'Pat!' The Saint straightened up suddenly and smiled. 'I was wondering why I hadn't heard from you.'
'I tried to get through twice before, but------'
'I guessed it, old darling,' said the Saint quickly. He had detected the faint tremor of strain in her voice, and his eyes had gone hard again. 'Never mind that just now, lass. I've got no end of news for you, b'ut I think you've got some for me. Let's have it.'
'Teal's been here,' she said. 'He's on his way to Hawk Lodge right now. Are you all right, boy?'
He laughed; and his laughter held all of the hell-for-leather lilt which rustled through it most blithely when trouble was racing towards him like a charging buffalo.
'I'm fine,' he said. 'But after I've seen Claud Eustace, I'll be sitting on top of the world. Get the whisky away from Hoppy, sweetheart, and hide it somewhere for me. I'll be seein' ya!'
He dropped the microphone back on its perch and stood up, crushing his cigarette into an ashtray, seventy-four inches of him, lean and dynamic and unconquerable, with a dancing light shifting across devil-may-care blue eyes.
'Listen, Erik,' he said, standing in front of the man who looked so much like Nordsten, 'a little while ago I tried to tell you who I was. Do you think you can take it in now?'
The man nodded.
'I'm Simon Templar. They call me the Saint. If it was only two years ago when Ivar put you away, you must have heard of me.'
The other's quick gasp was sufficient answer; and the Saint swept on, with all the mad persuasion which he could command in his voice, crowding every gift of inspired personality which the gods had given him into the task of carrying away the man who looked, like Nordsten on the stride of his own impetuous decision:
'I'm here because I pretended to be a man named Vickery. I pretended to be Vickery because Ivar wanted him for some mysterious job, and 1 wanted to find out what it was. I heard about that from Vickery's sister, because I got her away last night in London after she'd been arrested by the police. If I hadn't butted in here, Ivar wouldn't have rushed into your murder without a proper stage setting: he wouldn't have been killed, but you would. If you like to look at it that way, you're free and alive at this moment for the very same reason that the police are on their way here to arrest me now.'
'I don't understand it altogether, even yet,' Erik Nordsten said huskily, 'But I know I must owe you more than I can ever repay.'
'That's all you need to understand for the next half-hour,' said the Saint. 'And even then you're wrong. You can repay it--and repay yourself as well.'
There was something in the quiet clear power of his voice, some quality of contagious urgency, which brought the other man stumbling up out of his chair, without knowing why. And the Saint caught him by the shoulders and swung him round.
'I'm an outlaw, Erik,' he said. 'You know that.
But in the end I don't do a lot of harm. You know that, too. Chief Inspector Teal, who's on his way here now, knows it--but he has his duty to do. That's what he's paid for. And he has such a nasty suspicious mind, wherever I'm around, that he couldn't come in here and see--your brother--as things are--without finding a way to want me for murder. And that would all be very troublesome.'
'But I can tell him------'
'That it wasn't my fault. I know. But that wouldn't cover what I did last night. I want you to say more than that.'
The man did not speak, and Simon went on: 'You look like Nordsten. You are Nordsten-- with another first name. With a bit of good food and exercise, it'd be hard for anyone to tell the difference who didn't know Ivar very well; and from the look of things I shouldn't think he encouraged very many people', to know him well. You were intended to take his place eventually-- why not now?'
Erik Nordsten's breath came in a jerk.
'You mean------'
'I mean--you are Nordsten! You've suffered for him. You've paid for anything you may get out of it a thousand times over. And you're dead. You've been dead for two years. Now you've got another life open for you to step into. You can run his business honestly, or break it up and sell out--whichever you like. I'll give you all the help I can. Nordsten got me here--thinking I was Vickery, who's a very clever forger--to forge national bonds for him. I suppose he was going to deposit them in banks to raise the capital to take over new business. Well, I won't forge for you -- I couldn't do it, anyhow--but I'll lend you money and get my dividend out of this that way. What you do in return is to swear white, black, and coloured that you met me in Bond Street at two o'clock yesterday morning and brought me straight down here, and I've been with you ever since. That's the repayment you can make, Ivar--and you've got about thirty seconds to make up your mind whether you care to foot the bill!'
X
STILL holding his seething wrath grimly in both hands, Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal tramped stolidly up the steps to the front door of Hawk Lodge and jabbed his thumb on the bell. It is not easy for any stranger to find a house on St. George's Hill, especially at night; for that aristocratic address consists of a large area of ground on which nameless roads are laid out with the haphazard abandon of a maze, connecting cunningly hidden residences which are far too exclusive to deface their gates with numbers. Sergeant Barrow had lost his way several times, and the delays had not helped Mr. Teal with his job of two-handed wrath-clutching. But during the ride he had managed it somehow; and it was very unfortunate that he had so little time to consolidate his self-control.
In a very few seconds the door was opened, and Teal pushed past the butler unceremoniously. It would not be true to say that Mr. Teal's heart was singing, but at least he had not yet plumbed the most abysmal caverns of despair.
'I want to see Mr. Vickery,' he said; and the butler turned from the door.
'My name is Vickery, sir,' he replied.
A spectral shade of ripe muscatel infused itself slowly into the detective's round ruddy face. His eyes protruded
