"That's the guy," he said, in the accents of Pete the Blood. "Hoppy an' me was just waitin' to see ya before we scram. We gotta get on to London-- Lord Iveldown wants us there!"
IX
PATRICIA Holm was waiting for the Saint when the telephone bell rang to announce the penultimate round of that adventure.
"It's that detective again, miss," said Sam Outrell hoarsely. "Mr. Teal. An' he's got another detective with him. They wouldn't wait for me to ask if they could go up."
The girl's heart missed a beat; and then she answered quite quietly:
"All right, Sam. Thanks. Tell Mr. Templar as soon as you see him--if they haven't gone before he comes in."
She put down the receiver and picked up the cigarette which she had been about to light. She looked about the room while she put a match to it --her hand was steady, but her breath was coming a little faster. She had walked with Simon Templar in the ways of lawlessness too long to be flung into panic; but she knew that she was on trial. The Saint had not come back, and he had sent no message: his habits had always been too erratic for a thing like that to frighten her, but this time she was left to hold the fort alone, with no idea of what he had done or was doing or what his plans might be. The only thing she could be sure of was that Chief Inspector Teal had not! arrived for the second time that day, bringing another detective with him, on a purely social call. The book, Her Wedding Secret, lay on the table. Patricia picked it up. She had to think--to think quickly and calmly, building up deduction and prophecy and action, as the Saint himself would have done. Simon had left the book there. He had not troubled to move it when Hassen came. But Teal--Teal and another man. . . 1 The bell of the apartment rang while she was still trying to reach a conclusion. There was an open bookcase beside the fireplace, and with a sudden tightening of her lips she thrust the book in among the row of novels on the bottom shelf. She had no time to do anything more; but she was desperately conscious of the inadequacy of what she had done.
Chief Inspector Teal did not know it. He looked across the threshold with affectedly weary eyes at the slim startling beauty of the girl who even to his phlegmatic unimpressionable mind was more like a legendary princess than any other woman he had ever seen, who for reasons not utterly beyond his understanding had chosen to give up the whole world that she might have queened to become the companion in outlawry of a prince of buccaneers; and he saw in her blue eyes, so amazingly like the Saint's own, the same light of flickering steel with which Simon Templar had greeted him so many times.
"Good-evening, Miss Holm," he said sleepily. "I think you know me; and this is Sergeant Barrow. We have a warrant to search this apartment."
He held out the paper; and she glanced at it and handed it back.
"Mr. Templar isn't in," she said coolly. "Hadn't you better call back later?"
"I don't think so," said Mr. Teal and walked past her into the hall.
She closed the door and followed the two detectives into the living room. Mr. Teal took off his bowler hat and put it on the table--it was the only concession he made to her presence.
"We may as well start here," he said to Barrow. "Go over the usual places first."
"Would you like to borrow the vacuum cleaner," inquired Patricia sweetly, "or will you just use your heads?"
"We'll manage," said Teal dourly.
He was more keyed up than he would have cared to admit. The assistant commissioner's parting speech still rang in his ears; the resentment of many other similar interviews rang carillons through his brain. He was a man of whom Fate had demanded many martyrdoms. In doing his duty he had to expose himself to the stinging shafts of Saintly irreverence; and afterwards he had to listen to the acidulated comments of the assistant commissioner; and there were days when he wondered whether it was worth it. Sometimes he wished that he had never been a policeman.
Patricia stood around and watched the progress of the search with a triphammer working under her ribs and a sinking sensation in her stomach. And in a frightful hopeless way she realized that it was not going to fail. It was not a hurried haphazard ransacking of drawers and cupboards such as Nassen and his colleague had conducted. It was thorough, systematic, scientific, ordered along the rigid lines of a training that had reduced hiding places to a tabulated catalogue. It would not glance at the cover of a book and pass on. . . . She knew that even before Barrow came to the] bookcase and began to pull out the books one byj one, opening them and flicking over the pages] without looking at the titles. . . .
What would the Saint have done?
Patricia didn't know. Her face was calm, almost unnaturally calm; but the triphammer under her ribs was driving her into the clutches of a maddening helplessness that had to be fought off with all her willpower. There was an automatic in the bedroom: if she could only put over some excuse to reach it ... But the Saint would never have done that. Teal had his warrant. He was within his rights. Violence of any kind would achieve nothing--nothing except to aggravate the crash when it came.
Barrow had reached the second row of books. He was halfway through it. He had finished it. The first two shelves were stripped, and the books were heaped up untidily on the floor. He was going on to the third.
What would the Saint have done?
If only he could arrive! If only the door would open, and she could see him again, smiling and unaccountable and debonair, grasping the situa-tion with one sweep of lazy blue eyes and finding the riposte at once! It would be something wild and unexpected, something swift and dancing like sunlight on open water, that would turn every-thing upside down in a flash and leave him mocking in command with his forefinger driving gaily and unanswerably into Teal's swelling waistcoat; she knew that, but she could not think what it would be. She only knew that he had never been at a loss--that somehow, madly magnificently, he could always retrieve the lost battle and snatch victory from under the very scythe of defeat.
Barrow was down to the third shelf.
On the table were the bottle of beer and the glass which she had set out ready for him--the glass over which the Saint's eyes should have been twinkling while he harried the two detectives with his remorseless wit. Her hands went out and took up the bottle and the opener, as she would have done for the Saint if he had walked in.
"Would you care for a drink?" she asked huskily.
"No, thank you, Miss Holm," said Teal politely, without looking at her.
She had the opener fitted on the crown cap. The bottle opened with a soft hiss before she fully realized that she had done it. She tried to picture the Saint standing on the other side of the table-- to make herself play the scene as he would have played it.
"Excuse me if I have one," she said.
The full glass was in her hand. She sipped it. She had never cared for beer, and involuntarily she grimaced. . . .
Teal heard a gasp and a crash behind him and whirled round. He saw the glass in splinters on the table, the beer flowing across the top and pattering down onto the carpet, the girl clutching her throat and swaying where she stood, with wide horrified eyes.
"What's the matter?" he snapped.
She shook her head and swallowed painfully before she spoke.
"It . . . burns," she got out in a whisper. "Inside. . . . Must have been something in it. ... Meant for . . . Simon. . . ."
Then her knees crumpled and she went down.
Teal went to her with surprising speed. She was writhing horribly, and her breath hissed sobbingly through her clenched teeth. She tried to speak again, but she could not form the words.
Teal picked her up and laid her on the chesterfield.
"Get on the phone," he snarled at Barrow with unnatural harshness. "Don't stand there gaping. Get an ambulance."
He looked about him awkwardly. Water--that was the first thing. Dilute the poison--whatever it was. With a sudden setting of his lips he lumbered out of the room.