The Saint Steps In

ruddy man in loose tweeds with an ancient fedora tilted on the back of his head. Schindler introduced them.

'This is Chief Wayvern—Mr. Templar.'

'Well,' Wayvern said impersonally, 'what's this all about?'

Simon told the complete story as briefly as he could, leaving out all speculation, while they walked to the place where the funny little man had so abruptly ceased to be funny. They stood and looked down at him in his final foolishness.

'That's Angert all right,' Schindler said grimly.

Wayvern moved carefully to the body and made a super­ficial examination without disturbing it. Then he stepped back and turned to the two satellites who had trailed him with a load of equipment. -

'Get started, boys,' he said. 'But don't move him until the doctor's seen him. He said he'd be here in a few minutes.'

One of his men began to set up a camera, and Wayvern took a cigar out of his vest pocket and tilted his hat even fur­ther back.

'You say this man was working for you, Ray, keeping an eye on Madeline Gray?'

'That's right. He went to Washington the night before last to pick her up. But I didn't know about any of these other things that Simon has told you. This client who came to me said that Miss Gray had said that she was being blackmailed, and they wanted to help her. But Miss Gray had made this per­son promise not to tell the police. Coming to me was a dodge to get around that. At least, that was the story. I was commis­sioned to put a man on to watch Miss Gray and get a report on everyone who came in contact with her.'

'Who was this client?' Simon asked.

'I called my office in New York to make sure of the name and address. Here it is.'

Schindler took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Wayvern.

'Miss Diana Barry,' Wayvern said, reading off the paper.

'What did she look like?' asked the Saint.

'A big tall girl—beautiful figure—blonde—blue eyes—very well dressed and well spoken ——'

Simon kept his face studiously blank, but he had been won­dering how long it would be before Andrea Quennel crossed bis path again.

4. How Simon Templar studied Biography,

and Walter Devan came Visiting.

The FBI man from New Haven, whose name was Jetterick, said: 'This Mrs. Cook says she served Mr. Gray's dinner at seven-thirty, and then she washed up and went home about nine. At that time he was reading a book in the living-room.'

'He didn't say anything about going out,' Madeline put in.

'No.'

'Was there any reason why he should?' asked the Saint.

There wasn't any answer to that.

Simon had told his story two or three times over—the last time, for it to be laboriously taken down as a statement. Both of them had answered innumerable questions.

Madeline Gray had said: 'I don't know anyone called Diana Barry, and I don't know anyone who fits that description. And I'm not being blackmailed.'

Jetterick had phoned the description and address through to New York for investigation. A police doctor had seen An­gert, confirmed the Saint's diagnosis subject to a postmortem, and gone away again. The remains of Sylvester Angert had gone away too, riding in a closed van which arrived later. Photo­graphs had been taken, and fingerprints. The laboratory had been gone over with powders and magnifying glasses. Even then, men were working meticulously through the rest of the house.

'You're quite sure about Mrs. Cook?' Wayvern asked.

'Absolutely,' Madeline said. 'We've known her for years and years, and I don't think she's ever been out of Stamford. It won't take you a minute to find out all about her.'

Jetterick rubbed his clean hard chin and said: 'There haven't been any threats before, Miss Gray?'

'No. Only the notes in Washington, that we told you about.'

'You said that your father was pretty well off, didn't you?'

'Yes.'

'But so far there hasn't been any demand for ransom.'

'Kidnaping for ransom,' Simon mentioned, 'doesn't tie in with two or three attempts to sabotage a laboratory.'

'Was the sabotage proved? Were the local police told about it?'

'Of course,' said the girl. 'But they didn't find anything.'

'We did what we could,' Wayvern said.

'Accidents do happen in chemical laboratories, don't they?'

'Sometimes. But——'

'Didn't your father ever stay out at night, Miss Gray? You understand, I have to be very practical about this. Accord­ing to you, he was under fifty. That isn't so old, in these days. I don't want to suggest anything that might offend you, but he hasn't been gone very long. Why shouldn't he have gone to New York—met some friends—decided to stay over in town——'

'You know as much as we do,' said the Saint. 'I've told you the whole story as I have it. You still have to account for the attempt to kidnap Miss Gray in Washington, the shot that was fired at me in the Shoreham, Karl Morgen prancing in and out of the picture, and the very dead Mr. Angert. But you take it your own way from here.'

Jetterick looked at him with philosophical detachment. 'If it were anyone else but you,' he said, 'I'd have given you more trouble than I have. I admit you make it sound like a case. But I have to think of everything. I'm understaffed and overworked anyway. However, we are covering everything we can. We've got Morgen's description, and we'll get some of his fingerprints from the laboratory. We've got the gun you took from him to check on. We'll keep working on every clue there is.'

'Isn't there anything I can do?' Madeline asked.

'Get me a photograph and give me a description of your father. We'll notify him as missing. If you do receive any com­munication about him, that'll give us something more to work on. Until then, I- can't make any promises. There's a lot of space on this continent, and if a man is deliberately being hid­den he can take a lot of finding.'

The FBI man didn't mean to be unkind. He was just stick­ing to his job, and his textbooks hadn't encouraged the emo­tional approach to criminology. But Simon could see the girl stiffen herself to take it, and liked the way she did it. She hadn't just been making talk; she was all right now.

'I'll get you a picture,' she said very evenly, and went out of the room.

Jetterick leafed over the notes he had taken. Wayvern made another examination of Angert's wallet, which Simon had turned over. He picked out the snapshot of the young man in uniform, and shifted the long-dead stump of his cigar to the corner of his mouth. 'Know anything about this, Ray?'

'Yes,' Schindler said. 'That's his son. Or was, rather. He was killed in the Solomons.'

'No chance of Angert having had any queer sympathies, then?' Jetterick suggested.

'Not in a million years,' Schindler said with conviction. 'He was crazy about that boy. Besides that,