Chapter X
A clock was booming the half-hour after twelve when Chief Inspector Teal climbed stiffly out of his special police car at the gates of the Ocean Dock. It had been half-past ten when he left Albany Street Police Station, and that single chime indicated that the Flying Squad driver had made a very creditable run of it from London to Southampton.
For Isadore Elberman had duly squealed, as the Saint had expected, and it had been no mean squeal. Considerably stewed down after a sleepless night in the cells, he had reiterated to the Divisional Inspector the story with which he had failed to gain Teal's ear the evening before; and the tale had come through with a wealth of embellishments in the way of circumstantial detail that had made the Inspector reach hastily for the telephone and call for Mr. Teal to lend his personal patronage to the squeak.
Isadora Elberman was not the only member of the cast who had spent a sleepless night. Teal had been waiting on the doorstep of his bank when it opened in the morning. He asked casually for his balance, and in a few minutes the cashier passed a slip of paper across the counter. It showed exactly one thousand eight hundred pounds more to his credit than it should have done, and he had no need to make further inquiries. He took a taxi from the bank to Upper Berkeley Mews; but a prolonged assault on the front door elicited no response, and the relief watcher told him that Templar and the girl had gone out at nine-thirty and had not returned. Teal went back to New Scotland Yard, and it was there that the call from Albany Street found him.
And on the way down to Southampton the different fragments of the jigsaw in which he had involved himself had fitted themselves together in his head, dovetailing neatly into one another without a gap or a protuberance anywhere, and producing a shape with one coherent outline and a sickeningly simple picture lithographed upon it in three colours. So far as the raw stark facts of the case were concerned, there wasn't a leak or a loose end in the whole copper-bottomed consolidation of them. It was as puerile and patent as the most elementary exercise in kindergarten arithmetic. It sat up on its hind legs and leered at him.
Slowly and stolidly, with clenched fists buried deep in the pockets of his overcoat, Chief Inspector Teal went up the gangway of the Berengaria to see the story through.
And down in the well-deck aft, Simon Templar was sitting on a wardrobe trunk discoursing genially to two stewards, a porter, an irate lady with pimples, and a small group of fascinated passengers.
"I agree," the Saint was saying. "It is an outrage. But you must blame Bertie for that. I can only conclude that he doesn't like red flannel nighties either. So far as can be deduced from the circumstances, the sight of your eminently respectable robes filled him with such an uncontrollable frenzy that he began to empty the whole contents of your trunk out of the window. But am I to blame? Am I Bertie's keeper? At a moment when my back was turned——"
"I don't believe you!" stormed the irate lady. "You're a common thief, that's what you are! I should know that trunk anywhere. I can describe everything that's in it——"
"I'll bet you can't," said the Saint.
The lady appealed to the assembled spectators.
"This is unbearable!" she raved. "It's the most barefaced imposture I ever heard of! This man has stolen my clothes and put his own labels on the trunk——"
"Madam," said the Saint, "I've never disputed that the trunk, as a trunk, was yours. The labels refer to the destination of the contents. As a strictly law-abiding citizen——"
"Where," demanded the pimply female hysterically, "is the Captain?"
And at that point Teal shouldered himself into the front rank of the crowd.
Just for a second he stood looking at the Saint, and Simon saw that there were shadows under his eyes and the faintest trace of flabbiness about his cheeks. But the eyes themselves were hard and expressionless, and the lips below them were pressed up into a dour line.
"I thought I should find you here," he said.
The last of the Lovedews whirled round.
"Do you know this man?"
"Yes," said Teal rigidly. "I know him."
The Saint crossed his legs and took out a cigarette-case. He indicated the detective with a wave of his hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he murmured, "allow me to introduce the deus ex machina, or whizzbang out of the works. This is Mr. Claud Eustace Teal, who is going to tell us about his wanderings in Northern Euthanasia. Mr. Teal, Miss Lovedew. Miss Lovedew ——"
"Teal?" The infuriated lady leapt back as though she had been stung. "Are you Teal?"
"That is my name," said the slightly startled detective.
"You stand there and admit that to me?"
"Yes—of course."
The woman reeled back into the arms of one of the bystanders.
"Has everyone gone mad?" she wailed. "I'm being robbed in broad daylight! That is this man's accomplice—he hasn't denied it! Can nobody do anything to stop them?"
Teal blinked.
"I'm a police officer," he said.
"You're a liar!" screamed the woman.
"My good lady ——"
"Don't you dare speak to me like that! You're a low, mean, impertinent thief——"
"But——"
"I want my trunk. I'm going to have my trunk! How can I go to New York without my trunk? That is my own trunk——"
"But, Claud," said the Saint earnestly, "have you seen the trunk of the butler of her uncle? That is a trunk of the most colossal."
Miss Lovedew gazed wildly about her.
"Will no one help me?" she moaned.
Simon removed the cigarette from his mouth and stood up. He placed one foot on the trunk, rested his right forearm on his knee, and raised a hand for silence.
"May I be allowed to explain?" he said.
The woman clutched her forehead.
"Is anyone going to listen to this—this—this——"
"Gentleman?" suggested the Saint, tentatively.
Teal stepped forward and took a grip of his belt.
"I am a police officer," he repeated trenchantly, "and I should certainly like to hear his explanation."
This time he made the statement of his identity with such a bald authoritativeness that the buzz of surrounding comment died down to a tense hush. Even the pimply protagonist gaped at him in silence, with her assurance momentarily shaken. The stillness piled up with almost theatrical effect.
"Well?" said Teal.
The Saint gestured airily with his cigarette.
"You arrive," he said, "in time to arbitrate over a serious misunderstanding. Let me give you the facts. I travelled down by the boat train from Waterloo this morning in order to keep an eye on a friend of ours whom we'll call Bertie. During the journey I lost sight of him. I tootled around to find out what was happening to him, and eventually located him in the luggage van and in the very act of throwing the last of Miss Lovedew's what's-its out of the window."
"It's a lie!" bleated the lady, faint but pursuing. "He stole my clothes, insulted me in my carriage——"
"We come to that in a minute," said the Saint imperturbably. "As I was saying, I found Bertie just crawling into the trunk he had so unceremoniously emptied. At great personal peril and inconvenience, Claud, I helped him towards his objective and locked him up for delivery to yourself. In order to do this, I was compelled to make a temporary alteration to the labels on the trunk, which I admit I borrowed for the good cause without Miss Lovedew's permission. I made one attempt to explain the circumstances to her, but was rejected with contumely. Then, while I was waiting for you to arrive, this argument about the rightful ownership of the property began. The trunk, as I've never denied, belongs to Miss Lovedew. The dispute seems to be about Bertie."