She nodded. In a couple of minutes she was ready; and they walked down the stairs together. At the foot of the stairs he stopped.
"Round there," he said, pointing, "you'll find a flight of steps to the basement. Wait just out of sight. When you hear me go up the stairs again, walk straight out of the front door and take a taxi to the Ritz. Stay there as Mrs. Joseph M. Halliday, of Boston. Mr. Joseph M. Halliday — myself — will arrive for breakfast at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."
"And Act Three?" she asked.
"That," said the Saint serenely, "will be nothing but a brief brisk dialogue between Teal and me. Goodnight, Jill."
He held out his hand. She took it.
"Simon, you're not only a darling — you're a bright boy."
"Just what Teal said," murmured the Saint. "Sleep well, Jill — and don't worry."
He left her there, and went and opened the front door.
The constable outside turned round alertly.
"Officer!" said the Saint anxiously.
He looked amazingly respectable; and the policeman relaxed.
"Yes, sir?"
"There seems to be something funny going on in the fiat below me—"
The constable came up the steps.
"Which floor are you on, sir?"
"Second."
The eyes of the law studied the Saint's nervous respectability with an intent stare; and then the finger of the law beckoned.
Simon followed the law outside; and the finger of the law pointed upwards. In the first-floor window, a silhouette could be seen on a blind.
"In that flat below you, sir," said the law impressively, "there's a woman ooze wanted for murder."
Simon peered upwards.
"Why don't you arrest her?" he asked.
"Inspector's gone for a warrant," said the constable. "I'm keeping watch till he gets back. Now, what was it you heard in that flat, sir?"
"A sort of moaning noise," said the Saint sepulchrally.
"It's been going on for some time. Sounds as if someone was dying. I got anxious after a bit, and went down and rang the bell, but I couldn't get any answer."
"Listen," said the policeman.
They listened.
"Can't hear anything," said the policeman.
"You wouldn't, down here, with the window shut," said the Saint. "It's not very loud. But you can hear it quite clearly on the landing outside the flat."
"She's still sitting there, in that window," said the policeman.
They stared upwards, side by side.
"Sits very still, doesn't she?" said the Saint vaguely.
They stared longer.
"Funny," said the policeman, "now you come to mention it, she does sit still, Ain't never moved 'arf an inch, all this time we've been watching her."
"I don't like the look of it, officer," said the Saint nervously. "If you'd heard that noise—"
"Can't 'ear no noise now."
"I tell you, it gave me the creeps… Did this woman know you were going to arrest her?"
"Oh, I think she knows all right."
"Supposing she's committing suicide—"
The constable continued to strain his neck.
"Sounds as if I ought to look into it," he said. "But I don't care to leave my post. The inspector said I wasn't to move on any account. But if she's trying to escape justice—"
"She still hasn't moved," Simon said.
"No, she ain't moved."
"I don't see how going inside would be leaving your post," said the Saint thoughtfully. "You'd be just as much use as a guard outside the door of the flat as you are here."
"That's true," said the policeman.
He looked at the Saint.
"Come on up with me," he said.
"L-l-l-like a shot," said the Saint timidly, and followed in the burly wake of the law.
They listened outside the door of the flat for some time, and, not unnaturally, heard nothing.
"Perhaps she's dead by now," Simon ventured morbidly.
The law applied a stubby forefinger to the bell. A minute passed.
The law repeated the summons — without result.
The Saint cleared his throat.
"Couldn't we break in?" he said.
The law shook its head.
"Better wait till the inspector gets back. He won't be long."
"Come up and wait in my flat."
"Couldn't do that, sir. I've got to keep an eye on this door."
Simon nodded.
"Well, I'll be off," he sighed. "I'll be upstairs if you want me."
"If anything's happened, I expect the inspector will want to see you, sir. May I have your name?"
"Essenden," said Simon Templar glibly. "Marmaduke Essenden. Your inspector will know the name."
He saw the name written down in the official notebook, and went up the stairs. On the landing above, he waited until he heard the constable tramping downwards, and then he descended again and let himself into his own flat.
He was reading, in his pajamas and a dressing gown, when his bell rang again an hour and a half later; and he opened the door at once.
Teal was outside; and behind Teal was the constable. Seeing Simon, the constable goggled.
"That's the man, sir," he blurted.
"I knew that, you fool," snarled Teal, "as soon as you told me the name he gave you."
He pushed through into the sitting room. His round red face was redder than ever; and for once his jaws seemed to be unoccupied with the product of the Wrigley Corporation.
The constable followed; and Simon humbly followed the constable.
"Now look at that!" said Teal sourly.
The Saint stood deferentially aside; and the constable stood in his tracks and gaped along the line indicated by Mr. Teal's forefinger. The Saint had not interfered with the improvised dummy in the chair. He had felt that it would have been unkind to deprive the constable of the food for thought with which that mysteriously motionless silhouette must have been able to divert his vigil. "And while you were making a fool of yourself up here," said Teal bitterly, "Jill Trelawney was walking out of the front door and getting clean away. And you call yourself a policeman!"
Simon coughed gently.
"I think," he said diffidently, "that the constable meant well."
Teal turned on him. The detective's heavy-lidded eyes glittered on the dangerous verge of fury.
The Saint smiled.
Slowly, deliberately, Teal's mouth closed upon the word it had been about to release. Slowly Teal's heavy eyelids dropped down.
"Saint," said Teal, "I told you you were a bright boy."
"So did Auntie Ethel," said the Saint.
2
Simon Templar, refreshed by a good night's sleep, set out for the Ritz at 9.30 next morning.
He had not been kept up late the night before. Teal, gathering himself back into the old pose of mountainous sleepiness out of which he had so nearly allowed himself to be disturbed, had gone very quietly. In fact, Simon had been sound asleep three quarters of an hour after the detective's return visit.
Teal hadn't a leg to stand on. True, the Saint had behaved very curiously; but there is no law against men behaving curiously. The Saint had lied; but lying is not in itself a criminal offense. It is not even a misdemeanour for a man to arrange a dummy in a chair in such a way that a realistic silhouette is thrown upon a blind. And there is no statute to prevent a man claiming a Lithuanian princess for an aunt, provided he does not do it with intent to defraud… So Teal had gone home.
Suspicion is not evidence — that is a fundamental principle of English law. The law deals in fact; and a thousand suspicious circumstances do not make a fact.
No one had seen the Princess Selina von Rupprecht. No one could even prove that her real name was Jill Trelawney. Therefore no charge could ever be substantiated against Simon Templar for that night's work. And Teal was wise enough to know when he was wasting his time. There was a twinkle in the Saint's eye that discouraged bluff.