proceeded to compare them with the tyres on the Hirondel.
He went all round the Hirondel twice.
He was breathing a trifle laboriously, and his face was redder than before—probably from stooping—when he turned his attention to the Daimler.
He went all round the Daimler twice, too.
Then he straightened up and came slowly back to the Saint. He came back until his face was only a few inches from the Saint's. His capillaries were congested to the point where his complexion had a dark purple hue. He seemed to be having more trouble with his larynx.
'What have you done to those tyres?' he got out in a hysterical blare.
The Saint's eyebrows drew perplexedly together.
'What have I done to them ? I
'You know damn well they don't match! You knew it all the time.' Realization of the way the Saint had deliberately lured him up to greater heights of optimism only to make his downfall more hideous when it came, brought something like a sob into the detective's gullet. 'You've changed the tyres!'
Simon looked aggrieved.
'How could I, Claud ? You can see for yourself that these tyres are a long way from being new——'
'What have you done with the tyres you had on the car last night?' Teal almost screamed.
'But these are the only tyres I've had on the car for weeks,' Simon protested innocently. 'Why do you always suspect me of such horrible deceits ? If my tyres don't match the tracks you found in that field, it just looks to me as if you may have made a mistake about my being there.'
Chief Inspector Teal did a terrible thing. He raised the casts in his hands and hurled them down on the concrete floor so that they shattered into a thousand fragments. He did not actually dance on them, but he looked as if only an effort of self-control that brought him to the brink of an apoplectic stroke stopped him from doing so.
'What have you done with Verdean ?' he yelled.
'I haven't done anything with him. Why should I have ? I've never even set eyes on the man.'
'I've got a search warrant——'
'Then why don't you search?' demanded the Saint snappily, as though his patience was coming to an end. 'You don't believe anything I tell you, anyhow, so why don't you look for yourself? Go ahead and use your warrant. Tear the house apart. I don't mind. I'll be waiting for you in the living-room when you're ready to eat some of your words.'
He turned on his heel and strolled back to the house.
He sat down in the living-room, lighted a cigarette, and calmly picked up a magazine. He heard the tramp of Teal and his minions entering the front door, without looking up. For an hour he listened to them moving about in various parts of the house, tapping walls and shifting furniture; but he seemed to have no interest beyond the story he was reading, Even when they invaded the living-room itself, he didn't even glance at them. He went on turning the pages as if they made no more difference to his idleness than a trio of inquisitive puppies.
Teal came to the living-room last. Simon knew from the pregnant stillness that presently supervened that the search had come to a stultifying end, but he continued serenely to finish his page before he looked up.
'Well,' he said at
