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some form that would magically ward off utter catastrophe . . .
He threw open the front door and plunged solidly into the comfortably
cushioned facade of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.
Mr. Teal said"Oof!" caught him as he bounced off, and set him upright in the
hall.
"What's the matter, Mr. Clarron?" Teal asked drowsily.
As his torpid bulk evacuated the doorway, it revealed two uniformed men on
the step outside.
"My wife," Clarron babbled. "Dead in her bed! Drawer broken open her jewels
gone! And Mrs. Jafferty "
He broke off there. The first words had come out, incoherently enough, but
unhesitatingly, with a kind of reflex assurance made glib by the number of
times he had mentally rehearsed just such a speech. But after he had blurted
out Mrs. Jafferty's name he did not know how to go on. He had never visualized
having to say anything about her in her presence.
Mr. Teal, however, did not seem to notice the aposiopesis. He was staring
over Mr. Clarron's shoulder, and upwards, with his baby-blue eyes dilating in
a most peculiar manner.
"Bejabers," trumpeted a voice of distilled shamrock, "and if it isn't me ould
friend the fat boy of Scotland Yard, himself, arrivin' late for the wake as
usual."
Mr. Clarron turned, drawn by an awful but irresistible magnetism.
Billowing down the stairs came an exuberant female figure crowned with a
bird's-nest of hideous ginger hair.
"She must have done it," Clarron chattered hysterically. "I should never have
taken her without references. She was hiding up there "
"Sure, and is that any way for a gentleman to be talkin', tryin' to put the
blame on an honest workin' woman? And himself all the time schemin' to murdher
his own wife, the poor soul, an' run off with his fancy lady next door, who I
see sneakin' in here already to be with him before the body is cold!"
Teal glanced back for a moment, at Adrienne Halberd who was sidling in behind
the two constables; and turned back to the staircase with a tinge of purple
creeping into his rubicund complexion.
"Take off that ridiculous get-up, Saint," he roared, "and let's hear what you
think you're up to!"
"Well, if you insist," said the Saint meekly. "But I was just starting to get
the feel of the part."
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He unbuttoned the oldfashioned black dress, peeled it off, and draped it over
the stair rail. Underneath it he wore a kind of upholstered combination
garment extending down to his knees and padded in all the necessary places to
produce Mrs. Jafferty's voluptuous contours. He took that off and hung it
similarly over the rail, where it slid down to join the dress., Completing his
descent of the stairs, he removed the orange-colored wig and set it carefully
on the banister knob at the bottom.
"It's Templar!" croaked Mr. Clarron. And for one delirious instant he felt
inspired, invulnerable. "He did it in that disguise! He was with Mrs. Halberd
this afternoon when I said I was going to London. She's probably his
accomplice------"
"MissHalberd," Teal said precisely, "is a police officer, acting under my
orders."
"As it eventually dawned on me," said the Saint. "And there never was a Mrs.
Jafferty, except when Reginald dressed up in that outfit. Instead of trying to
dream up the perfect alibi, which has tripped up a lot of bright lads, he
dreamed up the perfect scapegoat. And before he has any more attacks of
genius, and before I budge from here, I wish someone would go through his
pockets, where they'll find Mrs. Clarron's jewels. And if he has anything to
say after that, ask him why he's wearing those white cotton gloves."
viii
"What do you mean, it eventually dawned on you that I was with the police?"
Adrienne Halberd demanded sulkily.
Simon lighted a cigarette.
"The way you picked me up at Skindle's was rather determined," he said. "But
I could swallow that temporarily. When you told me you were investigating for
an insurance company, I could take that for a while too. There are such things
as female private eyes, even if they aren't very often eyefulls. And when you
said you'd been a distant adorer of mine since you were in pigtails, it was
piling it up a bit tall, but I could still open my mouth that wide. Weird as
it may seem, I have met such crazy gals. But with all that build-up, you'd set
yourself a lot to live up to. And soon after you found out that I hadn't any
information to add to what you'd told me, or any definite plan to let you in
on, you changed quite startlingly. Gone was the worshiping bug-eyed fan. You
became impatient, critical even caustic. You couldn't see any merit at all in
the idea that I adlibbed on two seconds' notice when Reggie started to amble
over. And it wasn't such a bad ene, either. But it made you almost rude."
"If I remember," she said, "you weren't such a para-gon "
"But I wasn't trying to sell anything, darling. You had been. And the
transformation was just too sudden. A real fan would have thought anything I
suggested was marvelous, no matter how screwy or dangerous it sounded. And
then I realized something else. This was Claud Eustace's last big case, and
he'd warned me to keep out of it, but I told him I intended to stick my nose
in anyway. Yet I came straight to Maidenhead, and none of the local
constabulary was around to meet me and back up Teal's orders. More surprising
still, there wasn't even a vestige of a cop anywhere around here, keeping tabs
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on Reggie or trying to save Mrs. Clarron from being bumped off. So at last I
connected. The cop had to be you. Teal had plenty of time to phone you while I
was driving down from Heath Row, tell you I was headed for Skindle's, tell you
to pick me up there, rope me, keep me handy. The explanation you had to hatch
up between you wasn't so hard to invent; but I could almost hear the wheels
whirring in Teal's fat head, and see his buttons popping with pride at his own
brilliance."
Chief Inspector Teal thumbed open a tiny envelope of spearmint and mailed the
contents in his mouth.
"All right," he said trenchantly. "But what happened after Miss Halberd left
you in her cottage?"
"After she left me to phone you for more advice," said the Saint smoothly, "I
went over those random hunches again and convinced myself. Then I knew I
wouldn't have much more time to work on my own, and I really was seriously
worried about what my appearance and my story might rush Reggie into doing.
And I decided I just had to see if I couldn't find a clue in his house which
you couldn't have tried without a search warrant. You know my methods, Claud.
Impulsive. So I picked up the phone and called Mrs. Clarron, and said I was
the local police."
"Falsely representing yourself to be a police officer," barked Teal.
"For which I might easily get fined a few pounds," said the Saint sadly. "I
said that Mr. Clarron had asked us to keep an eye on her on account of a
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