hadn't coughed it all up you could drop him down the stairs and blow up the house; but it's a deadly enough poison without that. No, I don't think Ellshaw did it. He wouldn't have known. But the man who made our two bombs might have."
"Then do you mean it isn't Ellshaw"
"Of course not. It's much too big for him. There he is. Look at him. There's the guy that all the commotion's about-the great million-pound mystery that people had to be killed to keep. But he isn't the brains. He couldn't do anything at all. He's dead!"
Mr. Teal blinked, staring at the red-nosed snivelling man who lay sprawling hot-eyed in the chair where Simon had thrown him. He looked alive. The low-pitched gasping noises that broke through his lips sounded alive. "How is he dead?" Teal asked stupidly. "Because he's been murdered. And don't forget something else. He's King's Evidence-I promised him that, and you haven't a case to go to a jury without him." The detective hesitated.
"But if he had anything to do with murdering his wife"
"He didn't. I believe that, and so will you. He was double-crossed. After his wife had seen him, he was told she'd got to disappear in case she shot her mouth. He thought she was just going to be kept somewhere in hiding, like he was. He'll tell you all about it. The Grand Panjandrum knew he'd never stand for killing his wife, so that was the story. And that's why he's going to squeal. You are going to squeal, aren't you, Ellshaw?"