The girl shuddered.
"I know I am," she said. "During the last three weeks I've had three telephone calls — always in a thick, guttural, foreign sort of voice, asking me for ten thousand pounds. I was told to lunch at the Dorchester, and if I saw that the knives and forks formed the letter Z I was to have my lunch and then leave the package of money under my napkin. And he said if I went to the police or anything they'd know about it, and they'd do the same to me as they did to Mercia without giving me another chance to pay… Today was my last chance, and when I saw the knives and forks in the shape of a Z I think I lost my nerve. When you came to my table, Mr Templar, I thought you must be the man who was to take the money. I hardly knew what I was doing—"
"Take a look at that cunning, will you, Pat?" said the Saint. "It's a million to one that his victim won't go to the police; but he's even ready for that millionth chance. He's ready to pick up the money as soon as the girl has left the table; disguised as a gentleman, he's sitting there all the time, and as he walks past the table he collars the package. And he's got his alibi if the police should be watching and pick him up. He happened to see the young lady had left something, and he was going to hand it over to the manager. No proof at all that he's the man they're really after. It also implies that he must be somebody with a name and reputation as clean as an unsettled snowflake and as far above suspicion as the stratosphere… But who was it? There was a whole raft of people at the Dorchester, and I can't remember all of them — unless it was good old Sergeant Barrow."
"If the Z-Man was in the Dorchester today he must have seen your knightly behaviour," said Patricia thoughtfully. "And he must have seen you pocket Beatrice's last week's salary."
"But he didn't know who I was, and I expect he beetled off as soon as he saw that something had come ungummed," said the Saint, stubbing the end of his cigarette into an ash tray and lighting a fresh one. He turned. "What about the picture you're working on now, Beatrice? I'll make a guess that it's nearly finished, and if anything happened to you now the whole schedule would be shot to hell."
She nodded.
"It would be — and so should I. My contract doesn't entitle me to a penny if I don't complete the picture. That's why—"
She broke off helplessly.
Simon went to bed with plenty to think about. The Z-Man's plan of campaign was practically foolproof. Film stars are able to command colossal salaries for their good looks as well as their ability to act — sometimes even more so. All three of his guests were in the twenty-thousand-pounds-a-year class; they were young, with the hope of many more years of stardom ahead of them. Obviously it would be better for them to pay half a year's salary to the Z-Man rather than suffer the ghastly disfigurement that had been inflicted on Mercia Landon; for then they would lose not only half a year's salary but all their salaries for all the years to come.
The film world still didn't really know what was happening. Beatrice Avery had been afraid to tell even her employers about the threats she had received, for fear that the Z-Man would promptly carry out his hideous promise. Irene Cromwell and Sheila Ireland had each received one message from the Z-Man and had been similarly terrorized to silence. Only Patrica's blunt statement that the Saint had found their photographs in Raddon's pocket had made them unseal their lips after she had got them to St George's Hill.
Simon could well understand why he had never heard of the Z-Man before. Even in the film world the name was only rumoured, and then rumoured with scepticism. These three girls were the only ones who knew, apart from Mercia Landon, who was dead, and the actress who had fled to Italy.
For once in his life he spent a restless night, impatient for the chance of further developments the next day; and he walked into Chief Inspector Teal's office at what was for him the fantastic hour of eleven o'clock in the morning.
"I thought you never got up before the streets were aired," said the detective.
"I put on some woolly underwear this morning and chanced it," said the Saint briefly. "What do you know?"
Mr Teal drew a memorandum towards him.
"We've checked up on that address you gave me. I think you're right, Saint. There's no such person as Otto Zeidelmann. It's just a name. He's had the office about three or four months."
"His occupation dates from about the time Mercia Landon died," said Simon, nodding. "Anything else?"
"He never went there in the daytime apparently," answered the detective. "Always after dark. Hardly anybody can remember seeing him. The postman can't remember delivering any letters, and we didn't find a fingerprint anywhere."
"You wouldn't," said the Saint. "A wily bird like him would be just as likely to walk about naked as go out without his gloves. But talking about fingerprints, what's the report on that gun? — which, by the way, is mine."
Mr Teal opened a drawer, produced the automatic and pushed it across the desk. Chewing rhythmically, lie also handed the Saint a card on which were full face and profile photographs of one Nathan Everill.
"Know him?"
"My old college chum, Andy Gump — otherwise known as Mr Raddon," said the Saint at once. "So he has got a police record. I thought as much. What do we know about him?"
"Not very much. He's not one of the regulars." Teal consulted his memorandum, although he probably knew it by heart already. "He's only been through our hands once, and that was in 1933. From 1928 to 1933 he was private secretary to Hubert Sentinel, the film producer, and then he started making copies of Mr Sentinel's signature and writing them on Mr Sentinel's cheques. One day Mr Sentinel noticed something wrong with his bank balance, and when he went to ask his secretary about it his secretary was on his way to Dover. He was sent up for three years."
"What's he been doing since he came out?"
"He reported in the usual way, and as far as we knew he was going quite straight," replied Mr Teal. "He was doing some free-lance writing, I think. We've lost track of him during the last five or six months—"
"He's got a new job — as the Z-Man's assistant," said the Saint. "And, by the Lord, he's the very man for it! He knows the inside of the film business, and he must hate every kind of screen personality, from producers downwards, like nobody's business. It's a perfect setup… Have you seen Sentinel?"
"I'm seeing him this afternoon — he probably knows a lot more about Everill than we do. But you aren't usually interested in the small fry, are you?"
"When the small fry is in the shape of a sprat, yes," answered the Saint, rising elegantly to his feet. "You see, Claud, old dear, there might be a mackerel cruising about in the neighbouring waters… That's a good idea of yours. I think I'll push along and see Comrade Sentinel myself."
The detective's jaw dropped.
"Hey, wait a minute!" he yapped. "You can't—"
"Can't I?" drawled the Saint with his head round the door. "And what sort of a crime is it to go and have a chat with a film producer? Maybe my face is the face the world has been waiting for."
He was gone before Teal could think of a reply.
Mr Hubert Sentinel, the grand panjandrum of Sentinel Films, was not an aristocrat by birth or even a Conservative by conviction; but even he might have been slightly upset if he had heard himself referred to as "Comrade Sentinel." For he was considered a coming man in the British film industry, and obtaining an entry into his presence was about as easy as getting into Hitler's mountain chalet with one fist clenched and a red flag in the other.