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"Is Templar here?" roared Mr Teal.
"Is 'oo 'ere? If you meanMister Templar "
"I mean Mr Templar!" said the detective chokingly. "Is Mr Templar here?"
"Oo wants ter know?"
"I want to know!" bellowed Mr Teal, his spleen surging out of him like a
discharge of poison gas. "Stand out of the way, my man. I'm coming in "
"Like 'ell you are," Orace said stolidly. "Back door fer you, my man. The
idear !"
At this point of the proceedings Simon Templar, resplendent in tuxedo and
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soft silk shirt, materialized into the picture. The living-room door was half
open, and the Saint had an idea that the dialogue would soon become blue
around the edges and unfit for the shell-like ears of his guests.
"All right, Orace," he said breezily. "Walk right in, Claud Eustace. What
brings you into the wilds this evening? Not that I wasn't expecting you "
"Oh, you were expecting me, were you ?" broke in Mr Teal, forcing the words
past his strained throttle with some difficulty. "Well, I hope you're glad to
be right. You've been just a little too smart since I saw you this afternoon.
Now I know damned well youare the Z-Man!"
"In that case, dear heart, there must be two Z-Men," answered the Saint
accommodatingly. "Isn't it amazing how the little fellows breed? I'm glad
you're here, Claud. There's something I want you to do. It '11 interest you to
know that I had quite a chat with the original Z-Man this evening "
"When I want to listen to any more of that I'll let you know," Teal said
massively. "Just now I'm going to be busy. I have reason to believe that you
kidnapped Miss Beatrice Avery from her apartment in Parkside Court this
evening, and I'm not going to leave this house until I've searched it and you
might as well know that I haven't got a warrant."
"But why search the house, dear old fungus?" Simon protested reasonably.
"Kidnapping is a hard word, and I resent it. But I'm willing to make
allowances for your blood pressure. At the rate the red corpuscles are being
pumped through that lump of petrified wood you wear your hat on the poor thing
must be feeling the strain. Have I denied that Miss Avery is under this roof?
She came down with Patricia a little more than an hour ago, and we're just
having our coffee."
Mr Teal gulped, and his chewing gum slithered to the back of his mouth,
played hide-and-seek with his tonsils and finally slid into his gullet before
he could recover it.
"What!" His voice was like a pinpricked carnival balloon. "You admit you've
got her here? You admit you're the Z-Man? Then by God "
"My poor boob," said the Saint sympathetically, "I haven't admitted anything
of the sort. I merely said that Miss Avery was having dinner with me. If that
makes me the Z-Man it makes you the Grand Lama of Tibet. Miss Avcry is a
friend of Pat's, and we've got a couple of other good-looking girls here too.
We're making a collection of them. If you'll promise to behave yourself I'll
take you in and let you look at them."
He turned back into the living room, and Mr Teal followed him with the
beginnings of a new vacuum pumping itself out from under his belt. Somehow it
was going to be done again the awful certainty of it made Mr Teal feel
physically sick. He had a wild desire to turn back to his car and drive away
to the end of the earth and forget that he had ever seen Scotland Yard, but he
had to drag himself on, like a condemned man walking to the scaffold.
He stood in the doorway with his hands clasped tightly on his belt and stared
around at the four eye-filling sirens who reclined in armchairs around the
fire. Patricia Holm and Beatric Avcry he knew; but his heavy eyelids nearly
disappeared into the back of his head when he heard the names of Irene
Cromwell and Sheila Ireland. And the worst of it was that they all looked
perfectly happy. They didn't leap up with shrill cries of joy and greet him as
their deliverer. They studied him with the detached curiosity of surgeons
inspecting a new kind of tumour revealed by an operation.
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Mr Teal grunted his acknowledgment of the introductions and stood glaring
desperately at Beatrice Avery.
"I've got one thing to ask you, Miss Avery," he said with a hideous
presentiment of what the answer would be. "Did you come here entirely of your
own free will?"
"I think that's a very unkind thing to ask, Mr Teal," she answered sweetly.
"It's unkind to me, since it implies that I'm weak minded; and it's unkind to
Mr Templar "
"I want to be unkind to Mr Templar!" Teal stated homicidally. "If there is
any kind of threat being held over you, Miss Avery, I give you my word that so
long as I'm here "
"Of course there isn't any threat," she said. "How ridiculous! What do you
think Mr Templar is a sort of Bluebeard?"
Mr Teal didn't dare to say what he thought Mr Templar was. But he knew that
Beatrice Avery would give him no help. There was nothing about her that gave
the slightest hint of fear or anxiety. However accomplished an actress she
might be, he knew that she could never have acted like that under compulsion.
What other supernatural means the Saint had taken to silence her, Mr Teal
couldn't imagine; but he knew that it was hopeless to fight them.
He pulled himself miserably together.
"I don't think I need bother you with any more questions, Miss Avery," he
said brusquely.
He went out of the room very much like a beaten dog, and if he had had a tail
it would have been hanging between his legs. The Saint followed him out,
closed the door and lighted a fresh cigarette.
"Cheer up, Claud," he said kindly. "You've got over these things before, and
you'll get over it again. Look me squarely in the eye and tell me you're sorry
I'm not the Z-Man, and I'll spread you all over the hall in a mass of squashy
pulp."
The detective looked at him for a long time.
"Damn it, Saint, you've got me," he growled sheepishly. "You know how much I
want to get my hands on you, but I'd still be glad if you weren't the Z-Man."
"Then why not be glad?"
"I think I'm getting some more ideas now," Teal went on, flashing the Saint a
glance which was very far from sleepy. "Miss Avery Miss Cromwell Miss
Ireland. Top-line film stars, every one. Let me make another guess. Those
girls are the Z-Man's intended victims; and if you aren't the Z-Man yourself
you've brought them here so that tlicy'll be safe while you go after him."
"You must have been eating ;i lot of fish and spinach," said the Saint
respectfully. "Your ideas are improving every minute except for one minor
detail. I've been out after the Z-Man already, I've met him, and we had quite
an interesting Jive minutes."
Mr Teal, who had just rolled up a fresh slice of spearmint with his tongue
like a miniature piece of music, shook his head sceptically.
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"Just because I'll believe you up to a point "
"Would I lie to you, Claud?" asked the Saint. "Have I ever told you anything
but the truth? Listen, brother, I don't know much about the Z-Man, but I can
tell you this. Until this evening he has been known as Mr Otto Zeidelmann, and
he's large and fat and has a black beard and wears horn-rimmed glasses and
speaks with a phony German accent. He has been using an office in Bryerby
House, Victoria, for his business address; but you needn't trouble to look for
him there, because I don't think he likes the place so much now. And I doubt
if his appearance in ordinary life is anything like my description. But that's
where I saw him, and that's what he looked like to me."
Mr Teal opened his mouth, but words failed him.
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