The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

made it a financial cinch.'

'You must have had a long talk with him,' said the big man sardonically.

'I did. . . . However-your next move, of course, was to get the process for yourself. You're really inter­esting, Jones-you work on such original lines. Where the ordinary crook would have tried to capture the professor and torture him, you thought of subtler methods. You heard of Quell's brother, a good-for-nothing idler who was always drunk and usually broke. You went over to Paris and tried to get him in with you, figuring that he could get Sylvester's confidence when no one else could. But Brian Quell had a streak of honesty in him that you hadn't reckoned with. He turned you down-and then he knew too much. You couldn't risk him remembering you when he sobered up. So you shot him. I was there. A rotten shot, Jones-just like the one you took at me this evening, or that other one last night. Gunwork is a gift, brother, and you simply haven't got it.'

The big man said nothing.

'You knew I knew something about Brian Quell's murder, so you tried to get me. That talk about an 'envoy' of yours was the bunk-you were playing the hand alone, because you knew there wasn't a crook on earth who could be trusted on a thing as big as this.' The Saint never paused in his analysis; but his eyes were riveted to the prisoner's face, and he would have known at once if his shot in the dark went astray. Not the faintest change of expression answered him, and he knew he was right. Jones was alone. 'By the way, I suppose you wouldn't like to tell me exactly how you knew something had gone wrong in Paris ?'

'If you want to know, I thought I heard someone move in the corridor outside, and I went out to make sure. The door blew shut behind me, on an automatic lock. I had to stand outside and listen. Then someone really did come along the passage --'

'And you had to beat it,' Simon nodded. 'But I don't think you rang me up this morning just to make out how much I heard. What you wanted was to hear my voice, so that you could imitate it.'

'He did it perfectly,' said Patricia.

The Saint smiled genially.

'You see, Jones? If you couldn't have made your fortune as a gun artist, you might have had a swell career as a ventriloquist. But you wouldn't have it. You wanted to be a Master Mind, and that's where the sawdust came out. My dear old borzoi, did you think we'd never heard of that taxi joke before ? Did you think poor little Patricia, with all her experience of sin, was falling for a gag like that? Jones, that was very silly of you-quite irreparably silly. We let you have your little joke just because it seemed the easiest way to get a close-up of your beautiful whiskers. If you'd left us your address before you rang off this morning we'd have been saved the trouble, but as it was --'

'Well, what are you getting at?' grated the big man..

'Just checking up,' said the Saint equably. 'So you know how we got here. And I found that King's Messenger in the other room-that's what first con­firmed what we were up against. Anyone making gold is one of the things the Secret Service sits and waits for all year round: one day the discovery is going to be genuine, and the first news of it would send the international exchanges crazy. There'd be the most frightful panic in history, and any government has got to be watching for it. That King's Messenger had the news- you were lucky to get him.'

The big man was silent again, but his face was pale and pasty.

'Two murders, Jones, that were your very own handiwork,' said the Saint. 'And then-the professor. Accidental, of course. But very unfortunate. Because it means that you're the only man left alive who knows this tremendous secret.'

Simon actually looked away. But he had no idea what he looked at. The whole of his faculties were concentrated on the features which were still pinned in the borders of his field of vision, watching with every sense in his body for the answer to the question that he could not possibly ask. That one thing had to be known before anything else could be done, and there was only one way to know it. He bluffed, as he had bluffed once before, without a tremor of his voice or a flicker of his eyes. ...

And the most expressive thing about the big man's expression was that it did not change. The big man took the Saint's casual assertion into his store of knowl­edge without the slightest symptom of surprise. It signified nothing more to him than one more super­fluous blow on the head of a nail that was already driven deep enough. He glared at the Saint, and the gun in the Saint's hand, without any movement beyond a mechanical moistening of his lips, intent only on watching for the chance to fight that seemed infinitely improbable. . . . And the Saint tapped the ash from his cigarette and looked at the big man again.

'I got nearly everything out of Dr. Quell before you interrupted us,' he said, clinching the assertion for utter certainty. 'It was clever of you to wheedle Quell's process out of him bit by bit - and very useful that you had enough scientific knowledge to understand it. I suppose Quell's sphere of service was running out about this time, anyway - you'd have got rid of him yourself even if there'd been no accident. A very sound and prudent policy for a Master Mind, Jones, but just a shade too dangerous when the scheme springs a leak like me.'

'Cut it short,' snarled the big man. 'What more d'you want? The gold's there-'

'Yes, the gold's certainly there,' said the Saint dis­passionately. 'And in about ten minutes the police will be here to gape at it. I'm afraid that can't be helped. I'd like to get rich quick myself, but I've realized tonight that there's one way of doing it which is too dangerous for any man to tackle. And you don't realize it, Jones - that's the trouble. So we can't take any risks.'

'No?'

'No.' Simon gazed at the big man with eyes that were very clear, and hard as polished flints. 'You see, that secret's too big a thing to be left with you. There's too much dynamite tied up in it. And yet the police couldn't do anything worth a damn. They're bound by the law, and it's just possible you might beat a murder rap. I don't know how the evidence might look in front of a jury; and of course my reputation's rather shopsoiled, and you may be a member of parliament for all I know. . . . Are you following me, Jones? The police couldn't make you part with your secret --'

'Neither could you.'

'Have your own way. As it happens, I'm not trying. But with a reputation like mine it'd be bad business for me to shoot you. On the other hand, there could always be another accident-before the police arrived.'

The man called Jones stood with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, staring at the Saint unblinkingly. In those last few minutes he had gone suddenly quiet: the snarl had faded out of his voice and left a more re­strained level of grim interrogation. His chin was sunken tensely on his powerful chest, and under the thick black eyebrows his eyes were focussing on the Saint with the stony brightness of brown marbles.