'Headaches?' The Saint came back a few thousand miles with a start.
'Yes. You keep your brain working so hard.'
He grinned, and pushed away his plate and lighted a cigaнrette.
'It's a bad habit,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'
The gray eyes were still inquiring.
'Are you really taking a professional interest?'
'You heard what Condor said. If I get any brilliant ideas, he wants to hear them.'
'But why should you be interested?'
Simon meditated over his cigarette. It was a question that he had been about ready to ask himself.
'Partly because I don't have anything much else to do just at this moment,' he said at length. 'And this is pretty much in my lap. Partly because the guy who bumped off Byron has probably cheated me out of an amusing experience-not to mention an interesting amount of dough. Partly because it's a rather fascinating problem, in a very quiet way. A murder without clues and without alibis-so beautifully simple and so beautifully insoluble. There has to be a catch in it someнwhere, and I collect catches.'
'But you aren't a policeman. You're supposed to have very unconventional ideas about justice. Suppose you deнcided that the murderer had a thoroughly good reason to kill Mr. Ufferlitz?'
'I'd still want to know who did it. It's like having to know the answer to a riddle.'
He couldn't tell her that while all that was true, the most important reason was that in everything but the leaving of a skeleton Saint figure pinned to Mr. Ufferlitz's back, the murder seemed to have been staged with the considered inнtention of having the Saint accused of it, and to Simon Templar that was a challenge which could not be let pass. The Saint had for once been minding his own inoffensive business, and somebody had gratuitously tried to get him into trouble. Therefore somebody had got to be shown what an inferior inspiration that had really been.
His financial interest was actually the least of all, but there were other reasons why he was anxious to hear the official statement of Mr. Braunberg that afternoon.
The attorney arrived almost as soon as they got back, and hurried busily into the late Mr. Ufferlitz's private office, callнing Peggy Warden after him and closing the door.
The Saint sat on a corner of Peggy Warden's desk and eased open the nearest drawer. He knew that he would not have to look far for what he wanted, and as it happened he found it at the first try-an indexed loose-leaf book of private addresses and telephones. He could probably have asked her for the information, but it was even more convenient to get it without advertising. He copied the locations of Lazaroff. and Kenнdricks, Orlando Flane, and Jack Groom on to a slip of paper; and he had just finished and put the directory back when Lazaroff and Kendricks came in.
Kendricks shook his hand solemnly and said: 'Congratulaнtions, pal. I knew you'd do it. What a masterful way to deal with a producer! You should have come to Hollywood sooner -it would have been a different town.'
'About four weeks sooner would have suited me,' said Lazaroff. 'When I think of all the cooperation we put in on that lousy script --'
'Never mind,' said the Saint. 'You can just change it around some more and sell it to Columbia for a new Blondie.'
Lazaroff went through the mechanical gesture of smoothing his unsmoothable hair.
'Seriously, I suppose a guy like you takes a murder like this in his stride. But I'd still like to know how you got away with it.'
'With what?' Simon asked a little incredulously.
'With just being anywhere around when it happened. I should think the cops would grab a guy like you without even asking questions, and start beating you up to see what they got.'
'There was a certain suspiciousness at first,' Simon adнmitted. 'But I was able to talk myself out of it. For the time being, anyway. You see, as a matter of fact I wasn't around.'
'Well, you'd just come into the studio and signed up with Byron.'
'But God!' said Kendricks, 'if you'd been at Byron's house when it happened, or if you'd found the body--'
The Saint smiled.
'It would have been distinctly awkward,' he said candidly.
At which point Peggy Warden came out and said: 'Will you all go on in?'
They filed in and chose their chairs and lighted cigarettes, and there was a rather self-conscious silence. Then the door opened again and April Quest came in, with Jack Groom folнlowing her. She had a friendly smile for everyone, and if the smile that she gave the Saint had a personal and curious qualнity it was not to be noticed by anyone else, and even Simon might have imagined it. She sat in a chair that Lazaroff gave up, and Jack Groom sat on the arm and gave an impresнsion of covering her with his wing.
Mr. Braunberg shuffled a sheaf of papers, zipped and unнzipped his brief-case, adjusted his rimless glasses, and cleared his throat. Having thus obtained the awed attention of the gathering, he put his fingertips together and launched very briskly into his speech.
'You are all naturally anxious to know how Mr. Ufferlitz's death will affect you. I can tell you this very quickly.' He picked up a pencil and tapped his sheaf of papers. 'Your contracts with Mr. Ufferlitz were all personal conнtracts with him. In his releasing contract with Paramount he merely undertakes to provide a certain number of pictures of a certain length on certain terms; all the details of cast and production were in his hands, and therefore your individual contracts with him were not included in any kind of assignнment. His arrangements with his financial backers were of the same nature, so that your contracts do not revert to them either. Normally, therefore, they would pass to his heirs. Mr. Ufferlitz, however, has no heirs. His will directs that the residue of his estate, if any, shall be expended on an-er- open house party which anyone and everyone employed in the motion picture industry may attend, so long as the refreshнments last. I believe that it would be impossible to hold that such a party could inherit, enforce, discharge, or in any sense administer these contractual obligations. Legally, therefore, you are all free persons, subject of course to technical confirmation when Mr. Ufferlitz's will is probated. I think you can safely regard that as a mere formality.'
Lazaroff went over to Kendricks, who stood up. They shook hands, gravely emitted three shrill irreverent yips, bowed to each other and to Mr. Braunberg, and sat down again.
Mr. Braunberg frowned.
'Your salaries will be paid up to and including yesterday, on which date the estate will hold that all obligations were mutually terminated. The only difficulty arises with Mr. Temнplar.'
'Who is neither here nor there,' murmured the Saint.
'Your position is a little ambiguous,' Mr. Braunberg conнceded. 'However, in the circumstances I don't think we'll need to fight over it. As Mr. Ufferlitz's executor, I'm willing to offer you, say, three thousand dollars, or half a week's salary, in full settlement. That would save us both the expense of going to court over it and also a long delay in winding up the estate; and I don't think the-er-party will suffer very much from it. Mr. Ufferlitz's assets, I believe, will be sufficient to take care of everything on this basis. If that's satisfactory to you?'
'Fair enough,' said the Saint, who was a philosopher when there was no useful alternative.
Jack Groom leaned forward over his lantern jaw.
'You said that Mr. Ufferlitz had no heirs, Mr. Braunнberg. Suppose some obscure relative should turn up and contest the will?'
'He'd be taken care of with the usual formula. There's a standard clause in the will which provides that everyone not specifically named is specifically excluded and if they want to argue about it the estate can settle with them for one dollar.' The attorney put his fingertips together again. 'Are there any further questions?'
There didn't seem to be any.
'Very well, then. It may be a week or two before I can get your checks out, but I'll take care of it as soon as I can. Thank you very much.'
He stood up and began to shovel the papers into his briefнcase, an efficient business man with a lot of other things to attend to. With true professional discretion, he had not even said a word about the circumstances of Mr. Ufferlitz's deнparture from the ranks of mushroom Hollywood magnates. From his point of view as the executor of a will, the question was not involved. And Simon felt an inward quirk of sarнdonic amusement as he considered how rapidly and methodнically a man's material affairs could be wound up, the ideas and intrigues and ephemeral