The Saint Closes the Case

'Somebody's telling a naughty fib,' he remarked sapiently. 'Now will you both shut up a minute?'

He locomoted fatly across the room, and stooped over Roger. But he based his decision on the tailor's tab inside Roger's coat pocket, and Roger had not thought of that.

'I'm afraid you're the story-teller, whoever you are,' he sighed.

'That's my real name,' said Roger bitterly. 'Conway— Roger Conway.'

'It sounds more likely.'

'Though what that fatherless streak of misery——'

'A squeal,' explained Teal patiently. 'A time-honoured device among crooks to get off lightly themselves by helping the police to jump more heavily on their pals. I suppose he is your pal?' added the detective sardonically. 'You seem to know each other's names.'

Roger was silent.

So that was that. Very quickly settled. And what next?

Hermann, then, had patently decided to squeal. Which seemed odd, considering the type of man he had made Her­mann out to be. But. . . .

Roger looked at the man, and suddenly saw the truth. It wasn't a squeal. The protest had been thoughtless, instinctive, made in a momentary access of panic lest his master should be proved to have made a mistake. Even at that moment Her­mann was regretting it, and racking his brains for a lie to cover it up. Racking his brains, also, for his own defence. . . .

The situation remained just about as complicated as it had been before the incident. Now Hermann would be racking his brains for lies, and Conway would be racking his brains for lies, and both of them would have the single purpose of cover­ing their leaders at all costs, and they'd both inevitably be contradicting each other right and left, and both inevitably ploughing deeper and deeper into the mire. And neither of them could tell the truth. ...

But could neither of them tell the truth?

The idea shattered the groping darkness of Roger's dilemma like the sudden kindling of a battery of Kleig arcs. The bold­ness of it took his breath away.

Could neither of them tell the truth?

As Roger would have prayed for the guidance of his leader at that moment, his leader was there to help him.

Wasn't the dilemma the same in principle as the one which the Saint had solved an hour ago? The same deadlock, the same cross-purposes, the same cataleptic standstill? The same old story of the irresistible force and the immovable object? . . . And the Saint had solved it. By sweeping the board clear with the one wild move that wasn't allowed for in the rules.

Mightn't it work again—at least, to clear the air—and, in the resultant reshuffling, perhaps disclose a loophole that had not been there before—if Roger did much the same thing— did the one thing that he couldn't possibly do—and told the truth?

The truth should convince Teal. Roger could tell the truth so much more convincingly and circumstantially than he could tell a lie, and it would be so easy to substantiate. Even Hermann would find it hard to discredit. And ——

'Anyway,' said Teal, 'I'll be taking you boys along to the Yard, and we can talk there.'

And the departure to the Yard might be postponed. The truth might be made sufficiently interesting to keep Teal in Brook Street. And then Norman Kent might arrive—and Nor­man was a much more accomplished conspirator than Roger. ...

'Before we go,' said Roger, 'there's something you might like to hear.'

Teal raised his eyebrows one millimetre.

'What is it?' he asked. 'Going to tell me you're the King of the Cannibal Islands?'

Roger shook his head. How easy it was! Teal might have been the one man in the C.I.D. who would have fallen for it, but he at least was a certainty. Such a lethargic man could not -by any stretch of imagination be in a hurry over anything— least of all over the prosaic task of taking his prisoners away to the station.

'I'll do a squeal of my own,' said Roger.

Teal nodded.

As if he had nothing to do for the rest of the night, he set­tled himself in a chair and took a packet of chewing-gum from his pocket.

With his jaws moving rhythmically, he prompted: 'Well?'

'If it's all the same to you,' said Roger, to waste time, 'I'd like to sit in a chair. This floor isn't as soft as it might be. And if I could smoke a cigarette——'

Teal rose again and lifted him into an armchair; provided him also with a cigarette. Then the detective resumed his own seat with mountainous patience.

He made no objection to the delay on the grounds that there were men waiting for him outside the building. Which meant, almost certainly, that there weren't. Roger recalled that Teal had the reputation of playing a lone hand. It was a symptom of the man's languid confidence in his own experienced ability —a confidence, to give him his due, that had its justification in his record. But in this case. . . .

'I'm telling you the truth this time,' said Roger. 'We're in the cart—Simon Templar included—thanks to some pals of Hermann there—only Templar doesn't know it. I don't want him to be pinched; but if you don't pinch him quickly something worse is going to happen to him. You see, we've got Vargan. But we weren't the first raiders. They were Hermann's pals——'

'Another lie!' interposed Hermann venomously. 'Do you have to waste any more time with him, Inspector? You have already caught him in one lie——'

'And caught you sneaking about with a gun,' snapped Roger. 'What about that? And why the hell am I tied up here? Go on—tell him you're a private detective, and you were just going out to fetch a policeman and give me in charge!'

Teal closed his eyes.

'I can't listen to two people at once,' he said. 'Which of you is supposed to be telling this story?'

'I am,' said Roger.

'You sound more interesting,' admitted Teal, 'even if Her­mann does prove it to be a fairy-tale afterwards. Go on, Conway. Hermann—you wait for your turn, and don't butt in again.'

Hermann relapsed into a sullen silence; and Roger inhaled deeply from his cigarette and blew out with the smoke a brief prayer of thanksgiving.

'We went down to Esher to take Vargan,' he said. 'But when we got there, we found Vargan was already being taken. He seemed very popular all round, that night. However, we were the party that won the raffle and got him away.'

'Where did you take him?'

'You follow your own advice, and don't butt in,' said Roger shortly. 'I'll tell this story in my own way, or not at all.'

'Go on, then.'

'We took Vargan—somewhere out of London. Then Templar and I came back here to collect a few things . . .How did you find this place, by the way?'

'I went to Brighton, and found your motor agent,' said Teal comfortably. 'All motor agents spend Sunday in Brighton and the most expensive cars out of their showrooms. That was easy.'

Roger nodded.

He went on, slowly, with one eye on the clock:

'Hermann's pals knew we were interested in Vargan before the fun started. Never mind how—that's another story. . . . No, it isn't—now I come to think of it. You remember the first stunt at Esher?'

'I do.'

'Two people escaped past Hume Smith's chauffeur—a man and a woman. They were Templar and a friend of his. They stumbled on the place by accident. They were driving past, and they saw a light and went to investigate. The alarm that scared them off was the second man—the giant whose footprints you found. I'll tell you his name, because he's the leader of Hermann's gang——'

Hermann cut in: 'Inspector, this will be another lie!'