'The man's a maniac,' said March in a colourless tone.
'I am,' Simon confessed affably, 'completely nuts. I'm loony enough to think that after you've moved us into that elegant penal penthouse, Hoppy and I will just stroll around the roof garden wondering how long it'll be before you join us. I'm daft enough to think that I can send you to the chair for a very fine and fancy collection of murders. Like the murder of Lawrence Gilbeck and his daughter Justine. And some poor kid who was washed up on the beach tonight, with one wrist conveniently tangled into a lifebelt with the name of a British submarine on it. Not to mention a much larger collection of guys who went down with a tanker that got itself torpedoed tonight by a mysterious submarine which I think you could tell us plenty about. Of course, that's just another of my screwy ideas.'
He knew that it was screwy, but he had to say it He had to find out what sort of response the outrageous accusation would bring.
March sat up and his eyes narrowed. After a moment he said slowly: 'What's this about a submarine? The radio said the tanker blew up.'
'It did,' said the Saint. 'With assistance. As it happens, I saw the submarine myself. So did three other people who were with me.'
March and the captain exchanged glances.
The captain said: 'That's very interesting. If it's true, you certainly ought to tell the police about it.'
'But why do you think I should know anything about it?' demanded March.
'Maybe on account of the Foreign Investment Pool,' said the Saint He was firing all his salvos at once, in the blind hope of hitting something. And it was dawning on him, with a warm glow of deep and radiant joy, that none of them were going altogether wide. Not that there was anything crude and blatant about the way they rang the bell. It was far from making a sonorous and reverberating clang. It was, in fact, no more than an evanescent tinkle so faint that an ear that was the least bit off guard might have doubted whether anything had really happened at all. But the Saint knew. He knew that his far-fetched and delirious hunch was coming true. He knew that all the things he had linked together in his mind were linked together in fact somehow, in some profound and intricate way which he had yet to unravel, and that both Randolph March and the captain were vital strands in the skein. He knew also that by talking so much he was putting a price on his own head; but he didn't care. This was adventure again, the wine of life. He knew.
He knew it even when March relaxed and took a cigarette from the jar and lounged back again with a short laugh.
'Very amusing,' said March. 'But it's getting quite late. Captain, you'd better get rid of him while he's still funny.'
'He's a dangerous man,' said the captain again, and this time he said it with only the most delicate shade of added emphasis. 'If I thought he was making a threatening movement, I might have to shoot him.'
'Go ahead,' said March in a bored voice.
He put the cigarette in his mouth and looked for a match. Simon stepped over to him, flicked his lighter, and offered it with an obsequious efficiency which could not possibly have been rivalled by the steward for whom he was deputising. The muscles of his back crawled with anticipation of a bullet, but he had to do it. March stared at him, but he took the light.
'Thank you,' he said, and turned his slight puzzled stare to the captain.
Simon surveyed them both.
'You had a chance then,' he remarked. 'I wonder why you didn't take it? Was it because you didn't want to shock Karen?' He put the lighter back in his pocket with the same studied deliberation. 'Or did it occur to you that if the police had to investigate a shooting on board they might dig out more than you'd want them to?'
'As a matter of fact, Mr March,' said the captain placidly, 'I was wondering how many other people he might have told his ridiculous story to. You wouldn't want to be annoyed with any malicious gossip, no matter how silly it was.'
'Perhaps you'd better find out,' March suggested.
'I'll take him ashore to the house and do that while we're waiting for the police.'
Probably that was the precise mathematical point at which the Saint's last lingering fragments of doubt dissolved, creeping over his scalp with a special tingle on their way out before they melted finally into nothingness.
The dialogue was beautifully done. It was exquisitely and economically smooth. There wasn't a ragged tone in it anywhere that should have betrayed anything to any listener who wasn't meant to understand too much-and Simon wondered whether the girl Karen was in that category. But in those few innocuous-sounding words a vital problem had been considered, a plan of solution suggested and discussed, a decision made and agreed on. And Simon knew quite clearly that the scheme which had been approved was not one which promised great benefits to his health. What would happen if they got him safely away into a secluded room in the house, and what that huskily soft-spoken captain's notions might be on the subject of likely methods of finding out things from a reluctant informant, were not the most pleasant prospects in the world to brood about. But he had staged the scene for his own benefit, and now he had to get himself out of it.
Simon knew that not only the fate of that adventure but the fate of all other possible adventures after it hung by a thread; but his eyes were as cool and untroubled as if he had had a platoon of infantry behind him.
'You don't have to worry about me,' he said. 'But Gilbeck left a letter which might be much more of a nuisance to you.'
'Gilbeck?' March repeated. 'What are you talking about?'
'I'm talking about a letter which he thoughtfully left in his house before you kidnapped him.'
'How do you know?'
'Because I happen to be living in his house at the moment.'
The furrow returned between March's brows.
'Are you a friend of Gilbeck's?'
'Bosom to bosom.' Simon refilled his champagne glass. 'I thought he'd have mentioned me.'
March's mouth opened a little, and then an expression of hesitant relief came over his face.
'Good Lord!' he exclaimed. He laughed, with what was obviously meant to be a disarming heartiness. 'Why ever didn't you say so before? Then what is all this business-a joke?'
'That depends on your point of view,' said the Saint. 'I don't suppose Lawrence Gilbeck and Justine found it particularly funny.'
March plucked at his upper lip.
'If you really are a friend of theirs,' he said, 'you must have got hold of the wrong end of something. Nothing's happened to them. I talked to the house today.'
'Twice,' said the Saint. 'I took one of the calls.'
'Mr Templar,' said the captain carefully, 'you haven't behaved tonight like one of Mr Gilbeck's friends would behave. May we ask what you're doing in his house while he is away?'
'A fair question, comrade.' Simon raised his glass and barely wetted his lips with the wine. 'Justine asked me to come and be a sort of general nursemaid to the family. I answer the phone and read everybody's personal papers. A great writer of notes and jottings, was Brother Gilbeck.' He turned back to March. 'I haven't ferreted the whole business out yet, Randy, but it certainly does look as if he didn't really trust you.'
'For what reason?' March inquired coldly.
'Well,' said the Saint, 'he left this letter I was telling you about. In a sealed envelope. And there was a note with it which gave instructions that if anything happened to him it was to be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.'
March sat quite still.
The girl lighted a cigarette for herself, watching the Saint with intent and luminous eyes.
March said, in an uneven voice: 'Better put your gun away, Captain. It's nice of Mr Templar to come and tell us this. We ought to know more about it. Perhaps we can clear up some misunderstandings.'
'Pardon me, sir.' The captain was perfectly deferrential, but he kept his gun exactly where it was. 'We should be more certain of Mr Templar first.' He turned his dry stony eyes on the Saint. 'Mr Templar, since you seem to be so sure that something has happened to Mr Gilbeck, did you carry out his instructions and mail that letter?'
