"Go on."
"Then you realized that someone would send for the police, and you had to delay that until you'd carried out your original plan of strengthening Quintus's alibi and killing Hoppy and me. You cut the phone wires. That was another error: an outside gang would have done that first and taken no chances, not run the risk of hanging around to do it after the job was pulled. Again, you didn't shoot at me when I went out of doors the second time, because you wanted to make it look as if Quintus was also being shot at first. Then when you chose your moment, I was lucky enough to be too fast for you. When you heard me chasing round the outside of the house, you pushed off into the night for another think. I'd 've had the hell of a time catching you out there in the dark, so I let you hear me talking to the butler because I knew it would fetch you in."
Tamblin nodded.
"You only made two mistakes," he said. "Forrest would have been killed anyway, only I should have chosen a better time for it. I heard Rosemary talking to him one night outside the front door, directly under my window, when he was leaving — that is how I found out that Nora had written to you and where she was going to meet you."
"And the other mistake?" Simon asked coolly.
"Was when you let your own cleverness run away with you. When you arranged your clever scheme to get me to walk in here to provide the climax for your dramatic revelations, and even left the front door ajar to make it easy for me. You conceited fool! You've got your confession; but did you think I'd let it do you any good? Your bluff only bothered me for a moment when I was afraid Quintus had ratted. As soon as I found he hadn't, I was laughing at you. The only difference you've made is that now I shall have to kill Rosemary as well. Quintus had ideas about her, and we could have used her to build up the story—"
"Bertrand," said the Saint gravely, "I'm afraid you are beginning to drivel."
The revolver that was trained on him did not waver.
"Tell me why," Tamblin said interestedly.
Simon trickled smoke languidly through his nostrils. He was still leaning back in his chair, imperturbably relaxed, in the attitude in which he had stayed even when Tamblin entered the room.
"Because it's your turn to be taking too much for granted. You thought my cleverness had run away with me, and so you stopped thinking. It doesn't seem to have occurred to you that since I expected you to come in, I may have expected just how sociable your ideas would be when you got here. You heard me give Jeeves a gun, and so you've jumped to the conclusion that I'm unarmed. Now will you take a look at my left hand? You notice that it's in my coat pocket. I've got you covered with another gun, Bertrand, and I'm ready to bet I can shoot faster than you. If you don't believe me, just start squeezing that trigger."
Tamblin stood gazing motionlessly at him for a moment; and then his head tilted back and a cackle of hideous laughter came through the slit in the bandages over his mouth.
"Oh, no, Mr Templar," he crowed. "You're the one who took too much for granted. You decided that Quintus was a phoney doctor, and so you didn't stop to think that he might be a genuine pickpocket. When he was holding on to you in the corridor upstairs — you remember? — he took the magazines out of both your guns. You've got one shot in the chamber of the gun you've got left, and Quintus has got you covered as well now. You can't get both of us with one bullet. You've been too clever for the last time—"
It was no bluff. Simon knew it with a gambler's instinct, and knew that Tamblin had the last laugh.
"Take your hand out of your pocket," Tamblin snarled. "Quintus is going to aim at Rosemary. If you use that gun, you're killing her as surely as if —"
The Saint saw Tamblin's forefinger twitch on the trigger, and waited for the sharp bite of death.
The crisp thunder of cordite splintered the unearthly stillness; but the Saint felt no shock, no pain. Staring incredulously, he saw Tamblin stagger as if a battering-ram had hit him in the back; saw him sway weakly, his right arm drooping until the revolver slipped through his fingers; saw his knees fold and his body pivot slantingly over them like a falling tree… And saw the cubist figure and pithecanthropoid visage of Hoppy Uniatz coming through the door with a smoking Betsy in its hairy hand.
He heard another thud on his right, and looked round. The thud was caused by Quintus's gun hitting the carpet. Quintus's hands waved wildly in the air as Hoppy turned towards him.
"Don't shoot!" he screamed. "I'll give you a confession. I haven't killed anyone. Tamblin did it all. Don't shoot me—"
"He doesn't want to be shot, Hoppy," said the Saint. "I think we'll let the police have him — just for a change. It may help to convince them of our virtue."
"Boss," said Mr Uniatz, lowering his gun, "I done it."
The Saint nodded. He got up out of his chair. It felt rather strange to be alive and untouched.
"I know," he said. "Another half a second and he'd 've been the most famous gunman on earth."
Mr Uniatz glanced cloudily at the body on the floor.
"Oh, him," he said vaguely, "Yeah… But listen, boss — I done it!"
"You don't have to worry about it," said the Saint. "You've done it before. And Comrade Quintus's squeal will let you out."
Rosemary Chase was coming towards him, pale but steady. It seemed to Simon Templar that a long time had been wasted in which he had been too busy to remember how beautiful she was and how warm and red her lips were. She put out a hand to him; and because he was still the Saint and always would be, his arm went round her.
"I know it's tough," he said. "But we can't change it."
"It doesn't seem so bad now, somehow," she said. "To know that at least my father wasn't doing all this… I wish I knew how to thank you."
"Hoppy's the guy to thank," said the Saint, and looked at him. "I never suspected you of being a thought-reader, Hoppy, but I'd give a lot to know what made you come out of the kitchen in the nick of time?"
Mr Uniatz blinked at him.
"Dat's what I mean, boss, when I say I done it," he explained, his brow furrowed with the effort of amplifying a statement which seemed to him to be already obvious enough. "When you call out de butler, he is just opening me anudder bottle of Scotch. An' dis time I make de grade. I drink it down to de last drop wit'out stopping. So I come right out to tell ya." A broad beam of ineffable pride opened up a gold mine in the centre of Mr Uniatz's face. "I done it, boss! Ain't dat sump'n?"
Part 3: The affair of Hogsbotham
I
There are times," remarked Simon Templar, putting down the evening paper and pouring himself a second glass of Tio Pepe, "when I am on the verge of swearing a great oath never to look at another newspaper as long as I live. Here you have a fascinating world full of all kinds of busy people, being born, falling in love, marrying, dying and being killed, working, starving, fighting, splitting atoms and measuring stars, inventing trick corkscrews and relativity theories, building skyscrapers and suffering hell with toothache. When I buy a newspaper I want to read all about them. I want to know what they're doing and creating and planning and striving for and going to war about — all the exciting vital things that make a picture of a real world and real people's lives. And what do I get?"
"What do you get, Saint?" asked Patricia Holm with a smile.