hearts are more than coronets and all that sort of thing, and just because a bloke is a policeman is no reason why any girl should make fun of him. That's what I told her. I said: 'Look here, Lady Valerie, just because poor old Claud Eustace has fallen arches and a bay window like the blunt end of the Normandie——'
'Will you shut up?' roared the detective.
Simon shut up.
Mr Teal took a fresh grip on his gum.
'Why was Lady Valerie frightened of you?' he barked.
The Saint did not answer.
'Had you been threatening her?'
Simon remained mute. He made helpless clownish motions with his hands.
The detective's complexion was like that of an overripe prune.
'What the hell's the matter with you?' he bayed. 'Can't you even talk any more?'
'Of course not,' said the Saint. 'You told me to shut up. I am an oyster. Will you have me on the half shell, or creamed in white wine?'
Chief Inspector Teal looked as if he had swallowed a large live eel. His stomach appeared to be trying to reject this refractory diet, and he seemed to be having difficulty in keeping it down. His neck swelled with the fury of the struggle.
'Tell me why Lady Valerie was frightened of you,' he said in a garroted gargle.
'I've no idea why she should have been,' said the Saint. 'I'd no idea she was. Why don't you ask Algy ? He seems to know all about it. And while you're on the job, what about asking him why he came here and what he thought he was going to do?'
Fairweather sniffed into a white silk handkerchief, tucked it back into his breast pocket and planted himself like a minister in Parliament preparing to answer a question from the Opposition.
'I have not visited Mr Templar before,' he said, 'and I should not expect to do so again. The reason for my call this morning is quite simple. I had a tentative engagement to lunch with Lady Valerie today, and I rang her up not long ago to confirm it. She was not in, and her maid informed me in some agitation that she had apparently not slept at her apartment last night and had left no message to give a clue to her whereabouts. Knowing that this was an extraordinary departure from her normal habits, I puzzled over it with some seriousness and recalled her mentioning that she was in some fear of Mr Templar, as I have told you. I telephoned again later, and could still hear no news of her; and on my way from the club to the Savoy, where we were to have met, I recollected that she had told me that she was dining with Mr Templar last night. My anxieties at once became graver, and since I was at that moment close to this building, on an impulse—which was perhaps rash in conception but which I now feel to have been very sensibly founded—I instructed my chauffeur to stop, and came up with the intention of——'
'Algy,' said the Saint, with profound respect, 'I don't wonder you got into the Cabinet. With your gift for making a collection of plain goddam lies sound like an archbishop's sermon, the only thing I can't understand is why they didn't make you prime minister.'
Conviction hardened on Mr Teal like the new carapace on a moulted lobster. His eyes held on the Saint with dourly triumphant tenacity.
'I'll tell you why Lady Valerie was frightened of you,' he said. 'I expect she was thinking of what happened to Kennet and Windlay. She knew you were trying to make trouble for Mr Luker and Mr Fairweather, and since she was a friend of theirs——'
'Was Kennet a friend of theirs?' asked the Saint pungently.
