The man licked his lips.
"Yes, I'll talk. I'll tell everythink I know." His voice had gone back to its normal level, but it was coarse and raspy with the blind vindictiveness of the passion that was sweating down inside him. "But I didn't kill Florrie. Nobody 'ad to kill her. I didn't know nothink about it. I'll tell yer."
The Saint lighted a cigarette and drew the smoke down into his lungs.
"There you are, Claud," he murmured. "Your case is all laid out for you. Shall I start the story or shall Ellshaw?"
Teal nodded.
"I think we'd better wait a moment before we begin," he said. "Our police methods are useful sometimes. We've got young Nulland."
"You have?"
"Yes." Mr. Teal was beginning to recover some of his habitual bored smugness. "He was held up with a puncture just outside Sunningdale, and a motor-cycle patrol spotted him-I had a 'phone call while the doctor was here last. He's being sent back under guard-they ought to arrive any minute now."
Simon raised his eyebrows.
"So you know that he wasn't kidnapped after all?"
"It doesn't look like it," replied the detective stolidly. "Anyhow, there was nobody with him when he was found, and he hadn't any convincing story to tell. We'll soon know, when he gets here."
The Saint let go a trickle of smoke; but before he could speak again a car hummed slowly up the road and stopped opposite the house. He sat up, with the careless lights wakening in his blue eyes, and listened to the tread of footsteps coming up the drive.
"Didn't I tell you we were going to have fun?" he remarked. "I think your police are wonderful."
Mr. Teal looked at him for a moment, and then went out to open the front door.
Simon's glance followed him, and then turned back to the man who sat quivering in the armchair. He swung his legs off the table.
"You're the exhibit, aren't you?" he said softly.
He turned the chair round so that Ellshaw faced the door and must be the first person whom the returning prodigal would see when he entered the room. Then he went back to his perch on the table and went on with his cigarette. Outwardly he was quite calm; and yet he was waiting for a moment which in its own way was the tensest climax of the adventure. Out of the twisted tangled threads, in breathless pauses between the shuttling of move and counter-move and unexpected revelation, he had at last built up a pattern and a theory. All the threads were in place; and it only wanted that last flash of the shuttle to bind them all irrefragably together-or tangle the web once more and set him back to the place where he began.
Inspector Oldwood came first; then the Honourable Kenneth Nulland; last of all came Teal, completing the party and closing the door behind him. Presumably the guard who had brought Nulland over from Sunningdale had been dismissed, or told to wait outside.
Simon did not so much as glance at the two detectives. His eyes were fixed on the pale fish-like face of Lord Ripwell's son and heir.
He saw the face turn whiter, and saw the convulsive twitch of the young man's hands and the sudden glazing of his eyes. Nulland's lips moved voicelessly once or twice before any sound came.
"Oh, God," he said; and went down without another word in a dead faint.
Simon Templar drew a deep breath.
"Now I can tell you a story," he said.
IX NULLAND sat on the sofa after they had brought him round. He sat staring at Ellshaw as if his brain was still incredulously trying to absorb the evidence of his eyes; and Ellshaw stared back at him with dry lips and stony eyes.
"I think this all began more than a year ago," said the Saint.
Chief Inspector Teal searched for a fresh wafer of chewing gum and unwrapped it. It was significant that at this time he made no attempt to assert his own authority to take charge of the proceedings; and, after one curious glance at him, Inspector Oldwood pulled out his pipe and found his way to a chair without interrupting.
"The idea, of course, was to get hold of Ripwell's money," Simon went on, lighting a cigarette. "Probably any other millionaire's money would have done just as well, but Rip-well was the obvious victim close at hand. The question was how to do it. Ordinary swindling could be ruled out: Ripwell was much too keen a business man to let himself be diddled out of anything more than paltry sums. That left, on the face of it, one other chance-extortion. Well, that was tried, in a tentative sort of way. Ellshaw came here with some minor secret out of Ripwell's past, and the result was just about what one would expect. Ripwell laid a trap for him, gave him a good scare, as he thought, and then didn't bother to prosecute him."
"How on earth did you know that?" asked Oldwood, with some surprise.
"From your cop outside-I was having a chat with him, and it just happened to come out. But I recognised Ellshaw from the description of this attempted blackmailer, which you probably couldn't have done, and that made a lot of difference. But even so, it was only incidental evidence. It just clinched an explanation of why the blackmail had to be tackled afresh in a more roundabout way. I don't think Ellshaw's little effort was ever meant to succeed. It was meant to give a direct line on the way Ripwell could be expected to react to a bigger proposition, and it washed him out pretty completely. So that was when the real plot started."
"You mean, to murder Lord Ripwell?" said Teal hesitantly.
"Yes. Of course, wilful murder was a much bigger proposition; but it had to be faced. And it was about the only solution. If Ripwell's money couldn't be extorted out of him, it could still be inherited. I'll give our friend all the credit for looking at it cold-bloodedly, facing the facts, seeing the answer, and making the best possible use of the bare material at his disposal. Take a look at Nulland for yourselves-weak, vain, rather stupid, a gambler, capable of extraordinary vicious-ness when he's in liquor- Mr. Teal's cherubic pink face seemed to go a shade less rubicund.
"But-good God!" he said. "To murder his own father"
Simon looked at him oddly.
"You know, Claud, there are times when I ask myself whether anyone could possibly be so dumb as you try to make yourself out," he remarked compassionately. "All I'm doing is to tell you the facts about Nulland's character as I had them from Martin Irelock; and he ought to know what he's talking about. He does know, too, and he could prove it. Naturally he wouldn't think of doing it; but I'm not too prejudiced, and I've got Ellshaw for a witness. Irelock wants to cover up Nulland. That's why he put down that fake bloodstained handkerchief to-night, to make it look more positively like kidnapping- and I'm ready to bet that he actually told Kenneth to run away in the first place-because he could see that Nulland was shaking in his boots at the idea of being surrounded with detectives, even a wretched imitation of a detective like you, Claud. Irelock knew that Nulland couldn't get through the rest of the evening, let alone the week-end, without getting caught out; and he was ready to go to any lengths to save him. He's been setting himself up as a shield all along. Anywhere between last week and a year ago, when Nulland thought he'd killed Ellshaw, Irelock played guardian angel."
"Do you mean Irelock was in it with him?" stammered Mr. Teal blankly.
The Saint's lips twitched helplessly; but he held back the scathing retort which they were shaping automatically. His keen ears had caught an infinitesimal sound outside the room, and in one amazing soundless moment he had hitched himself off the table and crossed over to the door. He turned the handle and whipped it open, and his long arm shot out and caught Martin Irelock as the secretary was turning away.