The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror)

'Well, that does express your point of view quite clearly,' he conceded. He lighted a cigarette, and looked up brightly. 'Claud, you're getting almost fluent in your old age. But you've got to mind you don't let your new-found eloquence run away with you.'

'Oh, have I?' The detective took the bait right down into his oesophagus, and clinched his teeth on the line. 'Very well. Then while all these extraordinary things were being done by your double—while half a dozen sober men were seeing you and listening to you and being beaten up by you and getting messages from you—maybe you'll tell me what you were doing and who else knows it besides yourself?'

Simon inhaled luxuriously, and smiled.

'Why, sure. As I told you over the phone, I was drinking beer with Beppo.'

'And who's he?'

'The Duke of Fortezza.'

'Oh yes?' Teal grew sarcastic. 'And where was the King of Spain and the Prime Minister of Jugoslavia?'

'Blowed if I know,' said the Saint ingenuously. 'But there were some other distinguished people present. The Count of Montalano, and Prince Marco d'Ombria, and the Italian Ambassador——'

'The Italian what?'

'Ambassador. You know. Gent with top hat and spats.'

'And where was this?'

'At the Italian Embassy. It was just a little private party, but it went on for a long time. We started about midnight, and didn't break up till half-past four—I hadn't been home two minutes when you phoned.'

Teal almost choked.

'What sort of bluff are you trying to pull on me now?' he demanded. 'Have you got hold of the idea that I've gone dotty? Are you sitting there believing that I'll soak up that story, along with everything else you've told me, and just go home and ask no questions?' Teal snorted savagely. 'You must have gone daft!' he blared.

The Saint came slowly out of his chair. He posed himself before the detective, feet astraddle, his left hand on his hip, loose-limbed and smiling and dangerous; and the long dicta­torial forefinger which Teal had seen and hated before drove a straight and peremptory line into the third button of the detective's waistcoat.

'And now you listen to me again, Claud,' said the Saint waspily. 'Do you know what you're letting yourself in for?'

'Do I know what I'm——'

'Do you know what you're letting yourself in for? You burst into my house and make wild accusations against me. You shout at me, you bully me, you tell me I'm either lying or dippy, and you threaten to arrest me. I'm very sensitive, Claud,' said the Saint, 'and you hurt me. You hurt me so much that I've a damned good mind to let you run me in— and then, when you'd put the rope right round your own neck and drawn it up as tight as it'd go, I'd pull down such a schemozzle around your bat ears that you'd want nothing more in life than to hand in your resignation and get away to some forgotten corner of earth where they've never seen a newspa­per. That's what's coming your way so fast that you're going to have to jump like a kangaroo to get from under it. It's only because I'm of a godly and forgiving disposition,' said the Saint virtuously, 'that I'm giving you a chance to save your skin. I'm going to let you verify my alibi before you arrest me, instead of having it fed into you with a stomach-pump afterwards; and then you are going to apologise to me and go home,' said the Saint.

He picked up a telephone directory, found a place, and thrust the book under Teal's oscillating eyes.

'There's the number,' he said. 'Mayfair three two three O. Check it up for yourself now, and save yourself the trouble of telling me I'm just ringing up an accomplice.'

He left the detective blinking at the volume, and went to the telephone.

Teal read off the number, put down the book, and pulled at his collar.

Once again the situation had passed out of his control. He gazed at the Saint purply, and the beginnings of a despondent weariness pouched up under his eyes. It was starting to be borne in upon him, with a preposterous certitude, that he had just been listening to something more than bluff. And the irony of it made him want to burst into tears. It was unfair. It was brutal. It outraged every cannon of logic and justice. He knew his case was watertight, knew that against the