Grey Wyler was the first who was able to say anything.
After an initial moment of shock he had begun to study the scene with the intense fascination of a strong-stomached biology student peering into the bowels of his first dissected cat.
“It’s real,” he murmured to himself. “It happened.”
He looked at Simon, who appeared to be the only person with sturdy enough nerves to hold up the other side of a conversation.
“It really worked,” said Wyler.
“Am I to take that as a confession?” asked the Saint.
Wyler ignored the question and bent down to inspect the blasted end of the telephone receiver without touching it.
“I invented the idea,” he said. “I used it to get Peter Collins several months ago. My first decathlon.”
“Oh, Grey,” Jenny said. “This is no time to...”
Wyler interrupted her.
“The beauty of it is, you can control the timing. There was... I suppose you wouldn’t know... a tuning fork used at the other end of the line?”
“He mentioned the sound of one,” said Simon.
“There,” Wyler announced triumphantly. “Exactly as I planned it. If the wrong person answers when you call to set off the blast, you don’t twang the tuning fork.”
“Ingenious,” Simon said with dry abhorrence. “You deserve something for that.”
He had the distinct feeling, as he watched Wyler babble enthusiastically about his deadly inventiveness, that he was in the presence not merely of a neurotic, but of a mind that was dangerously unbalanced. Wyler was reacting to the whole thing as an immodest author might react to fondling a copy of his first published book. That, more than any display of shock and sorrow could have, dispelled any thoughts the Saint might have had about Wyler’s responsibility for the killing. It was highly unlikely that a murderer would choose a mood so grotesquely akin to enthralled delight for the purpose of covering his guilt. More bizarre dramatics had been tried, but in Wyler’s case the abnormal reaction seemed genuine.
Within three minutes the first policeman arrived, with the ancient watchman panting at his heels. Dr Manders, who after a long period of silence had managed to recover control of his breath and quavering lips, chose that moment to address the Saint.
“I wouldn’t be so ready to accuse Wyler, if I were you,” he said hoarsely. “You were the only one here when... when Bast was killed.”
Simon had to wait for a predictable but none the less flattering response on the part of the policeman, who recognized him immediately, came to a sudden halt, and seemed ready to back out of the laboratory and run for reinforcements.
“Simon Templar,” the officer said, as if he had to hear it himself to believe it.
“And the top of the evening to you,” said the seraphically innocent cause of his discomposure, with a slightly exaggerated bow. “How are the wife and kiddies?”
“Quite well, thank you How’d you know about them?”
“You just have the look of a nice family man.”
The policeman swallowed and tried to recover a stern and authoritative air.
“Inspector Teal is on his way.”
To one unacquainted — if there are any such still squandering their impoverished lives in the backwaters of this planet — with the history of the relationship of Simon Templar with the upper echelons of Scotland Yard, the officer’s latter statement might have seemed irrelevant, even eccentric or inexplicable. But to the more enlightened multitudes of the earth it will be perfectly apparent that the cognomen of his chieftain — Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, always bested and even more often outwitted by the Saint — was in spite of its connotations of defeat and frustration the nearest thing to a protective amulet or holy name which he could draw upon in these trying circumstances. He would let the gods and Titans fight their own battles. As for him, he would merely issue the customary warning against illicit departures from the scene of the crime and busy himself with writing down the names and addresses of those present in his official notebook.
Simon turned his attention back to Dr Manders.
“I believe you were accusing me of the murder when this efficient guardian of peace and tranquillity arrived on the scene.”
Much stronger men than Manders had quailed before the sharp blue penetration of the Saint’s eyes.
“No,” he said feebly, at the same time trying to insert a measure of defiance into his tone. “I merely stated that you were the only one with Bast when he was killed. Therefore if I were in your place I wouldn’t go around insinuating...”
“Dr Manders,” said the Saint coldly, “I am not in the habit of shooting people with telephones. And I defy anybody on earth — even Inspector Teal — to come up with an even remotely plausible reason why I should want to do away with a man I met only two hours ago and don’t know the first thing about.”
That last phrase, while slightly mendacious, might at least forestall any suspicions on Manders’ part that Bast had revealed his apprehensions before he was permanently silenced. It was no more than a hope, but there was no harm in trying.
Manders opened his mouth and thought better of it. He went over to one of the larger chairs at the end of one of the tables, sat down, and supported his elbow on the surface, morosely resting his cheek on his hand.
Wyler, having completed his inspection of the death scene and given his statement, turned superciliously back to the constable, who had begun to question one of the other students.
“I see no reason for our staying here,” he said. “The crime was done by remote control. Mr Templar couldn’t have done it, if he was here in this room when the shot went off, and the rest of us just happened to be the first to arrive after we got word about the explosion. You’ve got no more reason to suspect us than those people hanging around in the hall outside.”
“Nobody is allowed to leave,” said the policeman, as if quoting from some rule book, and he went back to writing his notes.
“We have to fly to the Bahamas tomorrow,” Wyler persisted, moving close to him, tilting back his head a little so he could look down his nose at a man approximately his own height. “We can’t stay up here all night when there’s no reason for it.”
“Nobody leaves,” said the constable grimly, taking a renewed stranglehold on his stub of a pencil.
“Surely we won’t be going,” Jenny said, finding her first words since she had entered the laboratory.
She looked questioningly at Dr Manders, but he had already made a slight but definite jerking movement of his head, as if her sentence carried a minor electrical charge.
“Of course you will,” he said. “We can’t let... this interfere with everything.”
Jenny glanced in the direction of Bast’s corpse and shuddered, looking quickly away again.
“I... I’m not sure I could. I mean, I don’t really feel like much of a...”
Simon’s mind had been working with a speed and efficiency that would have dazzled the computer at the end of the room and possibly made it blink its little rows of glowing red eyes with envy. His theories and plans were not fully formulated yet, but certain broad shapes were already emerging. He was enough ahead of the game to know that if Jenny pressed her point certain things he had in mind for the immediate future might be endangered.
“Dr Manders is right,” he said gently, but with a subtle undercurrent of pressure which he hoped the girl wouldn’t try to resist. “It’s all planned, and a trip is just what you could probably use right now.”
Manders looked approving, surprised, and vaguely suspicious. The Saint turned to him, still giving the impression that he was speaking to Jenny.
“And other people might be inconvenienced if you changed your plans. That wouldn’t be fair to them, would it?”