And Mr. Teal had a point to make. The man with the whisky bottle had given it to him, open-handed. It was a point which annihilated all the routine plans he had made for that raid on which he had barely started to embark — a point so free and brazen that Mr. Teal's respiratory system went haywire at the sight of it.
"Your name's Vickery, is it?" he said, in the nearest he could get to his normal sleepy voice; and Mr. Uniatz, after an appealing glance at Patricia, nodded dumbly. "Then why is it," Teal flung at him suddenly, "that when Miss Holm tried to ring you up a quarter of an hour ago, she was told that you were in bed and asleep?"
Mr. Uniatz opened his mouth, and, finding that nothing at all would come out of it, decided to put something in and hope for the best. He pushed the neck of the whisky bottle between his teeth and swallowed feverishly; and Patricia spoke for him.
"That was a mistake," she explained. "Mr. Vickery came in just a minute or two after I telephoned."
"Dat's right, boss," agreed Mr. Uniatz, grasping the point with an injudicious speed which trickled a couple of gills of good alcohol waste-fully down his tie. "A minute or two after she telephones, I come in."
Mr. Teal gazed at him balefully.
"Then why is it," he rasped, "that the man I had waiting outside the front gate while I was at the telephone exchange didn't see you?"
"I come in de back door," said Hoppy brightly.
"And the man I had at the back door didn't see you either," said Chief Inspector Teal.
Hoppy Uniatz sank down into the nearest chair and tacitly retired from the competition. His brow was ploughed into furrows of honest effort, but he was out of the race. He had a resentful feeling that he was being fouled, and the referee wasn't doing anything about it. He had done his best, but that wasn't no use if a guy didn't get a break.
"It sounds even funnier," Mr. Teal said trenchantly, "when I tell you that another Tim Vickery was pulled in for questioning just before I left London, and he hasn't been let out yet." His sharp glittering eyes between the pink creases of fat went back to Patricia Holm. "I'll be interested to have a look at this third Tim Vickery who's asleep at Hawk Lodge," he said. "But if the Saint isn't here, I can make a good guess at who he's going to be!"
"You do your guessing," answered Patricia, as the Saint would have answered; but her heart was thumping.
"I'll do more than that," said the detective grimly.
He turned on his heel and waddled out of the room; and his silent companion followed him. Patricia went after them to the front door. There was a police car standing on the drive, and Teal stopped beside it and called two names. After a slight interval, two large overcoated men materialized out of the dark.
"You two stay here," commanded Teal. "Inside the house. Don't let anyone out who's inside, or anyone else who comes in while I'm away — on any excuse. I'll be back shortly."
He climbed in, and his taciturn equerry took the wheel. In another moment the police car was scrunching down the drive, carrying Claud Eustace Teal on his ill-omened way.
IX
Ivar Nordsten was dead. He must have been dead even before Simon Templar snatched his automatic away from under the lashing tearing claws of the panther and sent two slugs through its heart at point-blank range. He lay on the shining oak close to the door, a curiously twisted and mangled shape which was not pleasant to look at. The maddened beast that had turned on him had wreaked its vengeance with fiendish speed; but it had not wrought neatly…
The Saint straightened up, cold-eyed, and looked across at Erik. The man was staring motionlessly at the black glossy body of the dead panther and at the still and crumpled remains of Ivar Nordsten; and the dull glazed sightlessness had been wiped out of his eyes. His throat was working mutely, and the tears were raining down the yellow parchment of his cheeks.
Footsteps were coming across the hall; and Simon remembered the three shots which had been fired. It was not impossible that they might have been mistaken for cracks of the whip; but the end of the panther's savage snarling had begun a sudden deep silence which would demand some explanation. With a quick deliberate movement Simon opened the door and stood behind it. He raised his voice in a muffled imitation of Nordsten's:
"Trusaneff!"
The butler's footsteps entered the room. The Saint saw him come into view and stop to stare at the man Erik. Very gently he pushed the door to behind the unsuspecting man, reversed his gun, and struck crisply with the butt…
Then he completed the closing of the door and took out his cigarette case. For the moment there was no reason why he shouldn't. Certainly the battle-scarred gladiator with the passionate interest in antirrhinums remained, together with heaven knew how many more of Nordsten's curious staff; but to all outward appearances Ivar Nordsten was closeted with his butler, and there was no cause for anyone else to be inquisitive. In fact, Simon had already gathered that inquisitiveness was not a vice in which Nordsten's retainers had ever been encouraged.
He lighted a cigarette and looked again at the financier's erstwhile prisoner.
"Erik," he said quietly.
The man did not move; and Simon walked across and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Erik," he repeated, and the man's tear-streaked face turned helplessly. "Was Ivar your brother?"
"Yes."
The Saint nodded silently and turned away. He went over to the desk and sat in the chair behind it, smoking thoughtfully. The demise of Ivar Nordsten meant nothing to him personally — it was all very unfortunate and must have annoyed Ivar a good deal, but Simon was dispassionately unable to feel that the amenities of the world had suffered an irreparable loss. He had it to thank for something else, which was the shock that had probably saved Erik's reason. Equally well, perhaps, it might have struck the final blow at that pitifully tottering brain; but it had not. The man who had looked at him and answered his questions just now was not the quivering half-crazed wretch who had looked up into the beam of his flashlight out of that medieval dungeon under the floor: it was a man to whom sanity was coming back, who understood death and illogical grief — who would presently talk, and answer other questions. And there would be questions enough to answer.
Simon was too sensible to try to hurry the return. When his cigarette was finished he got up and found his torch and went down into the pit. It was only a small brick-lined cellar, with no other outlet, about twelve feet square. There was a rusty iron bedstead in one corner, and a small table beside it. On the table were a couple of plates on which were the remains of some food, and the table top was spotted with blobs of candle wax. Under the table there was an earthenware jar of water and an enamel mug. A small grating high up in one wall spoke for some kind of ventilating system, a gutter along one side for some kind of drainage, but the filth and smell were indescribable. The Saint was thankful to get out again.
When he returned to the library he found that Erik had taken down one of the curtains to cover up the body of his brother. The man was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, but he looked up quite sanely as the Saint's feet trod on the parquet.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid I didn't understand you just now."
Simon smiled faintly and went for his cigarette-case again.
"I don't blame you, brother," he said. "If I'd spent two years in that rat hole, I guess I should have been a bit scatty myself."
The man nodded. His eyes roved involuntarily to the huddled heap under the rich curtain and returned to the Saint's face.
"He was always clever," he said, as if reciting an explanation which had been distilled through his mind so often during those dreadful years of darkness that nothing was left but the starkest essence, pruned to the barest minimum of words, to be spoken without apology or preface. "But he only counted results. They justified the means. His monopoly was built upon trickery and ruthlessness. But he was thorough. He was ready to be found out. That's why he kept me — down there. If necessary, there was to be a tragic accident. Ivar Nordsten would be killed by his panther. But I was to have been the body, and he had another identity to step into."