'They couldn't do it,' said Ellshaw sobbingly. 'They couldn't 'ang me. I ain't done nothing------'
'What about your wife?' said the Saint ruthlessly.
'She's all right, guv'nor. I swear she is. Nobody's done 'er no 'arm. I can tell you all abaht that.'
'Tell me.'
'Well, guv'nor, it was like this. When she spotted me in Duchess Plyce, an' I 'ad to get rid of 'er, we thought afterwards she might go blabbin' abaht 'aving seed me, so we 'ad to keep 'er quiet, see? But she ain't dead. She just got took off to some other place an' kep' there so she couldn't talk. We couldn't 'ave people lookin' for 'er, though, an' kickin' up a fuss; so we 'ad to give out she was dead, see?'
'Did you have to get the police to fish her dead body out of the Thames as well-just to make it more convincing?' asked the Saint coldly.
He was not quite sure what answer he expected-certainly he had not looked at the question as a vital thrust in the argument. The reaction which it obtained startled him, and he was surprised to find that he could still be startled.
For some seconds Ellshaw did not speak at all; and then his voice was shockingly different from the defiant whine in which he had been talking before.
'Go on,' he said huskily. 'Yer carn't tike me in wiv a yarn like that.'
'My dear sap,' said the Saint slowly, 'I don't want to take you in with any yarn. I'm only telling you. Your wife's body was taken out of the river last night. It was supposed to be suicide at first, but now they're pretty sure it was murder.'
There was another silence at the opposite end of the canoe; and Simon Templar drew his cigarette to an instant's bright gleam of red in which the lines of his mouth could be seen as intent and inexorable as a stone mask, and went on without a change in the purring level of his voice.
'If you keep your mouth shut I wouldn't give you a bad penny for your chance. You can put a lot of things over on a jury, but somehow or other they never take a great shine to a fellow who kills his own wife. Of course, they say hanging isn't such a bad death-----'
Ellshaw was making queer noises in his throat, as if he was struggling to do something with his voice. 'Oh Gawd!'
His feet shuffled on the bottom. His breath was whistling through his teeth with a weird harshness that chilled something dormant in the Saint's heart.
'You ain't tryin' to scare me, are yer? Yer just tellin' me the tile to make me talk. She ain't-dead?' 'I'm afraid she is.' Ellshaw gulped. 'My Gawd . . .' His voice went shrill. 'The dirty lyin'
swine! The rat! He told me-----'
There was a sound as if he flopped over a thwart. In another moment he was sprawled across the Saint's feet, clutching aimlessly at Simon with crazy shaking hands.
'I didn't do it,' he blubbered. 'I swear I didn't! I didn't wish 'er dead. I believed wot I told yer. I thought she was just 'idden away somewhere, like I was. I ain't never murdered nobody!'
'Didn't you know that Lord Ripwell was to be murdered?' said the Saint relentlessly. 'Didn't you know that I was to be murdered?'
'Yes, I did!' shouted the other wildly. 'But I wouldn't 'ave murdered Florrie. I wouldn't 'ave stood for killin' me own missus. That filthy double-crossin''
Simon gripped him by the shoulders. 'Will you squeal, Ellshaw?'
He could feel the man's stupefied eyes straining to find him in the darkness.
'Yes, I'll squeal. My Gawd, I'll squeal!' 'You're a bright boy after all,' said the Saint. He pushed the demented man away and took up his paddle again. Driving the canoe back up the stream with cool steady strokes, he felt a great ease of triumph. It was the same quiet thrill that a chess-player must feel on mastering an intricate problem. He realised with a touch of humour that it was one of the very few episodes in which success could not conceivably bring him one pennyworth of boodle; but it made no difference to his satisfaction. He had taken one of his impulsively wholehearted likings to Lord Ripwell.
The red light in the back upper window swam into view again past a clump of trees, and he turned the canoe into the bank and drove the paddle-blade into the shallow river bed to hold it. Ellshaw was still moaning and muttering incoherently; and, for his own sake, Simon hauled him up out of the canoe and shook him vigorously.
'Snap out of it, brother. This is your chance to get even- and shift yourself off the high jump at the same time ' 'I'm going to squeal,' repeated Ellshaw dazedly The Saint kept hold of him.
'Okay. Then come up to the house and let Teal listen to it.' He rushed the trembling man over the rough lawn and up the side of the house to the french window of the living-room. There was an exclamation somewhere in the middle distance, and heavy feet pounded after him. The beam of a bullseye lantern picked him up.
'Oh, it's you, sir,' said the police guard, illuminatingly.
'I thoughtGosh, what have you got there?'
'A tandem bicycle,' said the Saint shortly. 'Get back to your post.'
Teal, startled by the noise, was on his feet when he thrust his prize into the room. The detective's jaw hung open, and for a second or two he stopped chewing.
'Good Lord-is that'
'Yes, it is, Claud. A new gadget for punching holes in cellophane. If I could go on thinking up questions like that, I might be a policeman myself. Which God forbid. Don't you know your boy friend?'
For once in his life Chief Inspector Teal was incapable of being offended.
