spiration suddenly flashed through his mind. 'ANOTHER 'SAINT' THREAT,' ran the heading of the column, in large black letters; and below it was an account of the letter that had been received by Mr. Ronald Nilder. . . . Patricia was watching him anxiously, but he waved her to silence.
'Dear me! Are you such a dangerous man-Mr. Jones?'
There was a long pause; and the Saint's lips twitched in a faint smile. It had been a shot clear into the dark; but his mind worked like that-flashing on beyond the ordinarily obvious to the fantastically far-fetched that was always so gloriously right.
'My congratulations.' The voice on the line was scarcely strained. 'How much did Quell tell you?'
'Plenty,' said the Saint softly. 'I'm sorry you should have had such an unpleasant shock, but if you had kept your head ...'
He heard the receiver click down at the other end and pushed the telephone away from him.
'Who was that?' asked Patricia.
'Someone who can think nearly as fast as I can,' said the Saint, with a certain artistic admiration. 'We know him only as Mr. Jones-the man who shot Brian Quell. And it was one of his pals who disturbed the peace last night.' The gay blue eyes levelled themselves on her with the sword-steel intentness that she knew of old. 'Shall I tell you about him? He's a rather clever man. He discovered that I was staying in the hotel that night-on Quell's floor, with my window almost opposite his across the well. But he didn't know that before he did his stuff-otherwise he might have thought up something even cleverer. How he found out is more than we know. He may have accidentally seen my name in the register, or he may even have come back for something and listened outside Quell's door- then he'd 've made inquiries to find out who it could have been. But when he got back to England he heard more about me --'
'How?'
'From the story of your noble assault on Wolseley Lormer. Brother Jones decided to take no chances- hence last night. Also this morning there was another dose for him.'
Simon pointed to the headlines that he had seen. It was while Patricia was glancing over them that a name in an adjoining paragraph caught his eye, and he half rose from his chair.
'And that!' His finger stabbed at the news item. 'Pat-he can certainly think fast!'
He read the paragraph again.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR MISSING
SEQUEL TO PARIS SHOOTING TRAGEDY
Birmingham, Thursday.
Loss of memory is believed to be the cause of the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Sylvester Quell, professor of electro-chemistry, who has been missing for twenty-four hours.
The professor's housekeeper, Mrs. E. J. Lane, told a Daily Express representative that Dr. Quell left his house as usual at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday to walk to his lecture room. He did not arrive there, and he has not been heard of since.
'The professor was very upset by his brother's sudden death,' said Mrs. Lane. 'He spoke very little about it, but I know that it affected him deeply.'
Dr. Quell is acknowledged to be one of the foremost authorities on metallurgy--
Simon sprang out of his chair and began to pace up and down the room.
'Think it out from the angle of Comrade Jones. He knows I was in a position to know something-he knows my reputation-and he knows I'm just the man to pry into his business without saying a word to the police. Therefore he figures I'd be better out of the way. He's a wise guy, Pat-but just a little too wise. A real professional would have bumped me off and said nothing about it. If he failed the first time he'd 've just tried again-and still said nothing. But instead of that he had to phone me and tell me about it. Believe it or not, Pat, the professional only does that sort of thing in story books. Unless --'
'Unless what?' prompted the girl.
The Saint picked up his cigarette from the edge of the ashtray and fell into his chair again with a slow laugh.
'I wonder! If there's anything more dangerous than being just that little bit too clever, it's being in too much of a hurry to say that very thing of the other man. There's certainly some energetic vendetta going on against the Quell family, and since I've been warned to keep out I shall just naturally have to be there.'
'Not today, if you don't mind,' said the girl calmly. 'I met Marion Lestrange in Bond Street yesterday, and I promised to drop in for a cocktail this evening.'
Simon looked at her.
'I think it might happen about then,' he said. ' Don't be surprised if you hear my melodious voice on the telephone.'
'What are you going to do?' she asked; and the a Saint smiled.
'Almost nothing,' he said.
He kept her in suspense for the rest of the afternoon, while he smoked innumerable cigarettes and tried to build up a logical story out of the snatches of incoherent explanation that Brian Quell had babbled before he died. It was something about a man called Binks, who could make gold. . . . But no consecutive sense seemed to emerge from it. Dr. Sylvester Quell might have been interested-and he had disappeared. The Saint could get no further than his original idea.
He told Patricia Holm about it at teatime. It will be remembered that in those days the British government was still pompously deliberating whether it should take the reckless step of repealing an Act of 1677 which no one obeyed anyhow, and the Saint's feelings on the matter had been finding their outlet in verse when the train of his criminal inspiration faltered. He produced the more enduring fruits of his afternoon's cogitation with some
