12 The Saint in London (The Misfortunes of Mr Teal)

Altogether a very exciting wind-up to a pleasant social evening, reflected the Saint; if it was the wind-up. . . . He rememberd that Nordsten had carelessly omitted to give him back his automatic when ushering him so smoothly out of the library, and realized that he would have felt a lot happier if the financier had been less pointedly forgetful. He also remembered that either Annette or Patricia should have telephoned him that night, and wondered why there had been no message. Teal might have been responsible--so far as Simon knew, that persistent detective had not been aware of his latest acquisition in the way of real estate; but there had been no secrecy about the transaction, and it would have been perfectly simple for Mr. Teal to discover it after a certain amount of time. Or else they might have tried to telephone, and Nordsten or one of his servants might have been the barrier. That also was possible, since he had already been allowed to write a letter which had doubtless been read before it was posted. He

was developing a profound respect for Ivar Nordsten's thoroughness------

"Vickery."

It was Nordsten's voice; and the Saint stopped, and saw the financier standing at the foot of the stairs.

"I'd like to see you again for a moment, if your arm can wait."

There was no real question of whether his arm could wait; and Simon turned with a smile.

"Of course."

He went down the stairs again. Trusaneff halted on the last flight, and Simon crossed the hall alone.

Nordsten was standing by the desk when the Saint entered the library, and the panther was crouching at his feet. Simon saw that the carpet was rolled back from the trapdoor, and the financier was holding his gun in his hand. He realized that he had been exceedingly careless; but he allowed nothing but a natural puzzlement to appear on his face.

"You tell me that Sheba started chasing you when you were on the stairs, and you tried to get in here to escape," Nordsten said, with a curious flat timbre in his voice.

"That's right," Simon answered.

"Then can you explain this?"

Nordsten pointed his whip at the floor; and Simon looked down and saw the stub of a cigarette lying beside the trapdoor--that same cigarette which his tingling nerves had forced him to light when he got inside the room, and which he had unconsciously trodden out when the demoniac snarl of the panther disturbed him in his investigations--and a few little splashes of grey ash around it.

"I don't understand," he said, with a frown of perfect bewilderment.

The financier's faded bright eyes were fixed on him steadily.

"None of my servants smoke, and I smoke only cigars."

"I still don't know why you should ask me," Simon said.

"Is your name Vickery?"

"Of course it is."

Nordsten stared at him for a few seconds longer.

"You're a liar," he said at length, with absolute calm.

Simon did not answer, and knew that there was no answer to make. He admitted nothing, continuing to gape at Nordsten with the same expression of helpress perplexity which the real Tim Vickery would have worn; but he knew that he was only carrying on mechanically with a bluff that had long since been called. It made no difference.

The thing which surprised him a little was Nordsten's complete restraint. He would have expected some show of emotion, some manifestation of nerves, fear, anger, even insensate viciousness; but there was none of those. The financier was as rock-still as if he had been contemplating an ordinary obstacle which had arisen in the course of a normal and respectable business campaign-- almost as if he had already envisaged the obstacle and sketched out a rough plan of remedy, and was simply considering the remedy again in detail, to make sure that it contained no flaws. And Simon Templar, remembering the poor half-crazy wretch under the trap, had an eerie presentiment that perhaps this was only the barest truth.

Nordsten spoke only one revealing sentence.

"I didn't think it would come so soon," he said, speaking aloud but only to himself; and his voice was quiet and almost childlike.

Then he looked at the Saint again with his dispassionate and empty eyes, and the gun in his hand moved slightly.

"Lift up the trap, please . . . Vickery," he said.

Simon hesitated momentarily; but the gun was aimed on him quite adequately, and Nordsten was too far away for a surprise attack. With a slight shrug he moved the square of parquet aside and locked his hands in the ring bolt of the heavy stone door. He lifted it with a strong quiet heave and laid it back on the floor.

"This is lots of fun," he murmured. "What do we do now--wiggle our ears and pretend to be rabbits?"

The financier ignored him. He raised his voice slightly, and called:

"Erik!"