"I wondered why that cigar was so overpowering," said the Saint, moving carefully out of range of Mt Uniatz's breathing. "I'm not sure yet, Hoppy, but there are indications that fun and games hover in the middle distance."
"Who's dat, boss?" asked Mr Uniatz, struggling valiantly to get his grey matter flowing.
This was no small effort, for nature had only provided him with a very small quantity, and even this was of a glue-like consistency.
"You may be right about the Dorchester," said the Saint sourly as he eased himself into a chair. "Anyway, it didn't do me much good. A charming young lady gave me ten thousand quid and the dirtiest look of the century. Tell me, Hoppy, has anything happened to my face to make it look as if I'd blackmail charming young ladies?"
"You look okay to me, boss," said Mr Uniatz blankly. "Who is dis dame?"
Remembering Mr Uniatz's mental disadvantages, Simon told his story in simple one-syllable words that would have sent the director of children's hour programs delirious with delight. He had had so much practice in that difficult exercise that Mr Uniatz, in spite of the limitations of his cerebral system, finally grasped the basic facts.
"De goil t'inks you are some udder guy," he said brightly.
"You put it in a nutshell, Hoppy," said the Saint admiringly.
"De guy who puts de black on her."
"Precisely."
"De guy," persisted Hoppy, working nobly to get all his facts in order, "who is playing games in de distance."
The Saint sighed and was bracing himself to go into further laborious explanations when the sound of the telephone bell spared him the ordeal. He went to the instrument.
"Two visitors for you, sir, but they ain't ladies," said Sam Outrell hurriedly.
"Give me two guesses."
"You ain't got time for guessin', sir," interrupted the janitor. "It's Mr Teal, and he's lookin' madasell, and he went straight up without letting me call you first. He'll be there any minute—"
"Don't worry, Sam," said the Saint imperturbably. "I'm not leaving. Go out and get Mr Teal some chewing gum, and we'll have a party."
The doorbell rang violently, and Simon Templar hung up the telephone and went out to admit his favourite visitor. And the absolute truth is that he hadn't a cloud on his conscience or any suspicion that the visit would be more than a routine call.
II
Chief inspector claud eustace teal thrust his large regulation foot into the opening as soon as the Saint unlatched the door. It was an unnecessary precaution, for Simon flung the door wide and stood aside invitingly with a smile on his lips and the light of irrepressible amusement in his eyes.
"Come in, souls," he said genially. "Make yourselves at home. And what can I do for you today?"
The invitation was somewhat superfluous, for Mr Teal and the man with him, whom Simon recognized as Sergeant Barrow, were already in. They hadn't waited to be asked. They came in practically abreast, and Barrow kicked the door to with his foot. The Saint was compelled to back into the living room in face of that determined entry. There was an unusual aggressiveness about Mr Teal; his plump body seemed taller and broader; the phlegmatic dourness of his round pink face under its shabby derby was increased by the hard lines of his mouth. He looked like a man who was haunted by the memory of many such calls on this smiling young buccaneer — calls which had only lengthened the apparently hopeless duel which he had been waging for years against the most stupendous outlaw of his day. And yet he looked like a man who had a certain foreknowledge that this time he would emerge the victor; and a kind of creepy puzzlement wormed itself into the Saint's consciousness as the meaning of those symptoms forced itself upon him.
"Hi, Claud," said Mr Uniatz in friendly greeting.
Chief Inspector Teal ignored him.
"I want you, Templar," he said, turning his sleepy eyes on the Saint.
"Of course you do, Claud," said the Saint slowly. "Somebody has sold an onion after closing time, and you want me to track him down for you. A gang of lemonade smugglers who have eluded Scotland Yard for years have been—"
"I mean," Teal said immovably, "that I'm taking you into custody on a charge of—"
"Wait!" said the Saint tragically. "Think what you'd be losing if you really pulled me in. What would you do with your afternoons if you couldn't come round here for these charming little conversaziones?"
"All the talking in the world won't save you this time, Templar," said Mr Teal in a hard voice. "Do you want to see the warrants I've got? One for your arrest and another to search this flat."
The Saint shrugged watchfully.
"Well, Claud," he said resignedly, "if you want to make a fool of yourself again it's your funeral. What's the charge this time?"
"Demanding money with menaces," said the detective flatly. For a moment his eyes lost their sham of perpetual boredom; they looked oddly hurt and at the same time contemptuous. "You know how much I've wanted to get you, Templar; but now that the time's come I'd just as soon not have the job. I never thought I shouldn't even want to touch you."
Simon glanced down at his brown hands, and in his mind was a vivid memory of Beatrice Avery's look of unutterable loathing. Teal's voice contained that very look, transmuted into sound. His pulses, which up to that moment had been ticking over as steadily as clockwork, throbbed a shade faster.
"Is there something the matter with me?" he asked curiously. "Have I suddenly taken on a resemblance to Boris Karloff, or is it only a touch of leprosy?"
"You're the Z-Man," retorted Mr Teal and stopped chewing his cud of tasteless chicle.
There was a silence that pressed down on the four men like a tangible substance. It was as though the air had become a mass of ectoplasm. Hoppy Uniatz broke the suffocating spell by shuffling his feet. It is doubtful if more than a dozen words of the conversation had infiltrated through the bony mass which protected the spongelike organization of nerve endings which served him in lieu of a brain; but the impression was growing on him that Mr Teal was making himself unpleasant.
"What was dat crack again?" he said, his unmusical voice crashing into the silence like a bombshell.
"Yes, Claud," said the Saint gently. "What was it?"
"You heard me the first time," Teal said crunchily. "You're the Z-Man; and if I couldn't prove it I wouldn't have believed it myself. It's something new to know that you've sunk as low as that."
Simon moved across to the mantelpiece and leaned an elegant elbow on it. He pulled hard at his cigarette until the end glowed red; and the smoke stayed down in his lungs. A dim light was breaking in the darkness through which he had been groping his way: he saw in his mind's eye the disarranged knives and forks on Beatrice Avery's table in the Dorchester Grill, and he knew the meaning of that queer zigzag formation. They had shaped the letter z; and it was the sudden sight of this that had caused the girl's terror.
But the light was still not enough… The Saint's eyes switched over to Mr Teal, and their clear blue glinted like the sheen of polar waters under the sun.
"My poor old blundering fathead," he said kindly. "I'm afraid you're off the rails again, for the umpteenth time. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
"Dat goes for me, too, boss," contributed Mr Uniatz, who had clearly understood every word of the Saint's last terse sentence.
Mr Teal's lips thinned out.
"Oh, you don't know what the hell I'm talking about?" he barked. "Are you going to deny that you were in the Dorchester Grill an hour ago?"