"Of course. She was one of my father's personal secretaries," said the dark girl; and the Saint suddenly felt as if the last knot in the tangle had been untied.
V
HE LISTENED with tingling detachment while Rosemary Chase talked and answered questions. The dead girl's father was a man who had known and helped Marvin Chase when they were both young, but who had long ago been left far behind by Marvin Chase's sensational rise in the financial world. When Prescott's own business was failing, Chase had willingly lent him large sums of money, but the failure had still not been averted. Illness had finally brought Prescott's misfortunes to the point where he was not even able to meet the interest on the loan, and when he refused further charity Chase had sent him to Switzerland to act as an entirely superfluous 'representative' in Zurich and had given Nora Prescott a job himself. She had lived more as one of the family than as an employee. No, she had given no hint of having any private troubles or being afraid of anyone. Only she had not seemed to be quite herself since Marvin Chase's motor accident. . . .
The bare supplementary facts clicked into place in the framework that was already there, as if into accurately fitted sockets, filling in sections of the outline without making much of it more recognizable. They filed themselves away in the Saint's memory with mechanical precision; and yet the closeness which he felt to the mystery that hid behind them was more intuitive than methodical, a weird sensitivity that sent electric shivers coursing up his spine.
A grey-haired ruddy-cheeked doctor arrived and made his matter-of-fact examination and report.
"Three stab wounds in the chest—I'll be able to tell you more about them after I've made the post-mortem, but I should think any one of them might have been fatal. Slight contusions on the throat. She hasn't been dead much more than an hour."
He stood glancing curiously over the other faces.
"Where's that ambulance?" said the sergeant grumpily.
"They've probably gone to the house," said the girl. "I'll send them down if I see them—you don't want us getting in your way any more, do you ?"
"No, miss. This isn't very pleasant for you, I suppose. If I want any more information I'll come up and see you in the morning. Will Mr Forrest be there if we want to see him ?"
Forrest took a half step forward.
"Wait a minute," he blurted. "You haven't——"
"They aren't suspicious of you, Jim," said the girl, with a quiet firmness. "They might just want to ask some more questions."
"But you haven't said anything about Templar's——"
"Of course." The girl's interruption was even firmer. Her voice was still quiet and natural, but the undercurrent of determined warning in it was as plain as a siren to the Saint's ears. "I know we owe Mr Templar an apology, but we don't have to waste Sergeant Jesser's time with it. Perhaps he'd like to come up to the house with us and have a drink—that is, if you don't need him any more, Sergeant."
Her glance only released the young man's eye after it had pinned him to perplexed and scowling silence. And once again Simon felt that premonitory crisping of his nerves.
"All this excitement certainly does dry out the tonsils," he remarked easily. "But if Sergeant Jesser wants me to stay——"
"No, sir." The reply was calm and ponderous. "I've made a note of your address, and I don't think you could run away. Are you going home tonight ?"
"You might try the Bell first, in case we decide to stop over."
Simon buttoned his coat and strolled towards the door with the others; but as they reached it he stopped and turned back.
"By the way," he said blandly, "do you mind if we take our lawful artillery?"
The sergeant gazed at him, and dug the guns slowly out of his pocket. Simon handed one of them to Mr Uniatz, and leisurely fitted his own automatic back into the spring holster under his arm. His smile was very slight.
"Since there still seems to be a murderer at large in the neighbourhood," he said, "I'd like to be ready for him."
As he followed Rosemary Chase and Jim Forrest up a narrow footpath away from the river, with Hoppy Uniatz beside him and the butler bringing up the rear, he grinned inwardly over that delicately pointed line, and wondered whether it had gone home where he intended it to go. Since his back had been turned to the real audience, he had been unable to observe their reaction; and now their backs were turned to him in an equally uninformative reversal. Neither of them said a word on the way, and Simon placidly left the silence to get tired of itself. But his thoughts were very busy as he sauntered after them along the winding path and saw the lighted windows of a house looming up through the thinning trees that had hidden it from the river bank. This, he realized with a jolt, must be the New Manor, and therefore the boathouse where Nora Prescott had been murdered was presumably a part of Marvin Chase's property. It made no difference to the facts, but the web of riddles seemed to draw tighter around him. , . .
They crossed a lawn and mounted some steps to a flagged terrace. Rosemary Chase led them through open french windows into an inoffensively furnished drawing-room, and the butler closed the windows behind him as he followed. Forrest threw himself sulkily into an armchair, but the girl had regained a composure that was just a fraction too detailed to be natural.
"What kind of drinks would you like ?" she asked.
"Beer for me," said the Saint, with the same studied urbanity. "Scotch for Hoppy. I'm afraid I should have warned you about him—he tikes to have his own bottle. We're trying to wean him, but it isn't going very well."
The butler bowed and oozed out.
The girl took a cigarette from an antique lacquer box, and Simon stepped forward politely with his lighter. He had an absurd feeling of unreality about this new atmosphere that made it a little difficult to hide his sense of humour, but all his senses were vigilant. She was even lovelier than he had thought at first sight, he admitted to himself as he watched her face over the flame—it was hard to believe that she might be an accomplice to wilful and messy and apparently mercenary murder. But she and Forrest had certainly chosen a very dramatic moment to arrive. . . .
"It's nice of you to have us here," he murmured, "after the way we've behaved."
"My father told me to bring you up," she said. "He seems to be quite an admirer of yours, and he was sure you couldn't have had anything to do with—with the murder."
"I noticed—down in the boathouse—you knew my name," said the Saint thoughtfully.
"Yes—the sergeant used it."
Simon looked at the ceiling.
"Bright lads, these policemen, aren't they? I wonder how he knew?"
"From—your gun licence, I suppose."
Simon nodded.
"Oh, yes. But before that. I mean, I suppose he must have told your father who I was. Nobody else could have done it, could they?"
The girl reddened and lost her voice; but Forrest found his. He jerked himself angrily out of his chair.
"What's the use of all this beating about the bush, Rosemary?" he demanded impatiently. "Why don't you tell him we know all about that letter that Nora wrote him?"
The door opened, and the butler came back with a tray of bottles and glasses and toured the room with them. There was a strained silence until he had gone again. Hoppy Uniatz stared at the newly opened bottle of whisky which had been put down in front of him, with a rapt and menacing expression which indicated that his grey matter was in the throes of another paroxysm of Thought.
Simon raised his glass and gazed appreciatively at the sparkling brown clearness within it.
"All right," he said. "If you want it that way. So you knew Nora Prescott had written to me. You came to the Bell to see what happened. Probably you watched through the windows first; then when she went out, you came in to watch me. You followed one of us to the boathouse——"
"And we ought to have told the police——"
"Of course." The Saint's voice was mild and friendly. "You ought to have told them about the letter. I
'm sure you could have quoted what was in it. Something about how she was being forced to help in putting over a gigantic fraud, and how she wanted me to help her. Sergeant Jesser would have been wild with excitement about that. Naturally, he'd 've seen at once that that provided an obvious motive for me to murder her, and none at all for the guy whose fraud was going to be given away. It really was pretty noble of you both to take so much trouble to keep me out of suspicion, and I appreciate it a lot. And now that we're all pals together, and there aren't any policemen in the audience, why don't you save me a lot of headaches and tell me what the swindle is?"
The girl stared at him.
"Do you know what you're saying ?"
"I usually have a rough idea," said the Saint coolly and deliberately. "I'll make it even plainer, if that's too subtle for you. Your father's a millionaire, they tell me. And when there are any gigantic frauds in the wind, I never expect to find the big shot sitting in a garret toasting kippers over a candle."
Forrest started towards him.
"Look here, Templar, we've stood about enough from you——"
"And I've stood plenty from you," said the Saint, without moving. "Let's call it quits. We were both misunderstanding each other at the beginning, but we don't have to go on doing it. I can't do anything for you if you don't put your cards on the table. Let's straighten it out now. Which of you two cooled off Nora Prescott?"
He didn't seem to change his voice, but the question came with a sharp stinging clarity like the flick of a whip. Rosemary Chase and the young man gaped at him frozenly, and he waited for an answer without a shift of his lazily negligent eyes. But he didn't get it.
The rattle of the doorhandle made everyone turn, almost in relief at the interruption. A tall cadaverous man, severely dressed in a dark suit and high old-fashioned collar, his chin bordered with a rim of black beard, pince-nez on a loop of black ribbon in his hand, came into the room and paused hesitantly.
Rosemary Chase came slowly out of her trance.
"Oh, Dr Quintus," she said in a quiet forced voice. "This is Mr Templar and—er——"
"Hoppy Uniatz," Simon supplied.
Dr Quintus bowed; and his black sunken eyes clung for a moment to the Saint's face.
"Delighted," he said in a deep burring bass; and turned back to the girl. "Miss Chase, I'm afraid the shock has upset your father a little. Nothing at all serious, I assure you, but I think it would be unwise for him to have any more excitement just yet. However, he asked me to invite Mr Templar to stay for dinner. Perhaps later . . ."
Simon took another sip at his beer, and his glance swung idly over to the girl with the first glint of a frosty sparkle in its depths.
"We'd be delighted," he said deprecatingly. "If Miss Chase doesn't object——"
"Why, of course not." Her voice was only the minutest shred of a decibel out of key. "We'd love to have you stay."
The Saint smiled his courteous acceptance, ignoring the wrathful half movement that made Forrest's attitude rudely obvious. He would have stayed anyway, whoever had objected. It was just dawning on him that out of the whole fishy set-up, Marvin Chase was the one man he had still to meet.
VI
"BOSS," SAID Mr Uniatz, rising to his feet with an air of firm decision, "should I go to de terlet ?"
It was not possible for, Simon to pretend that he didn't know him; nor could he take refuge in temporary deafness.
Mr Uniatz's penetrating accents were too peremptory for that to have been convincing. Simon swallowed, and took hold of himself with the strength of despair.
"I don't know, Hoppy," he said bravely. "How do you feel ?"
"I feel fine, boss. I just t'ought it might be a good place."
"It might be," Simon conceded feverishly.
"Dat was a swell idea of yours, boss," said Mr Uniatz, hitching up his bottle.
Simon took hold of the back of a chair for support.
"Oh, not at all," he said faintly. "It's nothing to do with me."
Hoppy looked puzzled.
"Sure, you t'ought of it foist, boss," he insisted generously. "Ya said to me, de nex time I should take de bottle away some place an' lock myself up wit' it. So I t'ought I might take dis one in de terlet. I just t'ought it might be a good place," said Mr Uniatz, rounding off the resume of his train of thought.
"Sit down!" said the Saint, with paralysing ferocity.
Mr Uniatz lowered himself back on to his hams with an expression of pained mystification, and Simon turned to the others.
"Excuse us, won't you ?" he said brightly. "Hoppy's made a sort of bet with himself about something, and he has a rather one-track mind."
Forrest glared at him coldly. Rosemary half put on a gracious smile, and took it off again. Dr Quintus almost bowed, with his mouth open. There was a lot of silence, in which Simon could feel the air prickling with pardonable speculations on his sanity. Every other reaction that he had been deliberately building up to provoke had had time to disperse itself under cover of the two consecutive interruptions. The spell was shattered, and he was back again where he began. He knew it, and resignedly slid into small talk that might yet lead to another opening.
"I heard that your father had a nasty motor accident, Miss Chase," he said.
"Yes."
The brief monosyllable offered nothing but the baldest affirmation; but her eyes were fixed on him with an expression that he tried unavailingly to read.
"I hope he wasn't badly hurt?"
"Quite badly burned," rumbled the doctor. "The car caught fire, you know. But fortunately his life isn't in danger. In fact, he would probably have escaped with nothing worse than a few bruises if he hadn't made such heroic efforts to save his secretary, who was trapped in the wreckage."
"I read something about it," lied the Saint. "He was burned to death, wasn't he ? What was his name now——"
"Bertrand Tamblin."
"Oh, yes. Of course."
Simon took a cigarette from his case and lighted it. He looked at the girl. His brain was still working at fighting pitch; but his manner was quite casual and disarming now— the unruffled conversational manner of an accepted friend discussing a minor matter of mutual interest.
"I just remembered something you said to the sergeant a little while ago, Miss Chase—about your having noticed that Nora Prescott seemed to be rather under a strain since Tamblin was killed."
She looked back at him steadily, neither denying it nor encouraging him.
He said, in the same sensible and persuasive way: "I was wondering whether you'd noticed them being particularly friendly before the accident—as if there was any kind of attachment between them."
He saw that the eyes of both Forrest and Dr Quintus turned towards the girl, as if they both had an unexpectedly intense interest in her answer. But she looked at neither of them.
"I can't be sure," she answered, as though choosing her words carefully. "Their work brought them together all the time, of course. Mr Tamblin was really father's private secretary and almost his other self, and when Nora came to us she worked for Mr Tamblin nearly as much as father. I thought sometimes that Mr Tamblin was—well, quite keen on her—but I don't know whether she responded. Of course I didn't ask her."
"You don't happen to have a picture of Tamblin, do you ?"
"I think there's a snapshot somewhere——"
She stood up and went over to an inlaid writing-table and rummaged in the drawer. It might have seemed fantastic that she should do that, obeying the Saint's suggestion as if he had hypnotized her; but Simon knew just how deftly he had gathered up the threads of his broken dominance and woven them into a new pattern. If the scene had to be played in that key, it suited him as well as any other. And with that key established, such an ordinary and natural request as he had made could not be refused. But he noticed that Dr Quintus followed her with his hollow black eyes all the way across the room.
"Here."
She gave Simon a commonplace Kodak print t
hat showed two men standing on the steps of a house. One of them was apparently of medium height, a little flabby, grey-haired in the small areas of his head where he was not bald. The other was a trifle shorter and leaner, with thick smooth black hair and metal-rimmed glasses.
The Saint touched his forefinger on the picture of the older man.
"Your father?"
"Yes."
It was a face without any outstanding features, creased in a tolerant if somewhat calculating smile. But Simon knew how deceptive a face could be, particularly in that kind of reproduction.
And the first thought that was thrusting itself forward in his mind was that there were two people dead, not only one —two people who had held similar and closely associated jobs, who from the very nature of their employment must have shared a good deal of Marvin Chase's confidence and known practically everything about his affairs, two people who must have known more about the intricate details of his business life than anyone else around him. One question clanged in the Saint's head like a deep jarring bell: Was Nora Prescott's killing the first murder to which that unknown swindle had led, or only the second ?
All through dinner his brain echoed the complex repercussions of that explosive idea, under the screen of superficial conversation which lasted through the meal. It gave that part of the evening a macabre spookiness. Hoppy Uniatz, hurt and frustrated, toyed halfheartedly with his food, which is to say that he did not ask for more than two helpings of any one dish. From time to time he washed down a mouthful with a gulp from the bottle which he had brought in with him, and put it down again to leer at it malevolently, as if it had personally welshed on him; Simon watched him anxiously when he seemed to lean perilously close to the candles which lighted the table, thinking that it would not take much to cause his breath to ignite and burn with a blue flame. Forrest had. given up his efforts to protest at the whole procedure. He ate most of the time in sulky silence, and when he spoke at all he made a point of turning as much of his back to the Saint as his place at the table allowed: plainly he had made up his mind that Simon Templar was a cad on whom good manners would be wasted. Rosemary Chase talked very little, but she spoke to the Saint when she spoke at all, and she was watching him all the time with enigmatic intentness. Dr Quintus was the only one who helped to shoulder the burden of maintaining an exchange of urbane trivialities. His reverberant basso bumbled obligingly into every conversational opening, and said nothing that was worth remembering. His eyes were like pools of basalt at the bottom of dry caverns, never altering their expression, and yet always moving, slowly, in a way that seemed to keep everyone under ceaseless surveillance.
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