2
With the cigarette slanting between bis lips and a slow drift of smoke sinking thoughtfully down into his lungs, Simon Templar lounged back in his chair and watched the two detectives coming up behind him.
The convex surface of the ornamental glass condensed their imposing figures into the vague semblance of two trousered sausages seen through the wrong end of a telescope; but even so, the grisly secret of their calling was blazoned across their bosoms in letters that the Saint could read five hundred yards away with his eyes closed. That was the one disastrous certainty which emerged unchallenged from the chaotic fact of their arrival. Not once since the first instant when they had bulked ponderously through the doors of the deserted Speisezimmer had the Saint allowed himself to luxuriate in any sedative delusions about that. When one has played ducks and drakes with the Law for ten hectic years, and, moreover, when one has been fully occupied for the last three of those years with the business of being the most coveted fox in the whole western hemisphere, one's nose becomes almost tediously familiar with the scent of hounds. And if ever the Saint had sniffed that piquant odour, he could smell it then—one breast-high wave of it, which spumed aromatically past his nostrils with enough pungency to make a salamander sneeze.
How those detectives had got there was still an inch or two beyond him. Granted that in the last twelve hours the purlieus of Innsbruck had been the location of no small excitement, in the course of which a quite unnecessary little man had been violently shoved on out of this world of woe, and an unfortunate misunderstanding had caused the three policemen who should have arrested him to be dumped painfully into the cold waters of the Inn—granted, even, that the estimable Monty Hayward was most unjustly suspected of having personally shoved on the aforesaid little man, and was most accurately known to have taken part in the assault and bathing of the police, to have subsequently assaulted one of them a second time, to have appropriated his uniform, and to have stolen a large car—well, a few minor disturbances like these were a small price to pay for the quarter of a million pounds' worth of genuine crown jewels. And the Saint had most emphatically done his best to avoid any superfluous unpleasantness. His mind flashed back over the details of the getaway; and at the end of the flash he had to admit that the Law was playing a fast ball. Their passing had been reported from the frontier, of course, as soon as the alarm was raised: that was inevitable; but after that the trail should have petered out—for several hours, anyway. A police organization which, in the short time that had been at its disposal, could discover an abandoned car, and then, by an essentially wearisome system of exhaustive inquiries, could trace its fugitive passengers through the separate and devious routes which they had taken to the hotel, argued that somewhere in Munich there were a few devoted souls with no little energy left over from the more important business of assimilating large quantities of Löwenbräu. It argued a strenuous efficiency that was as upsetting as anything the Saint had seen for many years.
Across the table, Monty Hayward was staring at him puzzledly, with the last fork-load of egg and bacon poised blankly in midair. And then, for a second, his gaze veered over the Saint's shoulder; and he began to understand.
The Saint's eyes tore themselves away from the queer fascination of the mirror. On its surface the figures of the men behind had swollen in grotesque distortion, until he knew that they were only a yard or two away. He felt their presence even more vividly after he had ceased to watch them, in an infinitely gentle little shiver that twitched up his back as if a couple of spiders had performed a rapid polka along his spine. It slithered coldly along his ganglions in a tingle of desperate alertness, an instinctive tautening of nerves that was beyond all human power to control.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and looked Monty Hayward squarely in the face. Within that yard or two of where they sat, the menace of the Law had loomed up again, with a suddenness that took the breath away—a menace which it had always been so fatally easy to forget, even if the Saint himself had never quite forgotten. And Monty Hayward looked back at a man who, in some guises, still seemed a stranger to him. The Saint's eyes were as hard as flints, cold and blue and mercilessly clear; and yet somewhere in their grim depths there was a tiny glitter like shifting sunlight, a momentary twinkle of mockery that loved the wild twists of the game for their own sake.
"For many years, Monty," said the Saint very quietly and distinctly, "I've been meaning to tell you the Illuminating History of Wilbraham, the Wonderful Worm. Wilbraham was in the very act of becoming the high tea of a partridge named Theobald, when the cruel bird was brought down by a lucky shot from the gun of a certain Mr. Hugglesboom, who was a water-diviner by profession and generally considered to be eccentric. I said a lucky shot, because Mr. Hugglesboom believed that he was aiming his weapon at a rabbit that was nibbling his young lettuces. On retrieving the bird, Mr. Hugglesboom discovered Wilbraham in its beak. Being a kind-hearted gentleman, he released the unhappy reptile; and he would have thought nothing more about it, if Wilbraham had not had other views. Wilbraham, in fact, being overcome with gratitude to his deliverer, followed Mr. Hugglesboom home, and showed such symptoms of devotion that Mr. Hugglesboom's heart was touched. A lonely man, he adopted the small creature, and found much companionship on his solitary travels, in which Wilbraham would follow him like a faithful dog. Shortly afterwards Wilbraham thought that he might assist Mr. Hugglesboom in his work. He took it upon himself to spy out, by tireless burrowing, the land which his master was commissioned to survey; with the result that in course of time Mr. Hugglesboom attained such eminence in his vocation ——"
Monty Hayward's face had run through a sequence of expressions that would have made a movie director skip like a young ram with joy; and then it had gone blank. The meaning and purpose of that astonishing cascade of imbecility were utterly beyond him. There came to him the hysterical belief that Simon Templar must have gone suddenly and irrevocably haywire. The strain of recent happenings had been too much for a brain that had never in its life been truly stable.
He looked up dumbly at the two men who were now standing by the Saint's oblivious shoulder, and in their faces he saw the beginnings of an answering blankness that fairly kicked him between the eyes. It was so staggering that for a space of time he doubted the evidence of his own senses.
And then it dawned upon him that the two men were also listening, and at the same time running through a gamut of emotions similar to his own. As the Saint's beautifully articulated phrases reached their ears, their heavy-footed and purposeful advance had waned away. They had ended up behind the Saint's chair as if they were walking over pins; and there they stood, with their mouths hanging open, sucking in his drivelling discourse with both ears. Their awed entrancement was so obvious that for an awful interval Monty Hayward began to wonder whether after all it was his own brain that had slipped its trolley.
"The climax came," said the Saint, with that flute-like clarity which did every single thing in its power to render the words comprehensible to anyone whose knowledge of English might leave much fluency to be desired, "at a garden party organized by Lady Tigworthy, at which Mr. Hugglesboom was to give a demonstration of his art by finding a receptacle of water which had been carefully hidden in the grounds. Keeping his usual rendezvous behind the refreshment tent, Mr. Hugglesboom was duly accosted by a worm who gave him explicit instructions; and shortly afterwards, being a dim-sighted man, he faithfully made his find directly over a shiny pink globe which showed on the lee side of a grassy knoll. This was discovered to be the head of Lord Tigworthy, who was enjoying an afternoon siesta. Mr. Hugglesboom was expelled from the fête in disgrace; and the worm, which was reclining in an intoxicated condition under the tap of a barrel of mild ale, was thrown after him. It was not until he reached home that Mr. Hugglesboom perceived that this worm was not Wilbraham"— the Saint was looking Monty rigidly in the eyes—"but Wilbraham's twin brother, who, filled with jealousy of his luckier relation, had gone out of his way to discredit an unblemished record of unselfish service. Mr. Hugglesboom——"