"What did he tell you?" she demanded.
The Saint didn't answer. He merely slanted his eyebrows into line of bland and blunt inquiry that was exactly as eloquent as speech. Without articulating a syllable, it wanted to know just what the hell business of Titania Ourley's it was what Allen Uttershaw had told him; and she caught the precise meaning of it like a fighter walking into a straight left. You could almost see the impact of it connecting with one of the receding tiers of chins that sagged from beneath that suddenly hard mouth.
She recovered with a celerity that earned his reluctant admiration. When he gave her that cynical challenge of the eyebrows she had been within a hair's breadth of menace and domineering; now, in a moment, she was leaning back again and delving into an enormous handbag to excavate a cigarette holder that looked like a jeweled pipe from a cathedral organ, and she was just as vapid as she had ever been.
"I'm afraid I'm much too inquisitive," she prattled. "I keep forgetting that you're the Saint, and anything people tell you is sacred. After all, I did make you my own father confessor, didn't I?… But I admit I am curious." She bent forward again so that a comber of hothouse odors practically splashed into the Saint's nostrils. "Not that I ever gossip about anybody — Heaven knows that my worst enemies can't say that about me! But to tell you the truth, I've often wondered about Mr Uttershaw."
9
Simon Templar replenished his cup with the last dribble from his rationed coffee-pot, and reflected that life could certainly open up a wondrous variety of perspectives when sundry citizens began to look sideways at one another. It was a sizable item in the mental overhead which he would have preferred to leave out of his budget; but he compromised by showing no visible reaction at all and letting his mind remain passive and receptive.
Titania Ourley, who was apparently waiting for shocked amazement to spread over his features, seemed moderately disappointed when his face remained unmoved but expectant. Nevertheless, she surged closer over the table, buffeting him with another tidal wave of exotic stenches which he decided must have been concocted in a cocktail shaker.
"I wouldn't be at all surprised," she said portentously, "if somebody investigated Allen Uttershaw one of these days and found out a lot of funny things. Oh, I know he's a marvelous dancer, and he's always so perfectly perfect, if you know what I mean, but haven't you noticed that there's something secret about him? I hate to say it when he isn't here to defend himself, but do you know, sometimes I think he isn't quite normal!"
"Really?" drawled the Saint. "You mean he—"
"Oh, no — nothing like that!"
Simon was prepared to give something to know what "that" was that Allen Uttershaw was nothing like. He suspected the worst, in Mrs Ourley's peculiar mind.
He applied an expression of fascinated suspense to his mask, and waited.
"When I say that," she elucidated, "I mean that he's — he's — well, I can only say that he must be anti-social." Her voice became positively vibrant. "Do you know, out of all the times we've invited him to dinner, last night was the first time he's been to see us in months!"
She relaxed triumphantly, with the air of having furnished incontrovertible evidence that the subject under discussion was a dangerous case who should be lured into a padded cell at the earliest opportunity.
Simon clicked his tongue gloomily, shaking his head at the dreadful realisation that his recent companion was indisputably an incurable schizophrene. His manifest distress spurred Mrs Ourley to further expansions.
"Not only that," she said, in confidential accents that could not possibly have been heard more than three tables away, "but I think he has a grudge against Milton. Of course, he's just as friendly and charming as he can be when he's with us, but he does things behind Milton's back."
"How horrible," muttered the Saint solemnly, with no qualms at all that either innuendo or sarcasm would register on that target.
He was absolutely right, for whatever satisfaction the experiment was worth.
"Yes, indeed," she trilled. "For instance, when Milton was put up for one of Allen's clubs, only a little while ago, he was voted down. And I have it on very good authority that it was Allen who blackballed him. And after he'd been a guest in our home, too!"
Simon searched for words to express his revulsion at such perfidy, but before he had formulated the fitting phrase he was saved by the bell again. The same heaven-sent bellboy stood by the table again.
"Telephone, Mr Templar."
"Thank you," said the Saint, and really meant it.
He went out to the booth in the lobby and said: "Hullo."
"What the hell," roared the voice of Inspector Fernack, like a bursting dam, "are you doing there?"
The Saint smiled, and picked a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket.
"Hullo, John Henry," he said cordially. "I'm just finishing lunch and making love to a retired Ziegfeld girl. What are you doing?"
"How did you get loose?"
"I didn't. The FBI turned me loose. I promised to be a good boy, and they took one look at my cherubic countenance and knew they could trust me."
"If you think—"
"I do, Henry. And don't you send half a dozen squad cars screaming up here to grab me again, because if you do the FBI will hear about it at once, and then they'll think I've violated my parole by getting into bad company and associating with policemen again, and of course they'd have to come right over and ask to have me back."
"I don't believe—"
"But you must, Comrade. If you don't, you're liable to look awful foolish. And that would never do. Think of your dignity. Think of the prestige of the Force. And if that's too much work for you, call Brother Eldon's office and verify it."
There was an interval of silence, during which Simon could almost see the detective's aorta laboring like a stimulated blow-fish.
Finally Fernack said, in a painful parody of his ordinary voice: "Templar, what are you doing in this setup?"
"You heard from Fifty-first Street?"
"Yes." It was a grudging admission. "But—"
"Then at least you've got something."
"But where did you find it?"
"I can't tell you yet. But at least I'm giving you a break. Don't. you think I'm being good to you? I don't think you appreciate it. Think of the glory I'm helping you to grab for yourself. And now I'm going to give you some more. By tomorrow, you'll have half the morning paper headlines all to yourself."
Fernack said suspiciously: "What's this?"
"In just a few minutes, any bright bull who walks into my suite here will be able to pinch a couple of old-timers. Their names are Ricco Varetti and Cokey Walsh. They will be trying to steal a very handsome piece of luggage from me, and they might even be attempting some private unpleasantness on my person. You've got their records, no doubt."
"I know 'em both. But what've they got to do with—"
"You'll find out. Come on over and play some flagrante de-licto."
"I can't," Fernack said tormentedly. "I've got to go into court on another case in just a few minutes."
"Then send someone else."
"Is this on the level?"
"Word of honor."
After a second or two Fernack said: "I'll send Kestry and Bonacci. I think you've met them."
The Saint had met them. The acquaintance dated back to the first episode in which he had met Inspector Fernack, and it had been enlightening. The recollection drew his mouth down in a tight line that still did not embitter his eyes.