laughing at him because he had probably just finished laughing at himself; and such contrastingly clamorous subjects as Ourleys and Saints would never have clattered through his peaceful and platonic ken. . . .
So the newsreel ran through the Saint's mind and finished, and the projection room was dark and silent again.
And he was still looking at Barbara Sinclair, lifting the ciga-rette to his mouth again, with his eyes very blue and quiet and unchanging.
He was very sorry, more sorry than it was easily endurable to he, and it was all so stupid and wasteful; but that was how things really happened, and sometimes you had to know it.
The clock in his head went on all the time.
And it was no damn good giving her a second thought, because you couldn't change anything.
Because life was like that, and sometimes you were stuck with it.
And stories just didn't end that way, because there was always a miracle at the last moment; but this wasn't a story.
And that was that.
He said: 'It doesn't make very much difference, because I know already.'
'What do you know?' she asked, looking at him with empty eyes.
He strolled across the room and sat down again in an armchair beside the bookcase that was crowned with the bouquet of chrysanthemums. He felt curiously tired; but it was a tiredness of the spirit and nothing to do with his mind or body.
'I know practically everything,' he said. 'Including the name of the master mind you're trying to protect. Suppose I tell you all about it.'
14 ''We begin,' said the Saint, after a little pause, 'with the stealing of a three hundred thousand dollar shipment of iridium at Nashville, Tennessee, not so long ago, and our first two murders--Comrades Smith and Gobbovitch, or whatever their names were, who got a load of lead in their lunch baskets.'
'I know all that,' she said, with a gesture of her slender hands that might have been an effort to brush away the vision that came behind his words.
'I expect you do,' said the Saint. 'But we ought to begin at the beginning. Because this robbery really opened the way for the black market. It actually created a sudden and very serious shortage. And then the manufacturers who use the stuff, who were suddenly caught short like that, were informed that they could still get supplies--at a price. Some of them were in a spot where they were glad enough to get it at almost any price.'
He glanced again into the jet-black eyes that were fastened on him; and he was still sorry, but he was only more sure.
'The black market salesman, no doubt, had inside information about who was most badly in need of his merchandise. Two of these guys were the late Mr Linnet, and Mr Milton Ourley There may have been others, but I don't happen to know about them. I know that Linnet had some misgivings about selling out his country for the benefit of your private angel, but the Ourley Magneto Company was not so fussy.'
He looked at his watch and checked it by the other clock in his mind.
'Meanwhile, I had decided to stick my delicate nose in. I made a statement to the newspapers that I was going to clean up this black market, and I said I already knew plenty that would make it unhappy for the operators.' It was a ------- lie. I didn't know a thing. But I figured that it might scare the operators into trying to cool me off, which might give me a chance to get a line on them; or it might encourage somebody to come and sing to me a little for any one of various reasons. It isn't the newest trick in the world, but it often works. This worked. It brought me a little bird named Titania Ourley. Maybe you know her.'
Barbara Sinclair licked her lips.
'I've met her.'
'Titania sang me a little song about her husband, whom she said she had overheard talking to Gabriel Linnet about their dealings with the black market. She seemed to think I ought to investigate him. A most unwifely idea, but that wasn't my busi-ness. At her suggestion, I went out to Oyster Bay to meet and talk to Milton. Unfortunately, it became rather rapidly clear that Milion and I were not destined to form a great and beautiful friendship. And he didn't want to talk to me at all. In fact, he practically threw me out on my ear.'
Simon leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling, as if he could see pictures there.
'I made one rather tragic mistake first, though. I dropped an unfinished quotation that somebody must have finished after I left. Because anyone who heard it finished would have known that I expected Linnet to sing--if he hadn't started singing al-ready. And they would have had a good idea that I was on my way to see Linnet then. Which was very tragic indeed for Gabriel.' He blew a carefully constructed smoke-ring. 'I did go to ! innet's, of course; and there I met you. And in due course you gave me a very attractive invitation.'
She bowed her head over her hands clenched together between her knees.
'Soon after this,' he added, 'Fernack was called by some mys-terrious amateur sleuth who reported that I'd been seen breaking into Linnet's place. There was also some mention of noises like a fight going on inside.'
'I didn't phone anybody except the boy I had a date with. I told you I had to break a date.'
'You couldn't have called anybody else by mistake, could you? You couldn't have called your treacherous friend to report that I was duly hooked and under control, so the rest of the plot could go into production as scheduled.'
She made no reply except to look up at him again. Tears glistened under her long lashes.
'Anyway,' he said, 'I came to my senses almost in time, left you with the check for a souvenir, and beat it back to Linnet's dearly fast enough to be in at the death. Quite an unpleasant death, too. They tied a rope around his neck, and his eyeballs were popping and his tongue sticking out. You should have seen him. It would have made you proud of your team.'
He stood up and stretched himself a little.
'Well, I was duly arrested by the doughty Inspector Fernack, and it took me until this morning to get out of his clutches. I went to your apartment, and there I met Humpty and Dumpty and a certain piece of luggage. And, of course, we had our reunion. I suppose I should have been able to solve the whole story then, but I guess you still had me slightly dazzled. Because there were two lovely clues, and they were completely contradictory. First, the pajamas in your closet----'
'You told me----'
'I know. They didn't have initials on them. But I could tell things by just looking at them. . . . And then there was that precious portmanteau of iridium.'
'I told you how that got there.'
'But you didn't tell me about the initials. You saw how the combination lock worked out when I opened it, didn't you?'
'No.'
'Three very important letters, and you didn't notice them,' he said reprovingly.
'I wasn't looking.'
'You were hanging over my shoulder and watching everything I did. You couldn't have missed seeing them.'
'I wasn't looking at that.'
'Besides which, I asked you if the initials O S M meant anything to you.'
'They don't.'
The Saint took out another cigarette and lighted it from the butt of the last.
'M S O,' he said, 'in reverse. A subtle touch. But nothing to make a reasonably bright guy rupture a brain cell. In other words, our dear mutual friend.'
There was a silence.
The Saint wandered towards the window. It was getting darker, and the skyscraper silhouettes around them were losing their sharpness against the velvet off-blue of the sky. He stood there for a moment or two, looking out.
'M S O,' he repeated. 'Milton S Ourley. So nice and simple . . . And I still had to put it together. You ought to have saved me all that trouble.'
'I told you----'
'I know. You'd tell me when you felt like it. But it's too late for that now. Maybe it was always too late. . . .
