He could have saved himself the histrionic warm-up, for there was no audience to be disarmed by it.
The office, except for the traditional appointments of such sancta, was empty.
Simon set the spring lock in the off position, as his story required it, closed the door, and conscientiously forced himself to make another of the definitive checks which seemed to be foisting themselves on him with irksome regularity. Mr Fennick was not in the conveniently coffin-sized coat closet. He was not under or behind the desk. Unless he had been cremated like a moth on the quarter-smoked but cold cigar in the ash tray, or ingested by the mouth-piece of the recording machine which still purred electronically beside the desk, or sucked out through the air conditioner which effectively blockaded the window, he must simply have gone out. Whether his antipathetic amanuensis knew it or not.
The Saint thought that she couldn’t know. If she had known, it would have been just as easy to say he was out, and should have given her the same orgasm of unhelpfulness.
The clock that formed the centerpiece of the onyx inkstand on the desk showed that it still lacked more than twenty minutes of noon.
Simon sat down in one of the guest armchairs, lighted a cigarette, and thought a lot more. For a full two minutes.
Then the outer door opened with the click of a key, and Otis Q Fennick came in.
After the first bounce of his entrance had ploughed to a soggy halt, as if he had bumped into an invisible wall of half-congealed treacle, the lordling of the lollipops looked almost exactly the same as he had when Simon pulled him off the hotel fire escape. That is, he wore the same clothes and the same expression of paralytic befuddlement. The only material difference was that on the former occasion he had been empty-handed, whereas at this moment he was awkwardly lugging under one arm a cardboard carton about the size of a case of Old Curio. This he very nearly dropped as he gaped at the Saint with the reproachful intensity of a gaffed goldfish.
What he said can be loosely reproduced as, “Wha... well... I mean... how...”
“Greetings again, Otis,” said the Saint amiably. “I hope you’ll forgive me waiting for you like this. Your devoted watchbitch (is that the correct feminine?) insisted that you were busy and wouldn’t let me in, but I couldn’t tell her why I was sure you wouldn’t be too busy to see me. So I toddled around and came in this other door which was fortunately unlatched.”
Mr Fennick pushed the door shut, frowning at it.
“I could have sworn I—”
“It must’ve fooled you,” Simon said calmly. “Locks will do that sometimes.”
The candy caliph put down his box. It seemed to be moderately heavy, and gave a faint metallic rattle when it tipped.
“Perhaps I didn’t check it too carefully,” he said. “I only went to the men’s room.”
“Do you have to take your own potty?” Simon inquired, gazing pointedly at the carton. “I thought this was quite a modern building.”
Mr Fennick also glanced at the box, but seemed to decide against pursuing that subject. He straightened his coat and tie and moved to his desk, pulling himself together with the same air of forced resolution as he might have brought to a difficult business situation.
“Well, now, since you’re here,” he said, “I hope you didn’t think I was ungrateful last night. But the note I left you was intended to be my last word on the subject, Mr Templar.”
“That’s what I thought,” said the Saint. “But what you forgot was that it mightn’t necessarily be mine.”
“That is what I was afraid of. And that is why I hoped you would be saintly enough to accept my refusal of your services in the spirit in which it was made.”
“So you did recognize my name.”
“After you’d left me in your room. I had nothing to do but keep on thinking, and it all fitted so well with what I’ve heard of your reputation. But it also meant that I couldn’t afford to be mixed up with you.”
“Do you mean because of your reputation, or your bank roll?”
“Frankly, because I didn’t know how long I could count on your sympathy. If you went on to take an active interest in my problem, I thought, you’d be bound to want to meet my wife eventually, and then she might get you on her side, and I’d be worse off than before. You don’t know her, you see, in the same way as I do.”
Simon ran lean brown fingers through his dark hair in a vaguely weary gesture.
“As a psychologist, you’re a terrific taffy puller,” he said. “When I get nosey, it takes more than a polite note to cool me off. And you had me thoroughly intrigued with the plot against your marital honor. So right after breakfast I was baying on the scent you’d let me sniff last night. As a matter of fact, I’ve just come from the pad of your buxom bedmate, the flashbulb gal.”
The other’s mouth sagged open to about the same extent as his eyes.
“You saw her?”
“On her way to the morgue. Someone else had been there first, and shot her.”
“Are you sure?”
“I didn’t see the bullet holes, if that’s what you mean. But I saw her carried out, and a neighbor said that’s what she died of. However, before that I’d been to the studio of the guy she worked for, to get her address. I had to look it up for myself, in his book. I can vouch for him.
Someone made so sure of not missing him that they singed his shirt.”
Mr Fennick was still staring rigidly.
“This is shocking!”
“Isn’t it?... My theory, of course, is that this person went to see Balton for the same reason that I did — to get the gal’s address. And also, perhaps, to get the negative of a certain picture. Was the photographer who snapped you in the Don Juan pose a fat fellow with a face like a rather lecherous pig?”
“I was dazed, and blinded by the light, as I told you,” Mr Fennick said carefully. “And the man’s face was hidden by his camera. But I have a sort of impression that he was stout.”
“I’m assuming that Balton was the guy. And since the gal was on his regular payroll, it would tie in. I also think that with a gun in his ribs he was persuaded to hand over the film, before he got mowed down anyhow.”
“Why?”
“Because if he hadn’t, there wouldn’t’ve been any point in killing Norma. She was only worth killing if she’d become the only other person who could swear that there’d ever been such a photo. And with the photo gone, it won’t help the police much to be told — as their laboratory boys probably will tell ’em — that the same gun did both jobs. They’ll be stuck for a motive, not having the inside dope like us... But I saw how you reacted when I told you I’d come from Norma’s apartment, before I ever said she’d been shot. And I’ve noticed that you haven’t queried my use of her name and Balton’s, although last night you didn’t seem to know either one.”
Mr Fennick, groping for some occupation for his hands, picked up the spoiled cigar from his ash tray and clamped it between his teeth with a practically unconscious automatism, made a grimace, but re-lighted it anyhow.
“After what I told you last night, Mr Templar, you could make it look very bad for me.”
“I could,” said the Saint detachedly. “But my problem is that I somehow can’t visualize you becoming a murderer just to get out of a phony blackmail jam.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“So I’ve been thinking about your wife, and a few things I’ve learned about her that you didn’t tell me. For instance, that she has an old girlfriend here, good enough to drop in and stay with. Was this friend’s name Uplitz?”