getting a confession now, and I'll have it all written out and signed for him by the time he gets here. Can you remember that ?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Okay, Jeeves. On your way.'
He slipped his other automatic out of his hip pocket and stood there while the butler crossed the drive and melted into the inky shadows beyond. He could hear the man's softened footsteps even when he was out of sight, but they kept regularly on until they faded in the distance, and there was no disturbance. When he felt as sure as he could hope to be that the butler was beyond the danger zone, he put the Walther away again and stepped soundlessly back into the darkened hall.
Rosemary Chase and the doctor stared blankly at him as he re-entered the drawing-room; and he smiled blandly at their mystification.
'I know,' he said. 'You heard me tell Jeeves that I was going to follow him.'
Quintus said: 'But why—'
'For the benefit of the guy outside,' answered the Saint calmly. 'If there is a guy outside. The guy who's been giving us so much trouble. If he's hung around as long as this, he's still around. He hasn't finished his job yet. He missed the balloon pretty badly on the last try, and he daren't pull out and leave it missed. He's staying right on the spot, wondering like hell what kind of a fast play he can work to save his bacon. So he heard what I told the butler. I meant him to. And I think it worked. I scared him away from trying to head off Jeeves with another carving-knife performance. Instead of that, he decided to stay here and try to clean up before the police arrive. And that's also what I meant him to do.'
The doctor's deep-set eyes blinked slowly.
'Then the message you sent was only another bluff?'
'Partly. I may have exaggerated a little. But I meant to tickle our friend's curiosity. I wanted to make sure that he'd be frantic to find out more about it. So he had to know what's going on in this room. I'll bet money that he's listening to every word I'm saying now.'
The girl glanced at the broken window, beyond which the Venetian shutters hid them from outside but would not silence their voices, and then glanced at the door; and she shivered. She said: 'But then he knows you didn't go with the butler——'
'But he knows it's too late to catch him up. Besides, this is much more interesting now. He wants to find out how much I've really got up my sleeve. And I want to tell him.'
'But you said you were only bluffing,' she protested huskily. 'You don't really know anything.'
The Saint shook his head.
'I only said I was exaggerating a little. I haven't got a confession yet, but I'm hoping to get one. The rest of it is true. I know everything that's behind tonight's fun and games. I know why everything has been done, and who did it.'
They didn't try to prompt him, but their wide-open eyes clung to him almost as if they had been hypnotized. It was as if an unreasoned fear of what he might be going to say made them shrink from pressing him, while at the same time they were spellbound by a fascination beyond their power to break.
The Saint made the most of his moment. He made them wait while he sauntered to a chair, and settled himself there, and lighted a cigarette, as if they were only enjoying an ordinary casual conversation. The theatrical pause was deliberate, aimed at the nerves of the one person whom he had to drive into self-betrayal.
'It's all so easy, really, when you sort it out,' he said at length. 'Our criminal is a clever guy, and he'd figured out a swindle that was so simple and audacious that it was practically foolproof—barring accidents. And to make up for the thousandth fraction of risk, it was bound to put millions
