He lighted another cigarette in the chain that had already filled two ashtrays, and strolled back to the window. The casements were only half opened, and he flipped one of the props off its peg and flung the window wide. Leaning out with his forearms folded on the sill to admire the view and take in his fresh air as best he could, he saw a black-haired man with a scarred face walk round the corner of the house and look up. Simon restrained a prompt impulse to wave cheerily to him and watched the man saunter up underneath the window and stop there seemingly wrapped in intense contemplation of a cluster of antirrhinums. Even then he did not quite grasp the significance of the scarred stroller until the door behind him opened and he looked round to see the saturnine features of the butler.
"Did you require anything, Mr. Vickery?" he said.
Simon completed his turn and rested his elbows on the ledge behind him.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"I thought I heard you moving about, sir."
Simon nodded.
"I went to the door," he said, "and it was locked."
The butler's sallow features were expressionless.
"It was locked by Mr. Nordsten's instructions, sir. He wished to make certain that none of the staff except myself should enter these rooms. What is it you were requiring, sir?"
"I ran out of cigarettes," said the Saint casually. "Can you get me some?"
After the butler had gone, Simon examined the window again, and found the tiny electric con-facts in the upper hinge which had doubtless sounded a warning somewhere in the house when he moved the casement; and he realized that no estimate he had formed of Ivar Nordsten's thoroughness was too high.
At six o'clock the butler came in again with a complete outfit of evening clothes. Simon had a bath and changed — the suit fitted him very well — and at a quarter to seven the butler returned and ushered him down to the library with all the ceremony that might have been accorded to a particularly honoured guest. Nordsten was already there, with the broad ribbon of some foreign order across his white shirtfront. He rose with a smile.
"I'm glad Trusaneff was able to judge your size," he said, glancing at the set of the Saint's coat. "Will you have a Martini, or would you prefer sherry?"
To Simon Templar it was one of the most quietly macabre evenings in his experience. In the vast panelled dining room, lighted only by clusters of candles, they sat at one end of a table which could have seated twenty without crowding. A periwigged footman stood behind each of their chairs like a guardian statue which only came to life in the act of forestalling any trivial need and returned immediately afterwards to immobility. The butler stood at the end of the room, supervising nothing but the perfection of service: sometimes he would look up and move a finger, and one of the statues would respond in silent obedience. There were six courses, each served with a different wine, each taken with the solemn ritual of a formal banquet. Without seeming to be conscious that every word which was spoken thrummed eerily through the shadowy emptiness of the room, Nordsten talked as naturally as if all the vacant places at the long table were filled; and Simon had to admit that he was a charming conversationalist. But he said nothing that gave the Saint any more information than he had already.
"I have always believed in the survival of the fittest," was his only illuminating remark. "Business men are often criticized for using 'sharp' methods; but after all, high finance is a kind of war, and in war you use the most effective weapons you can find, without considering the feelings of the enemy."
Nevertheless, when the Saint was back in his bedroom — the butler escorted him there on the pretext of finding out whether he desired to order anything special for breakfast — he felt that he had learned something, even if that something was only a confirmation of what he had already deduced from quite a different angle. And this was that a man who was capable of putting on such a show of state for one insignificant guest, and who believed so clearly and logically in the survival of the fittest, would not find it hard to rationalize any expedient which helped him towards his unmistakable goal of power.
Abstractedly the Saint took off his shoes, his collar and tie, his stiff shirt. Whatever benefits he might have derived from it, that dinner had put the finishing touch to his feeling of being a passive calf in process of fattening for the slaughter; and it was not a feeling that fitted very easily on his temperament. He pulled off his socks, because the night was sultry, and drifted about the room in his singlet and trousers, smoking a cigarette. As if he had never thought of it before, it came to him, as he paced up and down, that his bare feet were absolutely soundless on the carpet. Almost absentmindedly he picked up the white waistcoat which he had discarded. In one pocket of it was a burglarious instrument with which he had taken the precaution of providing himself before he left his own home, with a nebulous eye to possible voyages of exploration on the Nordsten premises, and which he had thoughtfully transferred from his day suit when he changed…
He watched, with the lights out, until the strip of light under the outer door of his suite turned black as the corridor lights were switched off; and then he waited half an hour longer before he set to work on the lock. He realized that it was not outside the realms of probability that the same thoroughness which had caused those minute electric contacts to be fitted to the windows might have provided some similar system of alarms on the door; but that was a risk which had to be taken, and possibly several glasses of Ivar Nordsten's excellent port on top of twelve hours' enforced passivity had made him a trifle light-headed. Every now and then he stopped, motionless, without even breathing, and listened for any whisper of sound that might betray a guard prowling around the passages; but he could hear nothing. And at last he was able to turn the handle noiselessly and slip out into the silent darkness of the house.
A tentative needle of light skimmed away from the Saint's hand, dabbed at the floor and walls, and vanished again. It came from the masked bulb of a tiny pocket torch which was another semi-burglarious instrument that he had brought with him. And thereafter, with only that one brief glimpse of the route ahead to refresh his memory, he disappeared into the blackness like a roving ghost.
His objective, in so far as he had an objective at all, was the library where cocktails had been served before dinner. If there were any intriguing developments to be unearthed in that house, the library seemed the obvious place to begin a search for them; and he had always been a sublime optimist.
He reached the head of the staircase and stopped there to listen. A pale blue glimmer of light came through the studio window on the stairway and achieved little more than taking the harsh deadness off the dark for half a flight. A faint musty smell touched the Saint's sensitive nostrils; and he stood for a moment breathing it silently, like a wild animal, with an invisible frown creasing his forehead. But the associations of it eluded him, and with a slight shrug he set one foot stealthily on the first downward step.
As he did so he heard the scratching.
It was a queer soft noise, like some very light-footed thing with nailed shoes pacing across a parquet floor. It seemed to take one or two steps, while he listened with his heart beating a shade faster; then it stopped; then it came again. And then the silence came down once more.
Simon remained motionless, a mere patch of shadow in the dark, so still that he could feel the blood pounding steadily in his veins. It came to him, with great clarity, that there were healthier places for him to be abroad at midnight than the house of Ivar Nordsten. He had a momentary vision of the very comfortable bed that was already turned down for him in the very comfortable bedroom to which he had been assigned, and wondered what on earth could have made him impervious to its very obvious enticement. But the scratching sound was not repeated; and at length, with a wry grin, he went on. He wouldn't stand much chance of completing his tour of investigation, he reflected ruefully, if a mouse could scare him so easily…