13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

Simon fell in at Teal's side as they went down the hall, leaving the other two on their way to Yearleigh's study; and quite naturally the detective asked the question which was uppermost in his mind.

"Have you any more ideas?"

"I don't know," was the Saint's unsatisfactory response. "Who were you most interested in at dinner?"

"I was watching Vould," Teal confessed.

"You would be," said the Saint. "I don't suppose you even noticed Lady Yearleigh."

Teal did not answer; but he admitted to himself that the accusation was nearly true. As they went into the drawing-room his sleepy eyes looked for her at once, and saw her talking to Ormer on one side of her and Walmar on the other. He suddenly realised that she was young enough to be Yearleigh's daughter—she might have been thirty-five, but she scarcely looked thirty. She had the same pale and curiously transparent complexion as her cousin Vould, but in her it combined with blue eyes and flaxen hair to form an almost ethereal beauty. He could not help feeling the contrast be­tween her and her husband—knowing Yearleigh only by reputation, and never having visited the house, he would have expected Lady Yearleigh to be a robust horsey woman, at her best in tweeds and given to brutal bluntness. Mr. Teal had never read poetry; but if he had, Rossetti's Blessed Damosel would have perfectly expressed what he felt about this Lady Yearleigh whom Simon Templar had made him notice prac­tically for the first time.

"She's very attractive," said Teal, which was a rhapsody from him.

"And intelligent," said the Saint. "Did you notice that?"

The detective nodded vaguely.

"She has a wonderful husband."

Simon put down his cigar-butt in an ashtray and took out his cigarette-case. Teal knew subconsciously that his hesitation over those commonplace movements was merely a piece of that theatrical timing in which the Saint delighted to in­dulge; he knew that the Saint was about to say something illuminating; but even as Simon Templar opened his mouth the sound of the shot boomed through the house.

There was an instant's terrible stillness, while the echoes of the reverberation seemed to vibrate tenuously through the tense air like the vibrations of a cello-string humming below the pitch of hearing; and then Lady Yearleigh came to her feet like a ghost rising, with her ivory skin and flaxen hair making her a blanched apparition in the dimly lighted room.

"My God," she breathed, "he's killed him!"

Teal, who was nearest the door, awoke from his momentary stupor and rushed towards it; but the Saint reached it first. He ran at the Saint's shoulder to the study, and as they came to it the door was flung open and Lord Yearleigh stood there, a straight steady figure with a revolver in his hand.

"You're too late," he said, with a note of triumph in bis voice. "I got him myself."

"Who?" snapped Teal, and burst past him into the room, to see the answer to his question lying still and sprawled out in the middle of the rich carpet.

It was Maurice Vould.

Teal went over to him. He could barely distinguish the punc­ture of the bullet in the back of Vould's dinner jacket, but the scar in his shirt-front was larger, with a spreading red stain under it. Teal opened the dead man's fingers and de­tached an old Italian dagger, holding it carefully in his handkerchief.

"What happened?" he asked.

"He started raving," said Yearleigh, "about that bill of mine. He said it would be better for me to die than to take that bill into the House. I said: 'Don't be silly,' and he grabbed that dagger—I use it as a paper-knife—off the desk, and attacked me. I threw him off, but he'd become a maniac. I got a drawer open and pulled out this revolver, meaning to frighten him. He turned to the window and yelled: 'Come in, comrades! Come in and kill!' I saw an­other man at the window with a scarf round his face, and fired at him. Maurice must have moved, or I must have been shaken up, or something, because I hit Maurice. The other man ran away."

Still holding the knife, Teal turned and lumbered towards the open french windows. Ormer and Walmar, who had ar­rived while Yearleigh was talking, went after him more slowly; but the Saint was beside him when he stood outside, listening to the murmurs of the night.

In Teal's mind was a queer amazement and relief, that for once Simon Templar was proved innocent and he had not that possibility to contend with; and he looked at the Saint with half a mind to apologise for his suspicions. And then he saw that the Saint's face was deeply lined in the dim starlight, and he heard the Saint muttering in a terrible whisper: 'Oh, hell! It was my fault. It was my fault!"

"What do you mean?' asked the startled detective. Simon gripped him by the arm, and looked over his shoulder. Ormer and Walmar were behind them, venturing more cautiously into the dangerous dark. The Saint spoke louder.

"You've got your job to do," he said rather wildly."Photographers—finger-prints——"