The Saint was lethally sardonic. 'Why don't you call them certainties and have done with it? That's what they'd look like to anyone who hadn't got such a one-track mind as yours. So Algy had a date with Lady Valerie for lunch. But he hasn't shown any signs of impatience to push along to the Savoy and see if she's waiting for him. He didn't even go there first and see whether she turned up before he came here to see me. And he still doesn't have to wait and make sure she isn't there before he backs up this charge against me. He knows damn well she isn't going to be there! And how do you think he gets so damn sure about that?'
Teal's mouth opened a little. After a moment he turned his head. And for the first time he looked hard and invitingly at Mr Fairweather.
Mr Fairweather's chins wobbled with the working of his Adam's apple like rolls of soft raspberry jelly.
'Really,' he stuttered, 'Mr Templar's insinuations are so preposterous—I—I— Really, Inspector, you ought to—to do something to—um——'
'I quite understand, sir.' Teal was polite and respectful, but his gum was starting on a new and interesting voyage. 'At the same time, if you gave me an explanation——'
'I should think the explanation would be obvious,' Fairweather said stuffily. 'If your imagination is unable to cope with such a simple problem, the chief commissioner might be interested to hear about it.'
Had he been a better psychologist he would have known that that was the last thing he should have said. Mr Teal was still acutely conscious that he was addressing a former cabinet minister, but the set of his jaw took on an obstinate heaviness.
'I beg your pardon, sir,' he said, 'but the chief commissioner expects me to obtain definite statements in support of my imagination.'
'Rubbish!' snorted Fairweather. 'If you propose to treat me like a suspected criminal——'
'If you persist in this attitude, sir,' Teal said courageously, 'you may force me to do so.'
Fairweather simply gaped at him.
And a great grandiose galumptious grin spread itself like Elysian honey over Simon Templar's eternal soul. The tables were turned completely. Fairweather was in the full centre of Teal's attention now—not himself. And Fairweather had assisted nobly in putting himself there. The moment contained all the refined ingredients of immortality. It shone with an austere magnificence that eclipsed every other consideration with its epic splendour. The Saint lay back in a chair and gave himself up to the exquisite absorption of its ambrosial glory.
And then the telephone bell rang again.
The Saint sat up; but this time Teal did not hesitate. Still preoccupied but still efficient, almost mechanically he picked up the phone.
'Hullo,' he said, and then: 'Yes, speaking. . . .'
Simon knew that he lied. He was simply playing back the trick that Simon had shown him before. But the circumstances were not quite the same. This call had come through on one of those exceptionally powerful connections that sometimes happen, and the raised voice of the speaker at the other end of the line did everything else that was necessary to produce a volume of sound in the receiver that was faintly but clearly audible across the room. Quite unmistakably it had said: 'Is dat you, boss?'
Simon started to get up, spurred faster than thought by an irresistible premonition. But the agitation which had lent its penetrating pitch to Mr Uniatz' discordant voice was too quick for him. Hoppy's next utterance came through with the shattering clarity of a radio broadcast. 'Listen, boss—de goil's got away!'
