“Well, if it isn’t good old Dio Two — or is it One?” murmured the Saint. “Do you realise that you’re breaking up the best workout I’ve had for about four days?”
“Templar, I’m sorry. Those idiots didn’t realise—”
“They realised, all right. Just look around.”
Simon indicated the open crates, then casually reached inside one, took out a rifle, and threw it down with a clatter at Patroclos’ feet. Patroclos seemed utterly astonished. He picked up the rifle and examined it, peered into the open cases, and then turned to the ship’s captain.
“What is the meaning of this?” he snapped.
The captain shrugged sullenly and said nothing. Simon rested one foot on a crate, folded his arms, and slowly shook his head in wonderment. And he laughed.
“I’ll be happy to explain on the Captain’s behalf, Dio” he began. “Singapore was just a paper destination — to satisfy the authorities. All that nonsense about the ships being diverted! They weren’t diverted at all. From the outset they were bound for North Korea.”
Patroclos swore fluently in Greek.
“American arms for North Korea?... If this is true, then it must be that impostor who—”
“There is no impostor,” said the Saint coolly. “And there never has been. You manufactured him. It was you all the time.”
13
In the ensuing silence all the muscles of Patroclos’ face and neck seemed to be working; the black musketball eyes burned with anger; and for the first time, the shadow of something like fear flitted across the strong swarthy face. Patroclos flicked a nervous tongue over his lips, which had suddenly turned pale. At last he found his voice.
“Then why would I hire you?” he demanded harshly.
“You needed an impartial witness to prove that this other man — this scapegoat-to-be — existed.”
“Which you are.”
“I might have been,” Simon conceded. “I’ll admit you had me flummoxed at first. Your planning was tremendous — and your psychology was pretty good too... The girl at the airport... The heavies at the hotel to warn me off — you knew that was the one sure way to get me on the hook... The quick dash to London — in your private plane, you were probably there before I was... The slightly altered appearance and voice... The briefing of your staff at this end... The invented detail—”
“And how did I make you come to Athens in the first place?” Patroclos scoffed.
“You didn’t. That was sheer opportunism. Oh, you’d planned to set someone up before long, of course — I just happened along at the ideal time. I haven’t always been an upright citizen, but I do have a reputation, though I say so myself, for being nobody’s patsy, and I daresay the challenge appealed to your vanity. If you could fool me — and you very nearly did — you could fool anybody. Anyhow, you seized the chance when you saw my name on a passenger list. And then you exploited it for all it was worth.”
“You are beginning to sound like some kind of lunatic.”
“You played me like a fish on a line. For a long time, I had an uneasy feeling I was being manipulated, but I couldn’t quite see how. But that’s your forte — manipulation. Dio, there’s no doubt the plan was brilliant. There was just one serious flaw...”
Diogenes Patroclos stared at him impassively.
“Which was...?”
“The whole basic premise,” continued the Saint. “As I said right at the start, the idea of a perfect impersonation is a lot of baloney.”
“And yet that impostor has still deceived you.” Patroclos persisted. “You saw with your own eyes—”
“—just what you meant me to see,” Simon completed with inexorable calm. “You did it so well you almost had me believing in this darned impersonator — and to begin with I was about as sceptical as anyone could be. Appearance, voice, mannerisms, knowledge, habits — a human being’s just too complicated a thing to be mimicked that closely. My whole instinct was against it. But I’ll admit you played your hand cleverly enough to get me seriously wondering if I could have been wrong after all. Starting when I saw you and the other Ariadne in London.”
“But I suppose I was sure that you would see us?” Patroclos argued sarcastically.
“You’d given me the address as a starting point. You knew I’d go there and watch the house — and before long I’d be bound to see you. And you guessed that as soon as I did, the first thing I’d do would be to check by phoning Athens and asking to speak to you there. You even had something pretty good worked out for that. A simple trick, but good enough.”
“What was that?”
“A dictaphone recording for your Ariadne here to turn on, with the kind of answer that would be sure to fit in well enough with the kind of thing I could be expected to say.”
“You should be writing detective stories,” Patroclos said, but his confidence was beginning to have a hollow ring.
“My friend Charteris has often said the same thing,” Simon agreed good-humouredly. “I must have a go at it one day. But when I do, I’ll have to give you credit for some beautiful touches, like for instance pretending some time back to have forgotten about some startling shirts you’d ordered before your last trip away. You figured I’d be sure to find an opportunity to question Bainter — as I did.”
Diogenes Patroclos was no quitter. His innumerable worst enemies had never said that of him, and it would have been a ludicrous assertion in any case. A man who gives up before the ultimate sanction simply does not get into the millionaire bracket. Even now, Simon felt, in allowing the argument to go on to the almost absurd lengths of the time-honoured detective-story cliché in which the stereotype sleuth spends endless minutes of the last act explaining with clairvoyant precision just what everybody else was plotting and pretending, Patroclos was in fact treating himself to a complete preview of the case against himself, probing it for any weak points, and assessing every possibility of brazening out his own defence.
“If you had been clever enough to catch that impostor,” Patroclos said, “his confession would have proved what nonsense you are talking. But now I think you are only making these absurd accusations to cover up your own failure.”
“Yes, that was a grand finale,” mused the Saint. “The dash after your Rolls with no one in it but the driver — and the plane with no one but the pilot. I suppose he did parachute out while the plane was still over land, after setting the automatic pilot to make it crash in the sea? Or was there a time bomb in the briefcase that went on board?... Anyhow, conveniently complete end of impersonator, leaving it theoretically impossible to prove that he never existed. Except that you’re still stuck with at least one accomplice too many.”
“Who?”
“That chauffeur, who knows that no double of yours got on the plane. And whatever you’re paying him, or unless you’ve already disposed of him, I bet he’ll talk under pressure. And the pressure will certainly be applied when I tell my story, and back it up with that dictaphone record which you so carelessly didn’t erase.”
The Saint’s remorseless prosecution came to this conclusion with such relaxed assurance that he might have commanded three times the muscle of Patroclos’ minions, instead of being in a lonely minority of one. And the shipping Midas, almost physically impaled on the Saint’s sapphire gaze, could only have known that the last hope of bluff and bluster was gone.
“You can’t win ’em all,” Simon told him, with hypnotic softness. “Give up, Dio.”
Patroclos scowled at him for a long moment.
“So,” he said finally. “So much work for nothing... But if you will not be a witness for me” — he spat out the words — “you will never be one against me!”