sightlessness had been wiped out of his eyes. His throat was working mutely, and the tears were raining down the yellow parchment of his cheeks.
Footsteps were coming across the hall; and Simon remembered the three shots which had been fired. It was not impossible that they might have been mistaken for cracks of the whip; but the end of the panther's savage snarling had begun a sudden deep silence which would demand some explanation. With a quick deliberate movement Simon opened the door and stood behind it. He raised his voice in a muffled imitation of Nordsten's:
'Trusaneff!'
The butler's footsteps entered the room. The Saint saw him come into view and stop to stare at the man Erik. Very gently he pushed the door to behind the unsuspecting man, reversed his gun, and struck crisply with the butt. . . .
Then he completed the closing of the door and took out his cigarette case. For the moment there was no reason why he shouldn't. Certainly the battle-scarred gladiator with the passionate interest in antirrhinums remained, together with heaven knew how many more of Nordsten's curious staff; but to all outward appearances Ivar Nordsten was closeted with his butler, and there was no cause for anyone else to be inquisitive. In fact, Simon had already gathered that inquisitive-ness was not a vice in which Nordsten's retainers had ever been encouraged.
He lighted a cigarette and looked again at the financier's erstwhile prisoner.
'Erik,' he said quietly.
The man did not move; and Simon walked across and put a hand on his shoulder.
'Erik,' he repeated, and the man's tear-streaked face turned helplessly. 'Was Ivar your brother?'
'Yes.'
The Saint nodded silently and turned away. He went over to the desk and sat in the chair behind it, smoking thoughtfully. The demise of Ivar Nordsten meant nothing to him personally--it was all very unfortunate and must have annoyed Ivar a good deal, but Simon was dispassionately unable to feel that the amenities of the world had suffered an irreparable loss. He had it to thank for something else, which was the shock that had probably saved Erik's reason. Equally well, perhaps, it might have struck the final blow at that pitifully tottering brain; but it had not. The man who had looked at him and answered his questions just now was not the quivering half-crazed wretch who had looked up into the beam of his flashlight out of that medieval dungeon under the floor: it was a man to whom sanity was coming back, who understood death and illogical grief--who would presently talk, and answer other questions. And there would be questions enough to answer.
Simon was too sensible to try to hurry the return. When his cigarette was finished he got up and found his torch and went down into the pit. It was only a small brick-lined cellar, with no other outlet, about twelve feet square. There was a rusty iron bedstead in one corner, and a small table beside it. On the table were a couple of plates on which were the remains of some food, and the table top was spotted with blobs of candle wax. Under the table there was an earthenware jar of water and an enamel mug. A small grating high up in one wall spoke for some kind of ventilating system, a gutter along one side for some kind of drainage, but the filth and smell were indescribable. The Saint was thankful to get out again.
When he returned to the library he found that Erik had taken down one of the curtains to cover up the body of his brother. The man was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, but he looked up quite sanely as the Saint's feet trod on the parquet.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm afraid I didn't understand you just now.'
Simon smiled faintly and went for his cigarette-case again.
'I don't blame you, brother,' he said. 'If I'd spent two years in that rat hole, I guess I should have been a bit scatty myself.'
The man nodded. His eyes roved involuntarily to the huddled heap under the rich curtain and returned to the Saint's face.
'He was always clever,' he said, as if reciting an explanation which had been distilled through his mind so often during those dreadful years of darkness that nothing was left but the starkest essence, pruned to the barest minimum of words, to be spoken without apology or preface. 'But he only counted results. They justified the means. His monopoly was built upon trickery and ruth-lessness. But he was thorough. He was ready to be found out. That's why he kept me--down there. If necessary, there was to be a tragic accident. Ivar Nordsten would be killed by his panther. But I was to have been the body, and he had another identity to step into.'
'Did he hate you very much?'
'I don't think so. He had no reason to. But he had a kink. I was the perfect instrument for his scheme, and so he was ready to use me. Nothing counted against his own power and success.'
It was more or less a confirmation of the amazing theory which the Saint had built up in his own mind. But there was one other thing he had to know.
'What is supposed to have happened to you?' he asked.
'My sailing boat capsized in Sogne Fjord. 1 was supposed to be in it, but my body was never found. Ivar told me.'
The Saint smoked for a minute or two, gazing at the ceiling; and then he said: 'What are you going to do now?'
Erik shrugged weakly.
'How do I know? I've had no time to think. I've been dead for two years. All this------'
The gesture of his hands concluded what he could not put into words, but the Saint understood. He nodded sympathetically; but he was about to make an answer when the telephone bell rang.
Simon's eyes settled into blue pools of quiet, and he put the cigarette to his lips again rather slowly in a moment's passive hesitation. And then, with an infinitesimal reckless steadying of his lips, he stretched out a lazy arm and lifted the instrument from its rack.
'Hullo,' said a girl's voice. 'Can't I speak to------'
