Mr. Assistant Commissioner Cullis, of Scotland Yard, disliked having to interview casual callers. Whenever it was possible he evaded the job. To secure an appointment to see him was, to a private individual, a virtual impossibility. Cullis would decide that the affair in question was either so unimportant that it could be adequately dealt with by a subordinate, or so important that it could only be adequately coped with by the chief commissioner, for he was by nature a retiring man. In this retirement he was helped by his rank; in the days when he had been a more humble superintendent, it had not been so easy to avoid personal contact with the general public.
To this rule, however, there were certain exceptions, of which Lord Essenden was one.
Lord Essenden could obtain audience with Mr. Assistant Commissioner Cullis at almost any hour; for Essenden was an important man, and had occupied a seat on more than one royal commission. Indeed, it was largely due to Essenden that Mr. Cullis held his present appointment. Essenden could not be denied. And so, when Essenden came to Scotland Yard that evening demanding converse with Mr. Cullis, on a day when Mr. Cullis was feeling more than usually unfriendly towards the whole wide world, he was received at once, when a prime minister might have been turned away unsatisfied.
He came in, a fussy little man with a melancholy moustache, and said, without preface: "Cullis, the Angels of Doom are back."
He had spoken before he saw Teal, who was also present, stolidly macerating chicle beside the commissioner's desk.
"What Angels of Doom?" asked Cullis sourly.
Essenden frowned.
"Who is this gentleman, Cullis?" he inquired. He appeared to hesitate over the word "gentleman."
"Chief Inspector Teal, who has taken charge of the case."
Cullis performed the necessary introduction briefly, and Essenden fidgeted into a chair without offering to shake hands.
"What angels of what doom?" repeated Cullis.
"Don't be difficult," said Essenden pettishly. "You know what I mean. Jill Trelawney's gang—"
"There never has been a gang," said Cullis. "Trelawney and Weald and Pinky Budd were the only Angels of Doom. Three people can't be called a gang."
"There were others—"
"To do the dirty work. But they weren't anything."
Essenden drummed his finger tips on the desk in an irritating tattoo.
"You know what I mean," he repeated. "Jill Trelawney's back, then — if you like that better. And so is the Saint."
"Where?"
"I came back from Paris yesterday—"
"And I went to Brixton last night," said Cullis annoyingly. "We do travel about, don't we? But what's that got to do with it?"
"The Saint was in Paris — and Trelawney was with him."
"That's better. You actually saw them?"
"Not exactly—"
Cullis bit the end off a cigar with appalling restraint.
"Either you saw her or you didn't," he said. "Or do you mean you were drunk?"
"I'd had a few drinks," Essenden admitted. "Fellow I met in the bar. He must have been the Saint — I can see it all now. I'm certain I drank more than whisky. Anyway, I can only remember getting back to my room, and then — I simply passed out. The next thing I knew was that the valet was bringing in my breakfast, and I was lying on the bed fully dressed. I don't know what the man must have thought."
"I do," said Cullis.
"Anyhow," said Essenden, "they'd taken a couple of hundred thousand francs off me — and a notebook and wallet as well, which were far more important."
Cullis sat up abruptly.
"What's that mean?" he demanded.
"It was all written up in code, of course—"
"What was written up in code?"
"Some accounts — and some addresses. Nothing to do with anything in England, though."
The assistant commissioner leaned back again.
"Someone's certainly interested in you," he remarked.
"I've told you that before," said Essenden peevishly. "But you never do anything about it."
"I've offered you police protection."
"I've had police protection, and one of your men was on guard outside my house the night I found a man breaking open my desk. That's all your police protection is worth!"
Cullis tugged at his moustache.
"Still," he said, "there's nothing to connect the Saint with that burglary, any more than there's anything to connect either him or Trelawney with your — er — accident in Paris."
Essenden fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk beneath Cullis's eyes.
"What about that?" he asked.
Cullis looked at a little drawing that was already familiar to him — a childish sketch of a little skeleton man with a symbolical halo woven round his head. But beside this figure there was another such as neither Cullis nor Teal had ever seen before in that context — a figure that wore a skirt and had no halo. And under these drawings were three words: "April the First."
"What about that?" asked Essenden again.
Teal raised his sleepy eyes to the calendar on the wall.
"A week next Friday," he said. "Are you superstitious?"
Essenden was pardonably annoyed.
"If you're supposed to be in charge of this case, Mr. Teal," he said testily, "I don't think much of the way you do your job. Is this the way you train your men to work, Cullis?"
"I didn't train him," said Cullis patiently. "April the first is All Fool's Day, isn't it?"
"I don't see the joke."
"It may be explained to you," said Cullis.
He stood up with a businesslike air, meaning that, so far as he was concerned, the interview had served its purpose. As a matter of fact, this story was a mere variation on a theme which Cullis was already finding wearisome. He had heard too much in a similar strain of late to be impressed by this repetition, although he was far from underestimating its significance. But he could not discuss that with Essenden, for there was something about Lord Essenden which sometimes made Cullis think seriously of murder.
"Let me know any developments," he said with curt finality.
Lord Essenden, it should be understood, though important enough to be able to secure interviews with the assistant commissioner, was not important enough to be able to dictate the course which any interview should take, and this fact was always a thorn in Essenden's vanity.
"You treat it all very lightly," he complained weakly. "I do think you might make some sort of effort, Cullis."
"Every policeman in England is looking for Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney," said the assistant commissioner. "If and when we find them they will be arrested and tried. We can't do more than that. Write down your story and give it to Sergeant Berryman downstairs on your way out, and we'll see that it's added to the dossier. Good-evening."
"I tell you, Cullis, I'm scared—"
Cullis nodded.
"They certainly seem to have it in for you," he said. "I wonder why? Good-evening!"
Essenden felt his hand vigorously shaken, and then he found himself in the stone corridor outside, blinking at a closed door.
He went downstairs and wrote out his formal report, as he had been directed, but with a querulous lack of restraint which spoilt the product as a literary effort. Then he drove to his club and dined and wined himself well before he returned to his waiting car and directed a cold and sleepy chauffeur to take him home.
"Home" was on the borders of Oxfordshire, for Essenden preferred to live away from the social life of London. Lady Essenden had objections to this misanthropy, of which Lord Essenden took no notice. In his way, he was almost as retiring a character as Mr. Cullis.
Through all that drive home, Lord Essenden sat uncomfortably upright in one corner of his car, sucking the knob of his umbrella and pondering unpleasant thoughts.