'Ellshaw! Was he outside?'
'No, he was baked into the middle of a sausage-roll in the pantry perfectly disguised as a new genius from Scotland Yard.'
'How did you know he'd be there?'
'Oh, my God!' Simon pushed the harvest of his brain work into a chair like a sack of beans, and subsided against the table. 'Have I got to do everything for you? All right. It was only this morning that I crashed into Duchess Place. I ought to have been killed last night. Since that failed, they hoped to get me this morning when I went nosing around. When that fell through, they had to make a quick getaway. I assumed that they were so far from expecting trouble that they hadn't got a spare bolthole waiting to move into. Therefore they had to do something temporary. The Grand Panjandrum couldn't have been a Grand Panjandrum at all if he hadn't known that Ellshaw was a bit of a dim bulb. Therefore he wouldn't want to risk letting him far out of his reach. He knew he was coming down here this afternoon, so naturally he'd park Ellshaw somewhere locally where he could get in touch with him, while he figured out what they were going to do next. Having made up his mind, he'd have to tell Ellshaw. Therefore Ellshaw would have to come to him for instructions-it would probably be easier than him going to see Ellshaw, and at the time he'd think it was just as safe. Therefore Ellshaw had to come here. Therefore he probably had to come here soon. Therefore he'd probably come to-night. And even if he didn't, I couldn't do any harm by waiting. Therefore I waited. Q. E. D. Or do you want a dictionary to help you out with the two-syllable words?'
Teal swallowed.
'Then he was'
His eyes travelled to a carefully corked bottle on a side table. Simon knew at once that it must be a sample of whisky corked for analysis, and smiled faintly.
'You needn't bother with that,' he said. 'I can tell you what's in it. It's nitroglycerine ... as used in making the best bombs. If Irelock hadn't coughed it all up you could drop him down the stairs and blow up the house; but it's a deadly enough poison without that. No, I don't think Ellshaw did it. He wouldn't have known. But the man who made our two bombs might have.'
'Then do you mean it isn't Ellshaw'
'Of course not. It's much too big for him. There he is. Look at him. There's the guy that all the commotion's about-the great million-pound mystery that people had to be killed to keep. But he isn't the brains. He couldn't do anything at all. He's dead!'
Mr. Teal blinked, staring at the red-nosed snivelling man who lay sprawling hot-eyed in the chair where Simon had thrown him. He looked alive. The low-pitched gasping noises that broke through his lips sounded alive. 'How is he dead?' Teal asked stupidly. 'Because he's been murdered. And don't forget something else. He's King's Evidence-I promised him that, and you haven't a case to go to a jury without him.' The detective hesitated.
'But if he had anything to do with murdering his wife'
'He didn't. I believe that, and so will you. He was double-crossed. After his wife had seen him, he was told she'd got to disappear in case she shot her mouth. He thought she was just going to be kept somewhere in hiding, like he was. He'll tell you all about it. The Grand Panjandrum knew he'd never stand for killing his wife, so that was the story. And that's why he's going to squeal. You are going to squeal, aren't you, Ellshaw?'
The man licked his lips.
'Yes, I'll talk. I'll tell everythink I know.' His voice had gone back to its normal level, but it was coarse and raspy with the blind vindictiveness of the passion that was sweating down inside him. 'But I didn't kill Florrie. Nobody 'ad to kill her. I didn't know nothink about it. I'll tell yer.'
The Saint lighted a cigarette and drew the smoke down into his lungs.
'There you are, Claud,' he murmured. 'Your case is all laid out for you. Shall I start the story or shall Ellshaw?'
Teal nodded.
'I think we'd better wait a moment before we begin,' he said. 'Our police methods are useful sometimes. We've got young Nulland.'
'You have?'
'Yes.' Mr. Teal was beginning to recover some of his habitual bored smugness. 'He was held up with a puncture just outside Sunningdale, and a motor-cycle patrol spotted him-I had a 'phone call while the doctor was here last. He's being sent back under guard-they ought to arrive any minute now.'
Simon raised his eyebrows.
'So you know that he wasn't kidnapped after all?'
'It doesn't look like it,' replied the detective stolidly. 'Anyhow, there was nobody with him when he was found, and he hadn't any convincing story to tell. We'll soon know, when he gets here.'
The Saint let go a trickle of smoke; but before he could speak again a car hummed slowly up the road and stopped opposite the house. He sat up, with the careless lights wakening in his blue eyes, and listened to the tread of footsteps coming up the drive.
'Didn't I tell you we were going to have fun?' he remarked. 'I think your police are wonderful.'
Mr. Teal looked at him for a moment, and then went out to open the front door.
Simon's glance followed him, and then turned back to the man who sat quivering in the armchair. He swung his legs off the table.
'You're the exhibit, aren't you?' he said softly.
He turned the chair round so that Ellshaw faced the door and must be the first person whom the returning prodigal would see when he entered the room. Then he went back to his perch on the table and went on with his cigarette. Outwardly he was quite calm; and yet he was waiting for a moment which in its own way was the tensest climax of the adventure. Out of the twisted tangled threads, in breathless pauses between the shuttling of move and counter-move and unexpected revelation, he had at last built up a pattern and a theory. All the threads were in place; and it only wanted that last flash of the shuttle to bind them all irrefragably together-or tangle the
