Weald's mouth fell open.
'But Templar's on the train. I'm not being funny——'
'Neither am I. The Saint's expecting to scare us off Donnell, but we aren't going to be scared. If he's on the train, we haven't a way out, anyway. The only thing for us to do is to go on. We may be able to deal with him at Donnell's, but we can't here, that's certain. The train's packed, and we'd never get away with it.'
'He'll have a posse at Donnell's.'
She laughed, a hard little laugh.
'That posse's another of the Saint's fairly tales. I don't believe a man like that would dream of using one. He's got too darn good an opinion of himself. Don't you see that it amuses him to go about alone like this and get away with it? He gets twice as much kudos for the job as he would if he went round with a bodyguard. But this time he isn't going to get away with it. That's my answer. If you know anything better I'll hear it.'
Weald said nothing. The train ran on.
He avoided her eyes. Picking up his cup to drink mechanically, he spilt tea over the tablecloth. But that might have been the jolting of the train. He hoped she would think it was. He knew she was watching him.
What little colour there could be in his face had not come back since he saw the Saint, for Stephen Weald had seen the jaws of destruction yawning at him at the same time.
It had all happened so quietly and gently up to that point that he had never seen the danger until it was upon him. There had been nothing concrete in the mere knowledge that the Saint was after the Angels of Doom, imposing as the Saint's reputation was. And though each of Simon Templar's visits to Belgrave Street had been both an insult and a threat, none of them had been sufficiently terrifying to rouse an alarm which could not be dissipated with a drink after he had left. And now it seemed as if all that had changed as suddenly as if a charge of dynamite had been detonated under the whole situation. And all through such a simple thing. Before that there had been no evidence against any of them. But now there was. Simon Templar had been held up and bound and locked in a cellar, and now he was free to tell the tale, with Dyson's evidence to support it.
That might well be the beginning of the end. Weald had always had a wholesome respect for the tenacity of the police when once they got hold of a solid bone to chew. Throughout his career he had made a point of keeping away from any material contact with them. As long as they were working in the dark against him he could feel safe, but once they could make any definite accusation, and thus get a hold on him, there was no knowing where it might end.
But in Jill Trelawney there was no sign of weakening.
'We can still pull through,' she said.
Weald's thin fingers twitched his tie nervously.
'How can you say that after what we know now?'
'We're not dead yet. In your way, you're right, of course. We've tripped over about the most ridiculous little thing that we could have tripped over, and if we aren't careful we'll go stumbling over the edge of the precipice. But I'm not giving an imitation of a jelly in an earthquake.'
'Nor am I,' said Weald angrily.
The mocking contempt remained in her eyes, and he knew that he was not believed.
With a certain grim concession to her sense of humour she remembered the Saint's warning before they left Belgrave Street. The Saint had certainly been right. In the circumstances, Weald was likely to be very much less use than a tin tombstone. She saw the way he put a hand to cover the twitching of his weak mouth, and realized that Stephen
