He was reaching for the telephone again without finishing the sentence.
He had that one stroke of luck, at least. He knew the voice that answered his ring without asking.
"Ray," he said, "this is Simon Templar."
"Well, well. Long time no see. How 've you been?"
"Good enough. Listen, Ray, this is business. Do you happen to know a bird by the name of Sylvester Angert?"
There was a fractional pause.
"Yes. I know him."
"Does he work for you?"
"Sometimes."
"You're going to have to replace him," said the Saint coldbloodedly. "Sylvester has gone to the Happy Sleuthing Grounds."
The wire hummed voicelessly for a second.
"What happened?"
"Somebody used his head for a drum and broke it."
"Where was this?"
"At Calvin Gray's place, just a little while ago. I found the body. He was following Madeline Gray, wasn't he?"
"Yes."
"And me too."
"I didn't know about that. If I'd known you knew her—"
Schindler didn't go on. He said: "Have you called the police?"
"No. But I've got an FBI man coming down. There's more to this than just a murder."
"Just the same, if there's been a murder we'll have to notify the police."
"I suppose so. I'll call them."
"Better let me do it. I know the Chief. And I'll be right over."
"You know the place?"
"Yes. I'll see you in a few minutes."
Simon hung up.
"I'm afraid you're going to be hostess to a real convention of detectives," he said. "You'd better put a blue light outside and get out the cuspidors."
"You know this man Schindler," said the girl.
"I've known him for years. And whatever dirty work is going on, he isn't part of it. But anybody could have hired him to check up on you, on some pretext or other. I'm just hoping this will give us another lead. We'll see. Meanwhile — don't you think a drink would do you a bit of good?"
He went into the kitchen to organize a cocktail, and the girl followed him in there and watched him.
Presently she said: "You've been very sweet, trying to take everything out of my hands. But now, I've got to know. Do you think there's any chance of finding Daddy?"
"There's always a chance of anything," he replied, stirring his mixture methodically. "But this won't be easy. This is an awful quiet neck of the woods. Two or three men could easily come here, and pull a job, and get away again without ever being seen by anyone within miles of here."
Her eyes were stony and searching.
"If you're keeping anything back, I've got a right to know it. What do you think the truth is?"
He put down the shaker and faced her bluntly, and yet as kindly as he could.
"I think that I'm entirely responsible for whatever has happened to your father. I still don't know what makes it tick. But there's a pattern. Look. You've had incidental sabotage and threats. They didn't stop you. Last night. I began to think that kidnaping your father, and the attempt to kidnap you, were a sort of co-ordinated maneuver — they could have been timed to happen about the same time, and you'd both have disappeared the same night, only in different places. But that doesn't work."
"Why?"
"The note you got in the Shoreham. 'Don't try to see Imberline.' Your appointment with Imberline was a phony, a plant to take you to a place where you could be kidnaped. Therefore, why try to stop you keeping the appointment? Only for one reason. The Ungodly were still trying to weasel on their ungodliness. They still didn't want to go right in up to their ears. But you weren't scared off. You spoke to me. They told me to mind my own business, but they must have guessed even then that I wouldn't. They still might have thought they could put on some act and scare you off, but when I crashed on to the battlefield even that last hope was shot. At last they had to start really playing for keeps. You did all that when you dragged me in, and now it remains to be seen whether I can make it worth while." His lips set in a sardonic fighting line. "I'm sorry, kid, but at the moment that's how I think it is."
He was taking more blame than he need have, for it was obvious that a kidnaping of Calvin Gray could not have followed so quickly unless the plans had been laid in advance and there had been men waiting in the vicinity of Stamford who only needed a telephone call to set them in motion; but it made him feel better to take all the responsibility he could inflict on himself. It helped to build up a strength of cold anger that was some antidote to a groping helplessness which was not his fault.
But the girl didn't break. She said steadily: "Then you think they meant to leave me—"
"So that you'd play ball for fear of what might happen to your father. They weren't actually ready to tie you both up and work on you with hot irons. The threat and the war of nerves might have done the trick. Which is another thing that doesn't quite seem to fit the Nazi angle. And good heel heiler like Karl would have seen it the more straightforward way. But now — I don't know."
"Whatever it comes to," she said, "I'll be as tough as I can. I'm all right now. I promise."
He grinned, with one of his sudden carefree flashes of unreserving comradeship that could make people feel as if they had been elected to a unique and exclusive fraternity; and his hand rested briefly and lightly on her shoulder.
"You always were all right, Madeline," he said. "You just wanted a little time to find your feet in this racket."
He was impatient for the convoy that he was expecting to arrive. Even though he would be equally impatient with the routines that would have to be gone through, they would give a temporary air of positive action which he needed.
It was a long half-hour before the first car crunched into the driveway and Ray Schindler hauled his not inconsiderable bulk out of it. He had sparse white hair and mephistophelian black eyebrows and an amused inquisitive nose which gave him an absurdly appropriate resemblance to the late Edgar Wallace.
Simon went out to meet him, and they shook hands as another car drove in and disgorged a big ruddy man in loose tweeds with an ancient fedora tilted on the back of his head. Schindler introduced them.
"This is Chief Wayvern — Mr. Templar."
"Well," Wayvern said impersonally, "what's this all about?"
Simon told the complete story as briefly as he could, leaving out all speculation, while they walked to the place where the funny little man had so abruptly ceased to be funny. They stood and looked down at him in his final foolishness.
"That's Angert all right," Schindler said grimly.
Wayvern moved carefully to the body and made a superficial examination without disturbing it. Then he stepped back and turned to the two satellites who had trailed him with a load of equipment. -
"Get started, boys," he said. "But don't move him until the doctor's seen him. He said he'd be here in a few minutes."
One of his men began to set up a camera, and Wayvern took a cigar out of his vest pocket and tilted his hat even further back.
"You say this man was working for you, Ray, keeping an eye on Madeline Gray?"
"That's right. He went to Washington the night before last to pick her up. But I didn't know about any of these other things that Simon has told you. This client who came to me said that Miss Gray had said that she was being blackmailed, and they wanted to help her. But Miss Gray had made this person promise not to tell the police. Coming to me was a dodge to get around that. At least, that was the story. I was commissioned to put a man on to watch Miss Gray and get a report on everyone who came in contact with her."
"Who was this client?" Simon asked.
"I called my office in New York to make sure of the name and address. Here it is."