The Saint eased himself along the terrace, flat against the wall of the house, his forefinger tight on the trigger and his eyes probing the blackness of the grounds. No more shots came at him. He reached the french windows with the broken pane, and stretched out a hand to test the handle. They wouldn't open. They were still fastened on the inside— as he had fastened them.
He spoke close to the broken pane.
"All clear, souls. Don't put the lights on yet, but let me in."
Presently the window swung back. There were shutters outside, and he folded them across the opening and bolted them as he stepped in. Their hinges were stiff from long disuse. He did the same at the other window before he groped his way back to the door and relit the lights.
"We'll have this place looking like a fortress before we're through," he remarked cheerfully; and then the girl ran to him and caught his sleeve.
"Didn't you see anyone ?"
He shook his head.
"Not a soul. The guy didn't even open the window—just stuck his gun through the broken glass and sighted from outside. I have an idea he was expecting me to charge through the window after him, and then he'd 've had me cold. But I fooled him. I guess he heard me coming round the house, and took his feet off the ground." He smiled at her reassuringly. "Excuse me a minute while I peep at Hoppy— he might be worried."
He should have known better than to succumb to that delusion. In the kitchen, a trio of white-faced women and one man who was not much more sanguine jumped round with panicky squeals and goggling eyes as he entered; but Mr Uniatz removed the bottle which he was holding to his lips with dawdling reluctance.
"Hi, boss," said Mr Uniatz, with as much phlegmatic cordiality as could be expected of a man who had been interrupted in the middle of some important business; and the Saint regarded him with new respect.
"Doesn't anything ever worry you, Hoppy ?" he inquired mildly.
Mr Uniatz waved his bottle with liberal nonchalance.
"Sure, boss, I hear de firewoiks," he said. "But I figure if anyone is gettin' hoit it's some udder guy. How are t'ings ?"
"T'ings will be swell, so long as I know you're on the job," said the Saint reverently, and withdrew again.
He went back to the drawing-room with his hands in his pockets, not hurrying; and in spite of what had happened he felt more composed than he had been all the evening. It was as if he sensed that the crescendo was coming to a climax beyond which it could go no further, while all the time his own unravellings were simplifying the tangled undercurrents towards one final resolving chord that would bind them all together. And the two must coincide and blend. All he wanted was a few more minutes, a few more answers. . .. His smile was almost indecently carefree when he faced the girl again.
"All is well," he reported, "and I'm afraid Hoppy is ruining your cellar."
She came up to him, her eyes searching him anxiously.
"That shot when you ran out," she said. "You aren't hurt?"
"Not a bit. But it's depressing to feel so unpopular."
"What makes you think you're the only one who's unpopular?" asked the doctor dryly.
He was still sitting in the chair where Simon had left him, and Simon followed his glance as he screwed his neck round indicatively. Just over his left shoulder, a picture on the wall had a dark-edged hole drilled in it, and the few scraps of glass that still clung to the frame formed a jagged circle around it.
The Saint gazed at the bullet scar, and for a number of seconds he said nothing. He had heard the impact, of course, and heard the tinkle of glass; but since the shot had missed him he hadn't given it another thought. Now that its direction was pointed out to him, the whole sequence of riddles seemed to fall into focus.
The chain of alibis was complete.
Anyone might have murdered Nora Prescott—even Rosemary Chase and Forrest. Rosemary Chase herself could have fired the shot at the boathouse, an instant before Forrest switched on his torch, and then rejoined him. But Forrest wasn't likely to have cut his own throat; and even if he had done that, he couldn't have abducted Marvin Chase afterwards. And when Forrest was killed, the Saint himself was Rosemary's alibi. The butler might have done all these things; but after that he had been shut in the kitchen with Hoppy Uniatz to watch over him, so that the Saint's own precaution acquitted him of having fired those last two shots a few minutes ago. Dr Quintus might have done everything else, might never have been hit on the head upstairs at all; but he certainly couldn't have fired those two shots either— and one of them had actually been aimed at him. Simon went back to his original position by the fireplace to make sure of it. The result didn't permit the faintest shadow of doubt. Even allowing for his dash to the doorway, if the first shot had been aimed at the Saint and had just missed Quintus instead, it must have been fired by someone who couldn't get within ten feet of the bull's-eye at ten yards' range—an explanation that wasn't even worth considering.
And that left only one person who had never had an alibi— who had never been asked for one because he had never seemed to need one. The man around whom all the commotion was centred—and yet the one member of the cast, so far as the Saint was concerned, who had never yet appeared on the scene. Someone who, for all obvious purposes, might just as well have been nonexistent.
But if Marvin Chase himself bad done all the wild things that had been done that night, it would mean that the story of his injuries must be entirely fictitious. And it was hardly plausible that any man would fabricate and elaborate such a story at a time when there was no conceivable advantage to be gained from it.
Simon thought about that, and everything in him seemed to be standing still.
The girl was saying: "These people wouldn't be doing all this if they just wanted to kidnap my father. Unless they were maniacs. They can't get any ransom if they kill off everyone who's ever had anything to do with him, and that's what they seem to be trying to do——"
"Except you," said the Saint, almost inattentively. "You haven't been hurt yet."
He was thinking: "The accident happened a week ago— days before Nora Prescott wrote to me, before there was ever any reason to expect me on the scene. But all these things that a criminal might want an alibi for have happened since I came into the picture, and probably on my account. Marvin Chase might have been a swindler, and he might have rubbed out his secretary in a phoney motor accident because he knew too much; but for all he could have known that would have been the end of it. He didn't need to pretend to be injured himself, and take the extra risk of bringing in a phoney doctor to build up the atmosphere. Therefore he didn't invent his injuries. Therefore his alibi is as good as anyone else's. Therefore we're right back where we started."
Or did it mean that he was at the very end of the hunt ? In a kind of trance, he walked over to the broken window and examined the edges of the smashed pane. On the point of one of the jags of glass clung a couple of kinky white threads— such as might have been ripped out of a gauze bandage. Coming into the train of thought that his mind was following, the realization of what they meant gave him hardly any sense of shock. He already knew that he was never going to meet Marvin Chase.
Dr Quintus was getting to his feet.
"I'm feeling better now," he said. "I'll go for the police."
"Just a minute," said the Saint quietly. "I think I can have someone ready for them to arrest when they get here."
XI
HE TURNED to the girl and took her shoulders in his hands. "I'm sorry, Rosemary," he said. "You're going to be hurt now."
Then, without stopping to face the bewildered fear that came into her eyes, he went to the door and raised his voice.
"Send the butler along, Hoppy. See that the curtains are drawn where you are, and keep an eye on the windows. If anyone tries to rush you from any direction give 'em the heat first and ask questions afterwards."
"Okay, boss," replied Mr Uniatz obediently.
The butler came down the hall as if
he were walking on eggs. His impressively fleshy face was pallid and apprehensive, but he stood before the Saint with a certain ineradicable dignity.
"Yes, sir?"
Simon beckoned him to the front door; and this time the Saint was very careful. He turned out all the hall lights before he opened the door, and then drew the butler quickly outside without fully closing it behind them. They stood where the shadow of the porch covered them in solid blackness.
"Jeeves," he said, and in contrast with all that circumspection his voice was extraordinarily clear and carrying, "I want you to go to the nearest house and use their phone to call the police station. Ask for Sergeant Jesser. I want you to give him a special message."
"Me, sir?"
Simon couldn't see the other's face, but he could imagine the expression on it from the tremulous tone of the reply. He smiled to himself, but his eyes were busy on the dark void of the garden.
"Yes, you. Are you scared?"
"No-no, sir. But——"
"I know what you mean. It's creepy, isn't it ? I'd feel the same way myself. But don't let it get you down. Have you ever handled a gun?"
"I had a little experience during the War, sir."
"Swell. Then here's a present for you." Simon felt for the butler's flabby hand and pressed his own Luger into it. "It's all loaded and ready to talk. If anything tries to happen, use it. And this is something else. I'll be with you. You won't hear me and you won't see me, but I'll be close by. If anyone tries to stop you or do anything to you, he'll get a nasty surprise. So don't worry. You're going to get through."
He could hear the butler swallow.
"Very good, sir. What was the message you wished me to take?"
"It's for Sergeant Jesser," Simon repeated, with the same careful clarity. "Tell him about the murder of Mr Forrest, and the other things that have happened. Tell him I sent you. And tell him I've solved the mystery, so he needn't bother to bring back his gang of coroners and photographers and fingerprint experts and what not. Tell him I'm getting a confession now, and I'll have it all written out and signed for him by the time he gets here. Can you remember that ?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay, Jeeves. On your way."
He slipped his other automatic out of his hip pocket and stood there while the butler crossed the drive and melted into the inky shadows beyond. He could hear the man's softened footsteps even when he was out of sight, but they kept regularly on until they faded in the distance, and there was no disturbance. When he felt as sure as he could hope to be that the butler was beyond the danger zone, he put the Walther away again and stepped soundlessly back into the darkened hall.
Rosemary Chase and the doctor stared blankly at him as he re-entered the drawing-room; and he smiled blandly at their mystification.
"I know," he said. "You heard me tell Jeeves that I was going to follow him."
Quintus said: "But why—"
"For the benefit of the guy outside," answered the Saint calmly. "If there is a guy outside. The guy who's been giving us so much trouble. If he's hung around as long as this, he's still around. He hasn't finished his job yet. He missed the balloon pretty badly on the last try, and he daren't pull out and leave it missed. He's staying right on the spot, wondering like hell what kind of a fast play he can work to save his bacon. So he heard what I told the butler. I meant him to. And I think it worked. I scared him away from trying to head off Jeeves with another carving-knife performance. Instead of that, he decided to stay here and try to clean up before the police arrive. And that's also what I meant him to do."
The doctor's deep-set eyes blinked slowly.
"Then the message you sent was only another bluff?"
"Partly. I may have exaggerated a little. But I meant to tickle our friend's curiosity. I wanted to make sure that he'd be frantic to find out more about it. So he had to know what's going on in this room. I'll bet money that he's listening to every word I'm saying now."
The girl glanced at the broken window, beyond which the Venetian shutters hid them from outside but would not silence their voices, and then glanced at the door; and she shivered. She said: "But then he knows you didn't go with the butler——"
"But he knows it's too late to catch him up. Besides, this is much more interesting now. He wants to find out how much I've really got up my sleeve. And I want to tell him."
"But you said you were only bluffing," she protested huskily. "You don't really know anything."
The Saint shook his head.
"I only said I was exaggerating a little. I haven't got a confession yet, but I'm hoping to get one. The rest of it is true. I know everything that's behind tonight's fun and games. I know why everything has been done, and who did it."
They didn't try to prompt him, but their wide-open eyes clung to him almost as if they had been hypnotized. It was as if an unreasoned fear of what he might be going to say made them shrink from pressing him, while at the same time they were spellbound by a fascination beyond their power to break.
The Saint made the most of his moment. He made them wait while he sauntered to a chair, and settled himself there, and lighted a cigarette, as if they were only enjoying an ordinary casual conversation. The theatrical pause was deliberate, aimed at the nerves of the one person whom he had to drive into self-betrayal.
"It's all so easy, really, when you sort it out," he said at length. "Our criminal is a clever guy, and he'd figured out a swindle that was so simple and audacious that it was practically foolproof—barring accidents. And to make up for the thousandth fraction of risk, it was bound to put millions into his hands. Only the accident happened; and one accident led to another."
He took smoke from his cigarette, and returned it through musingly half smiling lips.
"The accident was when Nora Prescott wrote to me. She had to be in on the swindle, of course; but he thought he could keep her quiet with the threat that if she exposed him her father would lose the sinecure that was practically keeping him alive. It wasn't a very good threat, if she's been a little more sensible, but it scared her enough to keep her away from the police. It didn't scare her out of thinking that a guy like me might be able to wreck the scheme somehow and still save something out of it for her. So she wrote to me. Our villain found out about that, but wasn't able to stop the letter. So he followed her to the Bell tonight, planning to kill me as well, because he figured that once I'd received that letter I'd keep prying until I found something. When Nora led off to the boathouse, it looked to be in the bag. He followed her, killed her, and waited to add me to the collection. Only on account of another accident that happened then, he lost his nerve and quit."
Again the Saint paused.
"Still, our villain knew he had to hang on to me until I could be disposed of," he went on with the same leisured confidence. "He arranged to bring me up here to be got rid of as soon as he knew how. He stalled along until after dinner, when he'd got a plan worked out. He'd just finished talking it over with his accomplice——"
"Accomplice?" repeated the doctor.
"Yes," said the Saint flatly. "And just to make sure we understand each other, I'm referring to a phoney medico who goes under the name of Quintus."
The doctor's face went white, and his hands whitened on the arms of his chair; but the Saint didn't stir.
"I wouldn't try it," he said. "I wouldn't try anything, brother, if I were you. Because if you do, I shall smash you into soup-meat."
Rosemary Chase stared from one to the other.
"But—you don't mean——"
"I mean that that motor accident of your father's was a lie from beginning to end." Simon's voice was gentle. "He needed a phoney doctor to back up the story of those injuries. He couldn't have kept it up with an honest one, and that would have wrecked everything. It took me a long time to see it, but that's because we're all ready to take too much for granted. You told me you'd seen your father since it happened, so I didn't ask any more questions. Naturally, you didn't f
eel you had to tell me that when you saw him he was smothered in bandages like a mummy, and his voice was only a hoarse croak; but he needed Quintus to keep him that way."
"You must be out of your mind!" Quintus roared hollowly.
The Saint smiled.
"No. But you're out of a job. And it was an easy one. I said we all take too much for granted. You're introduced as a doctor, and so everybody believes it. Now you're going to have another easy job—signing the confession I promised Sergeant Jesser. You'll do it to save your own skin. You'll tell how Forrest wasn't quite such a fool as he seemed—how he listened outside Marvin Chase's room, and heard you and your pal cooking up a scheme to have your pal bust this window here and take a shot at you, just for effect, and then kill me and Hoppy when we came dashing into the fight—how Forrest got caught there, and how he was murdered so he couldn't spill the beans——"
"And what else ?" said a new voice.
Simon turned his eyes towards the doorway and the man who stood there—a man incongruously clad in dark wine-coloured silk pyjamas and bedroom slippers whose head was swathed in bandages so that only his eyes were visible, whose gloved right hand held a revolver aimed at the Saint's chest. The Saint heard Rosemary come to her feet with a stifled cry and answered to her rather than to anyone else.
"I told you you were going to be hurt, Rosemary," he said. "Your father was killed a week ago. But you'll remember his secretary. This is Mr Bertrand Tamblin."
XII
"YOU'RE CLEVER, aren't you?" Tamblin said viciously.
"Not very," said the Saint regretfully. "I ought to have tumbled to it long ago. But as I was saying, we all take too much for granted. Everyone spoke of you as Marvin Chase, and so I assumed that was who you were. I got thrown off the scent a bit further when Rosemary and Forrest crashed into the boathouse at an awkward moment when you got the wind up and scrammed. I didn't get anywhere near the mark until I began to think of you as the invisible millionaire—the guy that all the fuss was about and yet who couldn't be seen. Then it all straightened out. You killed Marvin Chase, burnt his body in a fake auto crash, and had yourself brought home by Quintus in his place. Nobody argued about it; you had Quintus to keep you covered; you knew enough about his affairs to keep your end up in any conversation—you could even fool his daughter on short interviews, with your face bandaged and talking in the sort of faint unrecognizable voice that a guy who'd been badly injured might talk in. And you were all set to get your hands on as much of Marvin Chase's dough as you could squeeze out of banks and bonds before anyone got suspicious."
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