VIII
Simon Templar's cigar had gone out. He put it down carefully in an ashtray and took out his cigarette case. It stands as a matter of record that at that moment he did not bat an eyelid, though he knew that the showdown had arrived.
"Delighted to see you, Iveldown," the Honourable Leo was exclaiming. "Yorkland was unfortunately unable to stay. However, you are not too late to make the acquaintance of our new--ah-- agents. Mr. Orconi . . ."
Farwill's voice trailed hesitantly away. It began to dawn on him that his full-throated flow of oratory was not carrying his audience with him. Something, it seemed, was remarkably wrong.
Standing in front of the door which had closed behind the retiring butler, Lord Iveldown and Mr. Nassen were staring open-mouthed at the Saint with the aspect of a comedy unison dance team arrested in midflight. The rigidity of their postures, the sag of their lower jaws, the glazed bulging of their eyes, and the suffusion of red in their complexions were so ludicrously identical that they might have been reflections of each other. They looked like two peas who had fallen out of their pod and were still trying to realize what had hit them; and the Honourable Leo looked from them to the Saint and back again with a frown of utter bewilderment.
"Whatever is the matter?" he demanded, startled into uttering one of the shortest sentences of his life; and at the sound of his question Lord Iveldown came slowly and painfully out of his paralysis.
He turned, blinking through his pince-nez.
"Is that--that--the American gunman you told me about?" he queried awfully.
"That is what I have been--ah--given to understand," said Farwill, recovering himself. "We are indebted to Mr. Uniatz for the introduction. I am informed that he has had an extensive career in the underworld of--ah--Pittsburgh. Do you imply that you are already acquainted?"
His lordship swallowed.
"You bumptious blathering ass!" he said.
Simon Templar uncoiled himself from his chair with a genial smile. The spectacle of two politicians preparing to speak their minds candidly to one another was so rare and beautiful that it grieved him to interrupt; but he had his own part to play. It had been no great effort to deny himself the batting of an eyelid up to that point--the impulse to bat eyelids simply had not arisen to require suppressing. Coming immediately on the heels of Leo Farwill's revelation, he was not sorry to see Lord Iveldown.
"What ho, Snowdrop," he murmured cordially. "Greetings, your noble Lordship."
Farwill gathered himself together.
"So you are already acquainted!" he rumbled with an effort of heartiness. "I thought------"
"Do you know who that is?" Iveldown asked dreadfully.
Some appalling intuition made Farwill shake his head; and the Saint smiled encouragingly.
"You tell him, Ivelswivel," he urged. "Relieve the suspense."
"That's the Saint himself!" exploded Iveldown.
There are times when even this talented chronicler's genius stalls before the task of describing adequately the reactions of Simon Templar's victims. Farwill's knees drooped, and his face took on a greenish tinge; but in amplification of those simple facts a whole volume might be written in which bombshells, earthquakes, dynamite, mule-kicks, and other symbols of devastating violence would reel through a kaleidoscope of similes that would still amount to nothing but an anaemic ghost of the sight which rejoiced Simon Templar's eyes. And the Saint smiled again and lighted his cigarette.
"Of course we know each other," he said. "Leo and I were just talking about you, your Lordship. I gather that you're not only the bird who suggested bumping me off so that you'd only have Patricia Holm to deal with, but your little pal Snowdrop was the bloke who tried it on this morning and wrecked a perfectly good hat with his rotten shooting. I shall have to add a fiver onto your account for that, brother; but the other part of your brilliant idea isn't so easily dealt with."
Farwill's face was turning from green to grey.
"I seem to have made a mistake," he said flabbily.
"A pardonable error," said the Saint generously. "After all, Hoppy Uniatz didn't exactly give you an even break. But you didn't make half such a big mistake as Comrade Iveldown over there------"
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nassen make a slight movement, and his hand had flashed to his pocket before he remembered that he had set out to enjoy his joke with so much confidence that he had not even gone heeled. But even if there had been a gun there, he would have reached it too late. Nassen had a hand in his coat pocket already; and there was a protuberance under the cloth whose shape Simon knew only too well.
He looked round and saw the reason for it. The ponderous thought processes of Hoppy Uniatz had at last reduced the situation to terms which he could understand. In his slow but methodical way, Mr. Uniatz had sifted through the dialogue and action and arrived at the conclusion that something had gone amiss. Instinct had made him go for his gun; but the armchair in which he was ensconced had impeded his agility on the draw, and Nassen had forestalled him. He sat with his right hand still tangled in his pocket, glaring at the lanky stillness of Iveldown's private defective with self-disgust written all over his face.
"I'm sorry, boss," he growled plaintively. "De guy beat me to it."
"Never mind," said the Saint. "It's my fault." Iveldown came forward, with his mouth twitching.
"The mistake could have been worse," he said. "At least we have the Saint. Where is Yorkland?"
Farwill chewed his lower lip.
"I believe he could be intercepted. When he first arrived, he told me that he had meant to call on Lady Bredon at Camberley on his way down, but he had not had time. He intimated that he would do so on his way back------"
"Telephone there," snapped Iveldown.
He strode about the room, rubbing his hands together under his coattails, while Farwill made the call. He looked at the Saint frequently, but not once did he meet Simon's eyes. Simon Templar never made the mistake of attributing that avoidance of his gaze to fear; at that moment, Iveldown had less to fear than he had ever had before. Watching him with inscrutable blue eyes, the Saint knew that he was looking at a weak pompous egotistical man whom fear had turned into jackal at bay.
"What message shall I leave?" asked Farwill, with his hand over the transmitter.
"Tell them to tell him--we've caught our man," said Iveldown.
The Saint blew a smoke ring.
"You seem very sure about that, brother," he remarked. "But Snowdrop doesn't look too happy about that gun. He looks as if he were afraid it might go off--and do you realize, Snowdrop, that if it did go off it'd burn a hole in your beautiful Sunday suit, and Daddy would have to smack you?"
Nassen looked at him whitely.
"Leave him to me," he said. "I'll make him talk."
Simon laughed shortly.
"You might do it if you're a ventriloquist," he said contemptuously. "Otherwise you'd be doing good business if you took a tin cent for your chance. Get wise to yourself, Snowdrop. You've lost your place in the campaign. You aren't dealing with a girl yet. You're talking to a man--if you've any idea what that means."
Lord Iveldown stood aside, with his head bowed in thought, as if he scarcely heard what was going on. And then suddenly he raised his eyes and looked at the Saint again for the first time in a long while; and, meeting his gaze, Simon Templar read there the confirmation of his thoughts. His fate lay in the hands of a creature more ruthless, more vindictive, more incalculable than any professional killer--a weak man, shorn of his armour of pomposity, fighting under the spur of fear.
"The mistake could have been worse," Iveldown repeated.
"You ought to be thinking about other things," said the Saint quietly. "This is Friday evening; and the sun isn't standing still. By midnight tomorrow I have to receive your contribution to the Simon Templar Foundation--and yours also, Leo. And I'm telling you again that whatever you do and whatever Snowdrop threatens, wherever I am myself and whether I'm alive or dead, unless I've received your checks by that time Chief Inspector Teal will get something that at this moment he wants more than anything else you could offer him. He'll get a chance to read the book which I wouldn't let him see this morning."