The Saint Steps In

do the room. The maid found him. His bed hadn't been slept in. He was in the bath­room, wearing everything except his coat, with his tie loosened and his collar unbuttoned—and dead.'

The Saint had a picture of Imberline as he had seen him last, in what was apparently Imberline's home-life costume.

'So he fell down in the bathroom and broke his head,' he said.

'Yeah. The back of his head was flattened to a pulp, and there was plenty of blood on the tiles. If you can fall down hard enough from where you stand to do that much damage to yourself, I'd like to see it.'

'I'm afraid you would, Henry,' said the Saint sadly. 'How long has he been dead?'

'You know we can't say that in minutes. But it was since last night. And he left his call after you came in. The telephone operator remembers that it was while you were still on your call to Stamford.'

'So of course I did it, since I was in the building. Was there anything else?'

'He'd been entertaining someone since he was out to din­ner. There was part of a bottle of Scotch and a couple of dirty glasses; but one of them was wiped so there were no finger­prints on it. There were ashes and cigarette and cigar ends.'

'When did he come in?'

'About ten-thirty, as well as the desk clerk remembers.'

'Was he alone?'

'The elevator girl says he didn't seem to be with anyone.'

'So naturally he was with me, since you remember my old trick of becoming invisible.'

Fernack turned a broad back on him and prowled, glaring at his subordinates. They were finishing their jobs and becom­ing a little vague. Fernack drove them out and shut the door on them. Simon lighted a cigarette and strolled around plac­idly.

Fernack faced him again with his rocky jaw set and his eyes hard and uncompromising.

'Now,' he said heavily, 'perhaps you'll tell me a few things.'

'I'd be glad to,' said the Saint obligingly.

'When I came to your room, you weren't at all surprised when I asked you about Imberline.'

'I'm so used to you asking me extraordinary questions.'

'You didn't even ask who he was.'

'Why should I? I read the papers.'

'You even knew that he'd been staying here.'

'I didn't say so. But I wasn't going to fall over backwards if he was. It's a good place to stay. I even use it myself.'

'And you knew that he smoked cigars.'

'Several people do. I've heard that it's getting quite com­mon.'

The detective kept his hands down with a heroic effort.

'And on top of all that,' he said, 'you knew he was dead before I told you.'

'You did tell me,' said the Saint. 'There's a special tone of voice you have that fairly screams homicide—particularly when you're hoping to send me to the chair for it. I've heard it so often that I can pick it out like a siren.'

Fernack drew a deep labored breath.

'Now let me tell you what I think,' he said crunchingly. 'I think you know a hell of a lot too much about this. I think you're in plenty of trouble again——'

Simon blew an impudent smoke-ring straight at him.

'Henry,' he said reasonably, 'doesn't this dialogue remind you of something we've been through before?'

The detective swallowed.

'You're damn right it does! But this time——'

'This time it's going to be bigger and better. This time it's going to stick. This time you've got me. We've played that scene before too, but I don't like to bring that up. A guy has been rubbed out, and so I did it. Because everyone knows that I have an exclusive concession to do all the rubbing out that's done in New York.'

'All you've got is a lot of smart answers——'

'To a lot of moronic questions. Imberline gets himself mur­dered here, and I'm handy, so why not convict me?'

'When it turned out to be a murder,' Fernack said ponder­ously, 'I had to check up on the other guests in the hotel. I came to your name, and there you were—practically next door. Now be smart about that!'

The Saint took a long draught of smoke and smiled at him with tolerant affection. He cast around for a chair and sat down with a ghost of a sigh.

'Henry,' he said, 'I'm just not smart any more. I wanted to murder Imberline, and I found out he was staying here and what room he was in, and I made quite a little fuss about getting a room as close to him as I could. I wasn't smart enough to just ride up in the elevator and give him the works and go away again. I had to move in on the job. I didn't want you to have a mystery on your hands——'

'Where were you last night?'

'Oh, I was out to dinner with a babe and then over at her apartment looking at her etchings, and whatever time the night clerk says I came in is probably about right. I didn't notice it exactly myself. I just wasn't smart enough to bother about an alibi. I bashed Imberline's head in; and even then I wasn't bright enough to get the hell out. I went to bed and went to sleep and waited for you to find me.' Simon flipped over his hole card with a silent thanksgiving for the unconsidered decision that had dealt it into his hand. 'I knew that wouldn't take you long, because I'd registered in my own name to make sure you wouldn't be put off by any aliases. I'm just not smart any more, Henry—that's all there is to it.'

Fernack gloomed at him waveringly. It seemed that this also was part of a familiar scene. He was convinced that there was something wrong with it, as he always had been; but the trou­ble was that he could never put a finger on it. He only had an infuriating and dismal foreboding that he was going to find himself on the same lugubrious merry-go-round again.

'You're just too smart,' he said suspiciously. 'You're trying to sell me the same bill of goods ——'

'I'm trying to show you what your evidence would sound like to a jury.''

The detective rubbed his suffering gray hairs.

'Then what the hell do you know about this?' he demanded almost pleadingly.

'Now you're being rational, dear old bloodhound. So I'll let you into a secret. I did know Imberline was here, and I did come here to see him—among other things.'

Fernack jerked as if a hot needle had penetrated his gluteus maximus. The smouldering embers flared up in his eyes.

'Then you are trying to make a goat out of me!' he bawled. 'You're giving me the same old baloney——'

The Saint groaned.

'You ought to take sedative pills,' he said. 'Your stomach must have ulcers like the craters on the moon. I'm trying to set you on the right track. I did come here to talk to Imber­line; that's all. I didn't make much of a secret of it, either— long before you ever thought you'd be interested. So for any­one who wanted to ease him into his next transmigration, it could have been almost irresistible. I thought of everything else, and I was too dumb to think of that. Maybe I ought to go to the chair for it, but there's no law that says so.' The Saint's face was like stone. 'It would have been perfectly easy to do. Your murderer could even have come into the hotel with Im­ berline. They just didn't ride up in the same elevator. The guy suddenly leaves him in the lobby and says he wants