Chief Inspector Teal, however, was not conditioned to pause to perceive such subtleties. He turned with such an expression of fiendish elation distorting his pudgy face that any sharp movie mogul would have signed him on the spot for a series of horror films, and thrust the photograph under Simon’s nose. The Saint removed it to a more suitable distance and simply stood there looking Teal in the eye.
“Well?” whopped the detective. “What do you call this?”
“That’s something called a photograph, Claud,” the Saint explained kindly. “I doubt that you could ever grasp the complexities of the process, but it basically consists of an image formed by light on a sensitive emulsion.”
“Do you still claim you’re just a student of Loudon’s?”
“Before I answer that, is it against the law to be more than a student of Loudon’s?”
“Just give me a straight answer,” Teal barked.
“No,” said the Saint blithely.
Teal’s momentary exultation began to ripen again into an apoplectic tint of carmine.
“What did you say?”
“I said no,” the Saint repeated. “Your hearing’s going too, Claud. No it is not against the law to be more than a student of Loudon’s.”
“You’ll cooperate or you’ll find yourself in serious trouble,” the detective said.
He apparently intended his words to carry weight and dignity, but they came out in the form of a loud squeak which caused the two plain-clothes men waiting in the ground floor hall to peer puzzledly up the stairs.
“Now, Claud,” the Saint said in a very low voice, “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your minions.”
He extended a long forefinger and pushed it lightly into the center of Teal’s stomach.
“I’m not a cruel man,” he continued. “But I’m a just man, particularly where my own rights are concerned. The fact that I claim a few rights that the yahoos have gladly given up for their bread and circuses is to my own credit, I think, whether you like it or not. And one of the rights I claim is to be where I please when I please without some insufferable bureaucratic slob shuffling up and asking me a lot of impertinent questions.”
The steely finger jabbed more vehemently into Teal’s midriff and forced him to retreat a half step in order to maintain his balance. The Saint’s voice was a little louder, and had developed a razor edge.
“Of all the routine complaint calls you get every day,” he said, “you find it necessary to trot out half the strength of Scotland Yard on the one that mentions my name. Somebody drops a hammer in the building where I’m taking a lesson in the noble art of Phidias and Michelangelo, and suddenly it’s a riot. Some beatnik goes around the corner for a beer and suddenly he’s the biggest case since Dreyfus. You haven’t found a trace of a crime or a body or even a drop of blood, but you have the gall to threaten me with all kinds of sinister consequences if I don’t ‘cooperate’ — which I suppose means confessing to something I haven’t done.”
Now the Saint’s prods to Teal’s belly were more frequent and powerful, and they forced little puffs of air from between the detective’s lips.
“Do you know what that is, Claud Eustace? That’s harassment and persecution. And if you carry it any further I’m going to see that you’re kicked so far downstairs at Scotland Yard that you’ll need a rocket to get up to the basement.”
Teal struggled for several long seconds to muster some reply. He started to raise the photograph above waist level as some sort of banner under which to continue the battle, but he seemed to realize its uselessness. The solid ground on which he had thought he was standing had turned into a quicksand and he knew it.
He turned away from Simon and started quickly down the stairs, tucking the picture into his jacket pocket as he went. “That’s stealing, Claud,” the Saint reminded him politely. Teal, without a pause in his trudging descent, pulled the picture out of his pocket again and handed it over his shoulder to the constable who was following him. When they were at the bottom of the stairs the constable took the picture and put it on the table from which it had been taken.
“Bye-bye,” Simon called cheerily. “If I’m still here when Loudon comes home, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”
Teal did not look around. He marched sullenly out of the house to the dark street, and the last of the three men to follow him shut the door quietly behind them.
The Saint hurried down the stairs, bolted the door on the inside, and took the steps two at a time on his return trip to Loudon’s studio. He closed the door to the roof but could not lock it because there was no key in sight. A glance through the front window showed the police car driving away.
Simon went to the cord which hung from the overhead trapdoor, and a moment later the ladder had descended to the floor. He was halfway up it when the door from the roof opened and a voice called. “Hold it!”
The fact that it was a female voice, and one that Simon recognized, kept him from doing anything more drastic than turning his head with bland unconcern. Cassie Lane was standing just inside the studio, no longer dressed in her pajamas but in jeans and a man’s white shirt, holding up her hand as if she could freeze the Saint with a gesture.
“I knew it!” she cried. “The moment I laid eyes on you! You’re ideal.”
“I agree,” said Simon, “but would you mind admiring me later? I’m busy.”
“Absolutely perfect. How could I leave?”
“Do you want something specific?” he asked her.
He was painfully aware that only her excitement had kept her from noticing the bloodstains on the trapdoor and the corner of its opening.
“I want you!” she announced dramatically.
“I’m flattered. Maybe I can return the compliment when I get through with my work here.”
Cassie Lane’s enthusiasm was apparently unquenchable.
“Lithe!” she declaimed. “Fantastically balanced! Coordination like a cat. Would you mind stripping to the waist?”
Simon took a step down the ladder and regarded her more interestedly.
“No,” he said. “Would you?”
When she tried to meet the blue eyes which gazed at her with just a trace of mockery from the impossibly handsome face, she faltered for the first time.
“I want you for a model,” she said earnestly.
He would have agreed to pose as Laocoon with a hungry boa constrictor to get rid of her at that moment.
“That could be arranged, I guess, but right now I’m terribly busy. I’ll come over when I’ve finished.”
“I’ll just watch. Go right ahead. I like to study my models in motion for hours before I hit on the right pose for them.”
Cassie came to him, looking up into his face and putting her hand on his shoe.
“Please,” she begged. “Couldn’t I just watch?”
Suddenly she looked vaguely puzzled and glanced down at her hand. Splotched on the white skin of its back was a drop of blood.
“Don’t scream,” said Simon.
He managed to drop from the ladder and get some fingers over her mouth before any loud sounds emerged.
“Promise not to scream?” he said. “I’ll explain this completely.”