Simon shook his head amiably.
“Not a bit. You couldn’t tell on me, because you’re an accomplice after the fact. Of course for turning in your partner — me — they might cut your sentence down a few years, especially considering your youth and good looks.”
She emitted a helpless, mare-like sound and furiously folded her arms.
“You wouldn’t hunt for me because you liked me,” she called after him. “You hate me. You’re ashamed of me!”
Simon resisted the impulse to put his hands over his ears as he walked away. He was beginning to wonder whether an isolated garret might not be an ideal spot for Cassie Lane after all.
The open doorway of Thorpe-Jones’ establishment was embellished in stone bas-relief and lighted by an ornate iron lamp on either side. A doorman recognized Simon immediately and ushered him into the thickly carpeted entrance hall. A number of ultra-modern metal and stone sculptures lined the area.
“I’d like to see Mr Thorpe-Jones, please,” the Saint said.
“One moment, Mr Templar. I’ll see if it’s possible.”
While he waited in the foyer, Simon glanced into the gambling rooms, where the dominant sounds were the click of chips and the occasional whir and clatter of the ball in a turning wheel. The players were pressed close around the tables, and suspense made them almost completely silent. Until Simon looked, he might have thought the building almost deserted.
The doorman came hurrying back past the sculptures, whose variety and number seemed to attest to the genuineness of Thorpe-Jones’ interest in that sort of art, and asked the Saint to follow him.
Thorpe-Jones’ private office was a superb room panelled in walnut decorated with more modern sculpture, and beautifully furnished in a somehow vaguely feminine way. Thorpe-Jones himself, who rose to greet the Saint cordially, was an erect, thin man of middle years, with long strands of brown hair from the still-flourishing area at the back of his head combed wetly forward in an effort to cover the bald spaces at the front. He wore a tuxedo, with lace showing at the cuffs of his shirt, and he was redolent of cologne. His smile was both aristocratic and ingratiating.
“Mr Templar,” he said, extending an elegant hand. “I hope you have no complaints, but it’s men with your standards who keep us up to the mark.”
Simon coolly returned the smile.
“No complaints at all. In fact, I only just came in. I came about something else.”
Thorpe-Jones nodded and waited, and Simon decided to let him wait. His keen blue eyes wandered over the sculptures, and he recognized in several the style of Perry Loudon.
“Impressive collection,” he said. “Which one is Perry Loudon’s latest masterpiece?”
“Behind you,” answered Thorpe-Jones.
The Saint turned to look at a very large and massive heap of metal which seemed to dominate the whole room. Interwoven with the metal was delicately twisted neon tubing which glowed with strange effect down in the cavernous recesses and passages of the sculptures.
“Unusual,” said the Saint.
“No one else has ever used the technique of combining neon and metal so effectively, as far as I know. Loudon’s an original mind. I think he has a great future.”
“I’m afraid he hasn’t.”
Thorpe-Jones bridled with aristocratic restraint and looked at Simon with slightly offended pale-grey eyes.
“Are you an art critic among your many other accomplishments?” he asked the Saint.
“Possibly; but that wasn’t my meaning. I intended that as a piece of information, assuming you didn’t know it already. Perry Loudon is dead. He was murdered this afternoon.”
Thorpe-Jones’ astonishment seemed real. Simon was expert at assessing such reactions, and neither did Thorpe-Jones go too far in the direction of tears and lamentations.
“Are you serious?” he asked in a shocked voice.
Simon nodded.
“Anyway, the police think so. But the motive is obscure.”
Thorpe-Jones frowned and paced the floor.
“These bohemian types, you know,” he said. “Jealousies and quarrels. Many of them take dope now. I suppose such things are bound to happen, but it’s a great loss.”
Simon went to the huge sculpture of neon and steel which towered over everything else in the office. He ran his fingers lightly over some of the surfaces.
“I suppose this will put up the price of your collection?”
Thorpe-Jones stopped abruptly and stared at him, “Are you suggesting that I...”
The Saint raised a reassuring hand.
“No, I wasn’t. But a dead sculptor is worth more than a live one to the people who own his works.”
“A few hundred pounds more, maybe,” said Thorpe-Jones. “Loudon is no big name. It would hardly have been worth my while to kill him for what I could make here in a night. Besides Mr Templar, I don’t kill people, and I resent the implication that I do.”
Simon gave a slight bow which might have been interpreted as politely apologetic.
“I’m sure you don’t, Mr Thorpe-Jones. You make enough killings with your wheels.”
Thorpe-Jones smiled thinly.
“If my clients wish to commit a highly enjoyable and more or less socially acceptable form of suicide, the least I can do is to oblige them.”
The Saint touched the large sculpture again.
“May I ask what this cost?”
Thorpe-Jones raised his eyebrows.
“Is that your standard of artistic value, Mr Templar?” he asked condescendingly. “Surely that can’t be all you came to see me about?”
“Believe it or not, it is. My business has to do with the price of the pieces you bought from Perry Loudon. Would I be far off if I guessed that this latest one cost in the neighborhood of two thousand pounds?”
“You would be far off,” the other replied stiffly. “Nothing I’ve bought from Loudon even came to a thousand.”
“Did he play the tables here and win a lot?”
“Anyone will tell you, Mr Templar, that this club has an inviolable rule never to discuss the accounts of its members.”
“Would you have made large payments to Loudon for any other reason?”
“I’d ask you to leave, Mr Templar, but I’m intrigued enough by your questions to want to know more. For what reason would I make payments of thousands of pounds to Perry Loudon?”
“Blackmail?” hazarded the Saint.
Thorpe-Jones gave a dignified snort.
“Blackmail?” he repeated starchily. “On what possible grounds?”
Simon shook his head innocently.
“I wouldn’t know, of course.”
His host, who no longer showed much semblance of the friendliness he had displayed when Simon had first come in, walked to the door.
“Your insinuations are quite out of line,” he said coldly. “I can give you only one answer. If I were a killer — if I had killed Perry Loudon, and you had accused me of it as you have tonight, you would not walk out of this room.”
He opened the door, and Simon passed into the foyer.
“You see?” said Thorpe-Jones. “You’re quite free to go, and the worst you’ll get from me, if you keep up this kind of talk in public, is a slander suit.”
“If you’re telling the truth,” the Saint said, “you’ll never have any reason to worry about trouble with me.”
“I’m so glad to know.”
“I thought you’d be pleased. Good night.”
“Goodnight, Mr Templar.”
When Simon had walked along the carpet and out of the building between the double lamps at the door, he saw Cassie Lane jumping up and down on the corner half a block away, waving violently to get his attention. She came running down the sidewalk to meet him.