13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

"It's a dear case," protested Teal, as he felt himself being urged away.

"You'll want a doctor—coroners—your men from the vi­llage. I'll take you in my car. . . ."

Feeling that the universe had suddenly sprung a high fever, Teal found himself hustled helplessly around the broad ter­race to the front of the house. They had reached the drive before he managed to collect his wits and stop.

"Have you gone mad?" he demanded, planting his feet solidly in the gravel and refusing to move further. "What do you mean—it was your fault?"

"I killed him," said the Saint savagely. "I killed Maurice Vould!"

"You?" Teal ejaculated, with an uncanny start. "You're crazy," he said.

"I killed him," said the Saint, "by culpable negligence. Be­cause I could have saved his life. I was mad. I was crazy. But I'm not now. All right. Go back to the house. You have somebody to arrest."

A flash of memory went across Teal's mind—the memory of a pale ghostly woman rising from her chair, her voice saying: "My God, he's killed him!"—the hint of a frightful foreknowledge. A cold shiver touched his spine.

"You don't mean—Lady Yearleigh?" he said incredulously. "It's impossible. With a husband like hers——"

"You think he was a good husband, don't you?" said the Saint. "Because he was a noble sportsman. Cold baths and cricket. Hunting, shooting, and fishing. I suppose it's too much to expect you to put yourself in the place of a woman— a woman like her—who was married to that?"

"You think she was in love with Vould?"

"Of course she was in love with Vould. That's why I asked you if you'd looked at her at all during dinner—when Vould was talking. If you had, even you might have seen it. But you're so full of conventions. You think that any woman ought to adore a great fat-headed blustering athlete—be­cause a number of equally fat-headed men adore him. You think she oughtn't to think much of a pale poet who wears glasses, because the fat-headed athletes don't understand him, as if the ability to hit a ball with a bat were the only cri­terion of value in the world. But I tried to tell you that she was intelligent. Of course she was in love with Vould, and Vould with her. They were made for each other. I'll also bet you that Vould didn't want an interview with Yearleigh to make more protests about that bill, but to tell him that he was going to run away with his wife."

Teal said helplessly: "You mean—when Yearleigh objected —Vould had made up his mind to kill him. Lady Yearleigh knew, and that's what she meant by——"

"She didn't mean that at all," said the Saint. "Vould be­lieved in peace. You heard him at dinner. Have you for­gotten that remark of his? He pointed out that men had learned not to kill their neighbours so that they could steal their lawn mowers. Why should he believe that they ought to kill their neighbours so that they could steal their wives?"

"You can't always believe what a man says ——"

"You can believe him when he's sincere."

"Sincere enough," Teal mentioned sceptically, "to try to kill his host."

Simon was quiet for a moment, kicking the toe of his shoe into the gravel.

"Did you notice that Vould was shot in the back ?" he said.

"You heard Yearleigh's explanation."

"You can't always believe what a man says—can you?"

Suddenly the Saint reached out and took the dagger which Teal was still holding. He unwrapped the handkerchief from it; and Teal let out an exclamation. "You damn fool!"

"Because I'm destroying your precious finger-prints?" mur­mured the Saint coolly. "You immortal ass! If you can hold a knife in your handkerchief to keep from marking it, couldn't anybody else?"

The detective was silent. His stillness after that instinctive outburst was so impassive that he might have gone to sleep on his feet. But he was very much awake. And presently the  Saint went on, in that gentle, somewhat mocking voice which Teal was listening for.

"I wonder where you get the idea that a 'sportsman' is a sort of hero," he said. "It doesn't require courage to take a cold bath—it's simply a matter of whether your constitution likes it. It doesn't require courage to play cricket—haven't you ever heard the howls of protest that shake the British Empire if a batsman happens to get hit with a ball? Perhaps it requires a little more courage to watch a pack of hounds pull down a savage fox, or to loose off a shot-gun at a ferocious grouse, or to catch a great man-eating trout with a little rod and line. But there are certain things you've been brought up to believe, and your mind isn't capable of reason­ing them out for itself. You believe that a 'sportsman' is a kind of peculiarly god-like gladiator, without fear and without reproach. You believe that no gentleman would shoot a sitting partridge, and therefore you believe that he wouldn't shoot a sitting poet."

A light wind blew through the shrubbery; and the detective felt queerly cold.

"You're only talking," he said. "You haven't any evi­dence."