The Saint vs Scotland Yard by Leslie Charteris Page B

nothing but a glutinously expanding silence
as he entered the room. The perception failed to disturb him. He lifted the silver cover from a plate of bacon and eggs, and sniffed appre ciatively.
“You don’t mind if I eat, do you, Claud?” he mur mured.
    The detective swallowed. If he had never been required to interview the Saint on
business, he could have enjoyed a tolera bly
placid life. He was not by nature an excitable man, but these interviews
never seemed to take the course which he in tended
them to take.
    “Where were you last night?” he blurted.
    “In Cornwall,” said the Saint. “Charming county—full of area.
Know it?”
    “What time did you leave?”
    “Nine-fifty-two
pip.”
    “Did anybody see you go?”
    “Everyone who had stayed the course observed my departure,”
said the Saint carefully. “A few of the male popula tion had
retired hurt a little earlier, and others were still enthusiastic but
already blind. Apart from seven who had been ruled out earlier in
the week by an epidemic of measles—”
    “And where were you between ten and five minutes to five this morning?”
    “I was on my way.”
    “Were you anywhere near Wintney?”
    “That would be about it.”
    “Notice anything peculiar around there?”
    Simon
wrinkled his brow.
    “I recall the scene distinctly. It was the hour before the dawn. The
sleeping earth, still spell-bound by the magic of night, lay quiet
beneath the paling skies. Over the peaceful scene brooded the
expectant hush of all the mornings since the beginning of these
days. The whole world, like a bride listen ing for the footfall
of her lover, or a breakfast sausage hoping against hope——”
    The movement with which Teal clamped a battered piece of spearmint between his molars
was one of sheer ferocity.
    “Now listen,” he snarled. “Near Wintney, between ten and five
minutes to five this morning, a Hirondel with your num ber-plates on it was
called on to stop by a police officer—-and it drove straight past
him!”
    Simon
nodded.
    “Sure, that was me,” he said innocently. “I was in a
hurry. D’you mean I’m going to be summoned?”
    “I mean more than that. Shortly before you came past, the constable
heard a scream—— ”
    Simon nodded again.
    “Sure, I heard it too. Weird noises owls make sometimes. Did he want
me to hold his hand?”
    “That
was no owl screaming —”
    “Yeah? You were there as well, were you?”
    “I’ve got the constable’s telephoned report—”
    “You can find a use for it.” The Saint opened his mouth, inserted
egg, bacon, and buttered toast in suitable proportions, and stood
up. “And now you listen, Claud Eustace.” He tapped the
detective’s stomach with his forefinger. “Have you got a
warrant to come round and cross-examine me at this ungodly hour of the
morning-—or any other hour, for that matter?”
    “It’s part of my duty             “
    “It’s part of the blunt end of the pig of the aunt of the gardener.
Let that pass for a minute. Is there one single crime that even your
pop-eyed imagination can think of to charge me with? There is not.
But we understand the functioning of your so-called brain. Some loutish cop
thought he heard some one scream in Hampshire this morning, and
because I hap pened to be passing through the same county you think I
must have had something to do with it. If somebody tells you that a dud
shilling has been found in a slot machine in Blackpool, the first
thing you want to know is whether I was within a hundred miles of the
spot within six months of the event. A drowned man is fished
out of the ocean at Boston, and if you hear a rumour that I
was staying beside the same ocean at Biarritz two years before—— ”
    “I never—”
    “You invariably. And now get another earful. You haven’t a search-warrant,
but we’ll excuse that. Would you like to go upstairs and run through my
wardrobe and see if you can find any bloodstains on my clothes? Because