Simon glanced through the war news, the comics, and the baseball scores, and put the paper down.
He wondered what story Fernack would give out when they cornered him. He wondered whether he should have asked Jetterick to ask Fernack to keep any connection with the Angert murder and the Gray kidnaping out of it, or whether Jetterick would have done that on his own. He decided that this was probably unnecessary wondering. There wasn't any real need to bring those links in, except to give a bigger splash to the case; and Fernack wasn't the type of officer who went in for that.
He opened the paper again, on a second thought, and went through it item by item to find out whether anything about Angert and/or Gray had been printed and pushed into obscurity by the big local break; but there wasn't a word. Jetterick and Wayvern had been able to achieve that much anyhow. But how much longer they would be able to keep it up was extremely problematical.
Then he decided that that wouldn't matter much longer. The Ungodly might have been misled for a while; but sooner or later, if they were as efficient as he thought they were, they would investigate Stamford again, just for luck. But he might have gained several hours, which had made his trip to New York easier; and now he was on his way back to Madeline. Now they could find her there, and he would be looking forward to it.
He checked the new disposition again in his mind.
The Ungodly would know now that the heat was on for keeps. They would have been afraid of it from Morgen's story, and even more perturbed when Andrea Quennel reported that the Saint was staying at the Savoy Plaza — where Imberline was. They would have had no more doubt after they spoke to Imberline. That was how Imberline earned his obituary. But they had hoped to break out of the web by throwing suspicion on to the Saint with the inviting circumstances which must have seemed ready-made for them. Now, very soon now, through a newspaper or otherwise, they would learn that Simon Templar had been questioned by the police and released. They would know that something had gone wrong again. And they would know that they had very little time.
Then it was all a balance of imponderables again.
How much would they think the Saint had told? How much, for that matter, did they believe the Saint knew?
Simon couldn't hazard the second question. It depended a little, perhaps not too much, on Andrea's version of the previous night. And that was something that it was impossible to guess, for many reasons.
But they would be afraid that the Saint knew something And he hoped that they would be good enough psychologists to figure that he would keep the best of it to himself. He thought they would. He was gambling more than he cared to measure on that.
They had to argue that if he knew too much he knew that they had Calvin Gray. Therefore his object would be to recover that hostage. He, on the other hand, had Madeline Gray, who was just as important. Each of them held one trump at par. It was a deadlock. The only difference was that they could threaten to do vicious things to Calvin Gray, and be wholly unmoved even if the Saint fantastically threatened reprisals on Madeline. But they could well doubt whether in the last extremity even the Saint would let himself be intimidated by that. Therefore, before the game could end, one side would have to hold both trumps. The difference there was that the Saint could wait; he had a minuscule advantage in time. They hadn't.
Simon hoped that was how it was.
He had nothing to do but play chords on that until the train stopped at Stamford.
He secured a taxi in company with a young sergeant on furlough and a stout woman with three Siamese cats in a wicker basket who must ineluctably have been some hapless individual's visiting aunt, and began to fume inwardly for the first time while they were dropped off at nearer destinations. After that, it seemed almost like another superfluous delay when he recognized Wayvern and another man in a dark sedan that met and passed them out on Long Ridge Road. But Wayvern recognized him at the same time, so the Saint stopped his driver, and the two cars slowed down a few yards past each other and backed up until they could talk.
"What goes?" Simon asked.
"I was just taking my man home," Wayvern told him. "Jerterick phoned me and said it was all clear now."
"And about time," said the collector of butterflies, yawning. "I ain't had a night's sleep since Christmas."
The Saint didn't know why the earth seemed to stand still.
"Where've you been?" Wayvern asked him.
"On a train coming back from New York."
"Then I guess he couldn't get in touch with you. Better phone him." Wayvern put his car in gear again and stirred the engine. "He said he might be coming over. If I see him first, I'll tell him you're back."
Simon nodded, and told his driver to go on.
He could give no reason for it, and certainly there was nothing he could have said to Wayvern, but his premonition was so sure that it was like extrasensory knowledge. It sat just below his ribs with a leaden dullness that made the plodding taxi seem even slower. He insulted himself in a quiet monotonous way; but that did no good except to pass the time. What had happened couldn't be altered. And he knew what had happened, so positively, so inevitably, that when he went into the house and called Madeline, and she didn't answer, it wasn't a shock or an impact at all, but only a sort of draining at his diaphragm, as if he had been hit in the solar plexus without feeling the actual blow.
It was Mrs. Cook who came out of the kitchen while he was calling, and said: "I think Miss Gray went out."
"What do you mean, you think she went out?" Simon asked with icy impassivity.
"Well, after Mr. Wayvern took his man away, I heard her saying goodbye to them, and presently there was another car drove up and I think she went out. I'd heard them saying that everything was all right, and she was very excited. I thought perhaps you'd come back for her."
"You didn't see this other car, or anyone else who came here?"
"No, sir." He had gathered that morning that she was an optimistic creature with a happily vacant mind, but even she must have felt something in his stillness and the coldness of his voice. "Why — is anything wrong?"
There was nothing that Simon could see any use in discussing with her.
"No."
He turned on his heel and went into the living-room, and for some minutes he stood rigidly there before he began to pace. He had exactly the same feeling, differently polarized, that an amateur criminal must have who has committed his first defalcation and then realized that he has made a fatal slip and that he must be found out and that it will only be a matter of time before they come for him, that he has changed the whole course of his life in a blithe moment and now the machinery has got him and there is nothing he can do about it. It wasn't like that for the Saint, but it felt the same.
He didn't even bother about calling Jetterick for a double check. He didn't need that melancholy confirmation. He knew.
As for calling Jetterick or Wayvern to make them do something — that was just dreamy thinking. That would mean starting all over again. And there was nothing more to start with than there had been before, when Calvin Gray vanished. You could have all the microscopes and all the organization on earth, but you couldn't do much If nobody had seen anyone and nothing was left behind and there was nothing to start with. Not for a long time, anyway. And that might be much too long.
And under the handicaps of democratic justice, you couldn't make inspirational forays in all directions in the hope of blasting out something that would justify them. You couldn't take the bare word and extravagant theories even of a Saint as a sound basis for hurling reckless charges against a man with the power and prominence of Hobart Quennel. Because if you were pulling a boner it would be just too damn bad about you.