The Saint switched off his light and stood motionless. Then.he flitted across the terrace, crossed the drive, and merged himself into the shadow of a big clump of laurels on the edge of the lawn. Again he froze into breathless immobility. The blackness ahead of him was Stygian, impenetrable, even to his noctambulant eyes, but hearing would serve his temporary purpose almost as well as sight. The night had fallen so still that he could even hear the rustle of the distant river; and he waited for minutes that seemed like hours to him, and must have seemed like weeks to a guilty prowler who could not have travelled very far after the wires were broken. And while he waited, he was trying to decide at exactly what point in his last speech the break had occurred. It could easily have happened at a place where Trapani would think he had finished and rung off… But he heard nothing while he stood there — not the snap of a twig or the rustle of a leaf.
He went back to the drawing-room and found the butler standing there, wringing his hands in a helpless sort of way.
"Where have you been?" he inquired coldly.
The man's loose bloodhound jowls wobbled.
"I went to fetch my wife, sir," He indicated the stout red-faced woman who was kneeling beside the couch, chafing the girl's nerveless wrists. "To see if she could help Miss Chase."
Simon's glance flickered over the room like a rapier blade, and settled pricklingly on an open french window.
"Did you have to fetch her in from the garden?' he asked sympathetically.
"I–I don't understand, sir."
"Don't you? Neither do I. But that window was closed when I saw it last."
"I opened it just now, sir, to give Miss Chase some fresh air."
The Saint held his eyes ruthlessly, but the butler did not try to look away.
"All right," he said at length. "We'll check up on that presently. Just for the moment, you can both go back to the kitchen."
The stout woman got to her feet with the laboured motions of a rheumatic camel.
" 'Oo do you think you are," she demanded indignantly, "to be bossing everybody about in this 'ouse?"
"I am the Grand Gugnunc of Waziristan," answered the Saint pleasantly. "And I said — get back to the kitchen."
He followed them back himself, and went on through to find Hoppy Uniatz. The other door of the kitchen conveniently opened into the small rear hall into which the back stairs came down and from which the back door also opened. Simon locked and bolted the back door, and drew Hoppy into the kitchen doorway and propped him up against the jamb. "If you stand here," he said, "you'll be able to cover the back stairs and this gang in the kitchen at the same time. And that's what I want you to do. None of them is to move out of your sight — not even to get somebody else some fresh air."
"Okay, boss," said Mr Uniatz dimly. "If I only had a drink—"
"Tell Jeeves to buy you one."
The Saint was on his way out again when the butler stopped him.
"Please, sir, I'm sure I could be of some use—"
"You are being useful," said the Saint, and closed the door on him.
Rosemary Chase was sitting up when he returned to the drawing-room.
"I'm sorry," she said weakly. "I'm afraid I fainted."
"I'm afraid you did," said the Saint. "I poked you in the tummy to make sure it was real, and it was. It looks as if I've been wrong about you all the evening. I've got a lot of apologies to make, and you'll have to imagine most of them. Would you like a drink?"
She nodded; and he turned to the table and operated with a bottle and siphon. While he was doing it, he said with matter-of-fact naturalness: "How many servants do you keep here?"
"The butler and his wife, a housemaid, and a parlourmaid."
"Then they're all rounded up and accounted for. How long have you known them?"
"Only about three weeks — since we've been here."
"So that means nothing. I should have had them corralled before, but I didn't think fast enough." He brought the drink over and gave it to her. "Anyway, they're corralled now, under Hoppy's thirsty eye, so if anything else happens we'll know they didn't have anything to do with it. If that's any help… Which leaves only us — and Quintus."
"What happened to him?"
"He said he got whacked on the head by our roving bogey-man."
"Hadn't you better look after him?"
"Sure. In a minute."
Simon crossed the room and closed the open window, and drew the curtains. He came back and stood by the table to light a cigarette. There had been so much essential activity during the past few minutes that he had had no time to do any constructive thinking; but now he had to get every possible blank filled in before the next move was made. He put his lighter away and studied her with cool and friendly encouragement, as if they had a couple of years to spare in which to straighten out misunderstandings.
She sipped her drink and looked up at him with dark stricken eyes from which, he knew, all pretence and concealment had now been wiped away. They were eyes that he would have liked to see without the grief in them; and the pallor of her face made him remember its loveliness as he had first seen it. Her red lips formed bitter words without flinching.
"I'm the one who ought to have been killed. If I hadn't been such a fool this might never have happened. I ought to be thrown in the river with a weight round my neck. Why don't you say so?"
"That wouldn't be any use now," he said. "I'd rather you made up for it. Give me the story."
She brushed the hair off her forehead with a weary gesture.
"The trouble is — I can't. There isn't any story that's worth telling. Just that I was — trying to be clever. It all began when I read a letter that I hadn't any right to read. It was in this room. I'd been out. I came in through the french windows, and I sat down at the desk because I'd just remembered something I had to make a note of. The letter was on the blotter in front of me — the letter you got. Nora must have just finished it, and then left the room for a moment, just before I came in, not thinking anyone else would be around. I saw your name on it. I'd heard of you, of course. It startled me so much that I was reading on before I knew what I was doing. And then I couldn't stop. I read it all. Then I heard Nora coming back. I lost my head and slipped out through the window again without her seeing me."
"And you never spoke to her about it?"
"I couldn't — later. After all that, I couldn't sort of come out and confess that I'd read it. Oh, I know I was a damn fool. But I was scared. It seemed as if she must know something dreadful that my father was involved in. I didn't know anything about his affairs. But I loved him. If he was doing something crooked, whatever it was, I'd have been hurt to death; but still I wanted to try and protect him. I couldn't talk about it to anybody but Jim. We decided the only thing was to find out what it was all about. That's why we followed Nora to the Bell, and then followed you to the boathouse."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
She shrugged hopelessly.
"Because I was afraid to. You remember I asked you about how much you hated crooks? I was afraid that if my father was mixed up in — anything wrong — you'd be even more merciless than the police. I wanted to save him. But I didn't think — all this would happen. It was hard enough not to say anything when we found Nora dead. Now that Jim's been killed, I can't go on with it any more."
The Saint was silent for a moment, weighing her with his eyes; and then he said: "What do you know about this guy Quintus?"
IX
"Hardly anything," she said. "He happened to be living close to where the accident happened, and father was taken to his house. Father took such a fancy to him that when they brought him home he insisted on bringing Dr Quintus along to look after him — at least, that's what I was told. I know what you're thinking." She looked at him steadily. "You think there's something funny about him."