The Saint rose to his feet and lighted another cigarette. His eyes were mere slits of steel.
"A joke!" he repeated. "If you'd seen the look in Beatrice Avery's eyes, Pat, you'd know how much of a joke the Z-Man is! Teal, too. He was fool enough to think I was the Z-Man, and he didn't want to put the bracelets on me because he'd have to touch me! By God, this bird must be something that 'd make Jack the Ripper look like a Salvation Army drummer boy."
"You still don't know anything useful," Patricia said practically. "What are you going to do — advertise for him?"
"I don't know… There's a hell of a lot I don't know," answered the Saint, scowling. "I don't even know what the Z-Man's racket is — excepting that it must be damned profitable. It's no good asking Teal for information; he's in trouble enough already. I can't go to Beatrice Avery — or at least, if I did she wouldn't see me or tell me anything."
"She might see me."
"She won't see anybody," said the Saint. "After what has happened today she'll be scared as stiff as a corpse. Don't you get it, darling? She had an appointment with the Z-Man or one of his agents, and she knows she failed to keep it. The Z-Man won't know that she actually did keep it, and he'll start turning on the heat. This girl will have extra locks and bolts on her doors—"
"Didn't you say that she and I look a bit alike?"
"Only in height and build and fair-headedness and general beauty and all that sort of thing," replied Simon. "You're both the same type, that's all."
"Then leave it to me," said Patricia calmly. "I'll show you what a real detective can do."
It was the conventional tea hour when she entered the handsome new apartment house in the neighbourhood of Marble Arch known as Parkside Court. Number 21 was on the sixth floor, and Patricia went up in the elevator in spite of the fact that the porter had warned her that Miss Avery had given instructions that she was not at home to anybody. The porter had put it more broadly than this; he had declared that Miss Avery had gone down to Cornwall for a holiday — or up into Aberdeenshire, he wasn't sure which. But Patricia had looked at him with her sapphire-blue eyes, so remarkably like the Saint's, and her bewitching smile, and the unfortunate man had dried completely up.
In the carpeted corridor, outside the door of number 21 a man was repairing a vacuum cleaner. Patricia was sorry for him. He had taken the vacuum cleaner apart into so many pieces that it was very doubtful whether it could ever be put together again. Notwithstanding his workmanlike overalls, Patricia had no difficulty in recognizing him as an employee of some private detective agency. He had "ex-policeman" stamped all over him in embossed lettering.
"No good you ringing that bell, miss," he said gruffly as Patricia placed her finger on the button. "There's nobody at home. Miss Avery's gone into the country."
He had looked at her very hard at first with a somewhat startled expression on his face. Patricia knew why. She went on smiling at him.
"Is there any special way of ringing?" she enquired sweetly. "I don't think she'll refuse to see her own sister."
The man suddenly grinned.
"Well, of course that's different, miss," he said hastily. "I thought there was a likeness. Why, when you came round the corner I took you for Miss Avery herself."
He gave three short rings, a long one and three more short. The door was almost immediately opened by a nervous-looking maid.
"Okay, Bessie, it's Miss Avery's sister."
Patricia walked straight in, just as the Saint might have done, and her complete assurance gave the maid no chance to reply. A moment later, in the artistically lighted living room, she was face to face with Beatrice Avery.
"I'm quite harmless, and I hope you'll forgive me for getting in by a trick, Miss Avery," she said directly. She opened her bag and produced a card. "This will tell you who I am — and perhaps you'll guess why I'm here."
The film star's frightened eyes looked up from the card.
"Yes, I've heard your name," she whispered. "You work with the Saint, don't you? Sit down, please, Miss Holm. I don't know why you've come. I told Mr Templar over the phone that it was all a silly joke—"
"And I'm here because the Saint didn't believe you," Patricia interrupted gently. "If you've heard of him you must know that you can trust him. Simon thinks that something ought to be done about the Z-Man, and he's the one man in all the world to do it."
Beatrice Avery's breasts stirred shakily under her clinging satin negligee, and her grey eyes grew obstinate — with the dreadful obstinacy of utter fear.
"It's all very absurd, Miss Holm," she said, trying to speak carelessly. "There's no such person as the Z-Man. How did Mr Templar know… I mean, there's nothing I can tell you."
"You'd rather pay ten thousand pounds—"
"There's nothing I can tell you," repeated the girl, rising to her feet. "Nothing! Nothing at all! Please leave me alone!"
Her voice was almost shrill, and Patricia saw at a glance that it would be hopeless to prolong the interview. Beatrice Avery was a great deal more frightened than even the Saint had realized or Patricia had expected. Patricia was shrewd and understanding, and she knew when she was wasting her time. Anybody less clever would have persisted and only hardened Beatrice Avery's obstinacy. All Patricia did was to point to her card on the table.
"If you change your mind," she said, "there's the phone number. We'll do anything we can to help you — and we keep secrets."
She was not feeling very satisfied with herself as she rode down in the elevator. It wouldn't be pleasant to go back to the Saint and report failure after the boast she had made. But it couldn't be helped. It was just one of those things. The Saint would think of some other approach…
The hall was deserted when she reached it, and she walked out into the evening dusk and paused uncertainly on the sidewalk in the glow of the red and green neon lights that decorated the entrance. A taxi crawled by, and she signalled. The driver swung round in the road and pulled in.
"Cornwall House, Piccadilly," said Patricia.
"Yes, miss," answered the driver, reaching round and opening the door.
She got in, and the cab was off before she had fairly closed the door. Something hard and round pressed into her side, and she looked quickly into the shadows. A smallish man with ferretlike eyes was sitting beside her.
"One scream, sister, and you're for it," said the man in a flat matter-of-fact voice. "This thing in your side is a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it."
"Oh!" said Patricia faintly, and she sagged into limpness.
She had done it so well that Ferret Eyes was completely taken in. Patricia, her brain working like oiled machinery, did not blame herself for having fallen into such a simple trap. She had had no reason to be on the alert for one; and she knew that it had not been laid for her at all. The ungodly had mistaken her for Beatrice Avery! And why shouldn't they? She was the same height and colouring, close enough to have deceived even the Saint at a distance, and she had emerged from the apartment house where Beatrice Avery lived. With the added help of the dim light she might have deceived anyone — and might go on deceiving him for a while, so long as she kept her mouth shut. It was to avoid being forced to talk too much that she had feigned that rapid faint, to give herself a chance to think over her next move.
She was aware of a throb of excitement within her. There was no fear in her — the Saint had taught her to forget such things. Instead he had bequeathed her so much of his own blithe recklessness that she saw in a flash that while she had failed with Beatrice Avery she might yet succeed in this new and unexpected quarter. It amused her to think that while the enemy wouldn't have dared to use the taxicab trick with her, they had thought it good enough for the film star, who was naturally unversed in the ways of the ungodly. And yet it was she, Patricia Holm, who had fallen for it! It was a twist that might provide the Saint with the scent he was looking for.