"And I always knew you for a crook," he said disconsolately.
The Saint's smile was almost nostalgically dreamy.
"I always was, in a technical sort of way," he said softly. "And I may be again. But there's a war on; and some odd people can find a use for some even odder people… For that matter, there was a time when I thought you might be a crooked cop, which can be worse."
"I guess you know how that is, too," Kinglake said, sourly but sufficiently. "You sounded as if you did."
"I think that's all been said," Simon replied temperately. "We're just playing a new set of rules. For that matter, if I'd been playing some of my old rules, I think I could have found a way to pull a fast one on you, with or without the audience, and taken that heater away from you, and made time out of here no matter what you were threatening. I've done it before. I just thought this was the best way tonight."
The Lieutenant glanced guiltily at his half forgotten gun, and stuffed it back into his hip holster.
"Well?" He repeated the word without any of the aggressive implications that he had thrown into it the last time. "Can you feed me any of this story that I'm supposed to have known all along, or should I just go on clamming up because I don't know?"
Simon deliberately reduced his cigarette by the length of two measured inhalations. In between them, he measured the crestfallen Lieutenant once more for luck. After that he had no more hesitation.
If he hadn't been able to judge men down to the last things that made them tick, he wouldn't have been what he was or where he was at that instant. He could be wrong often and anywhere, incidentally, but not in the fundamentals of situation and character.
He said quite casually then, as it seemed to him after his decision was made: "It's just one of those stories…"
He swung a leg over the arm of his chair, pillowed his chin or his knee, and went on through a drift of smoke when he was ready.
"I've got to admit that the theory I set up in the Times-Tribune didn't just spill out of my deductive genius. It was almost ancient history to me. That's what brought me to Galveston and into your hair. The only coincidence I wasn't expecting, and which I didn't even get on to for some time afterwards, was that the body I nearly ran over out there in the marshes would turn out to be Henry Stephen Matson — the guy I came here to find."
"What did you want him for?"
"Because he was a saboteur. He worked in two or three war plants where acts of sabotage occurred, although he was never suspected. No gigantic jobs, but good serious sabotage just the same. The FBI found that out when they checked back on him. But the way they got on to him was frankly one of those weird accidents that are always waiting to trip up the most careful villains. He had a bad habit of going out and leaving the lights on in his room. About the umpteenth time his landlady had gone up and turned them out, she thought of leaving a note for him about it. But she didn't have a pencil with her, and she didn't see one lying around. So she rummaged about a bit, and found an Eversharp in one of his drawers. She started to write, and then the lead broke. She tried to produce another one, and nothing happened. So she started fiddling with it and unscrewing things, and suddenly the pencil came apart and a lot of stuff fell out of it that certainly couldn't have been the inner workings of an Ever-sharp. She was a bright woman. She managed to put it together again, without blowing herself up, and put it back where she found it and went out and told the FBI — of course, she knew that Matson was working for a defense plant. But it's a strictly incredible story, and exactly the sort of thing that's always happening."
"One of these days it'll probably happen to you," Kinglake said; but his stern features relaxed in the nearest approximation to a smile that they were capable of.
The Saint grinned.
"It has," he said… "Anyway, Matson had an FBI man working next to him from then on, so he never had a chance to pull anything."
"Why wasn't he arrested?"
"Because if he'd done other jobs in other places, there was a good chance that he had contacts with a general sabotage organization, and that's what we've been trying to get on to for a long time. That's why I went to St Louis. But before I arrived there, he'd scrammed. I don't think he knew he was being watched. But Quenco was much tougher than anything he'd tackled before. You don't have any minor sabotage in an explosives factory. You just have a loud noise and a large hole in the ground. I think Matson got cold feet and called it a day. But he wasn't a very clever fugitive. I'm not surprised that the mob caught up with him so quickly. He left a trail that a wooden Indian could have followed. I traced him to Baton Rouge in double time, and when I was there I heard from Washington that he'd applied for a passport and given his address as the Ascot Hotel in Galveston. He was afraid that his goose was cooked. It was, too — to a crisp."
"You were figuring on getting into his confidence and finding out what he knew."
"Maybe something like that. If I could have done it. If not, I'd have tried whatever I had to — even to the extent of roasting him myself. Only I'd have done it more slowly. I thought he might have some informative notes written down. A guy like that would be liable to do that sort of thing, just for insurance. Like Vaschetti… I want that ostrich-skin case that was in his gladstone lining; and I want Vaschetti's diary of his trips and meetings. With those two items, we may be able to clean up practically the whole sabotage system from coast to coast."
"What do you mean by 'we'?" Kinglake asked curiously. "I've heard of this Imperative number; but is it a branch of the FBI?"
Simon shook his head.
"It's something much bigger. But don't ask me, and don't ask anyone else. And don't remember that I ever mentioned it."
Kinglake looked at the chewed end of his stogie.
"I just want you to know," he said, "that I had Matson figured as an ordinary gang killing, and that's why I would have let it ride. If I'd known it was anything like this, nobody could have made me lay off."
The Saint nodded.
"I guessed that. That's why I've talked to you. Now we've spent enough time for you to be able to put over your story; and I've got to be moving."
"You know where you're going?"
"Yes." Simon stood up and crushed out his cigarette. "You may hear from me again tonight."
The Lieutenant held out his hand and said: "Good luck."
Thanks," said the Saint, and went out.
Rowden and Yard and the Times-Tribune, standing in a little huddle down the corridor, turned and fanned out to stare at him as he strolled towards them. Then the Lieutenant's voice came from the doorway behind him.
"Mr Templar is leaving. Now you can all come back here."
"You know," Simon said earnestly, to Detective Yard, "I do wish your first name was Scotland."
He sauntered on, leaving his favorite plainclothes man gawping after him like a punch-drunk St Bernard whose succored victim has refused to take a drink out of its keg.
Kinglake's trephining eyes reamed the blank questioning faces of his returned entr'acteurs. He clamped his teeth defiantly into his stogie, and drew a deep breath. In that breath, every wisp of the convenient alibi that Simon Templar had suggested was swept away, and he was standing solidly on a decision of his own.
"If you want to know what we were talking about," he clipped out, "Templar was giving me a stall, and I pretended to fall for it. Now I'm going to see where he takes me. Yard, you can take charge here. I'm going to follow the Saint myself, and I'm going to bust this whole case if it takes me till Christmas."
"But Lieutenant," protested the dumbfounded Yard, "what about the Chief? What about…"
"The Chief," Kinglake said shortly, "and the Commissioner, and the Sheriff, and everybody behind them, can—"