06 Alias the Saint

"The terrifying circumstances," Raxel went on unemotionally, "probably hastened your intoxication. Your immediate impulse was to escape from the room at all costs, and Henley was the one man who stood between you and the door. You shot your way out--or tried to. It is all quite understandable.

"O God!" said Betty Tregarth softly.

Raxel allowed her a full five minutes of silence in which to grasp the exact significance of her position, and at the end of that time the pain in her head had abated a little.

"I don't care," she said dazedly. "I'll see it through--I'll tell them I was drugged."

"That is no excuse for murder," said Raxel, "and taking drugs is, in itself, an offense."

"But I can tell them everything about it--how you brought me here. There's proof. You telephoned. The exchange can prove that."

"The exchange can prove nothing," said Raxel. "I did not telephone--I should be a very poor tactician to have overlooked such an obvious error. Your line was tapped, and the exchange has no record of the call. I must ask you to realize the circumstances. You will be taken away from here, and the house will be left exactly as we found it. The only fingerprints will be yours on the automatic you used. Nothing has been moved, and Inspector Henley will be found lying dead here when the police are summoned by his housekeeper on her return. We have treated him very gently during his captivity; and before we leave, the ropes that bound him will be removed, so that from an examination of his body it will be impossible to prove that he was not completely at liberty, in his own house--as any man, even a detective, has every right to be. The scene will be staged in such a way that the detectives, unless they are absolute imbeciles, will deduce that Henley was entertaining a woman here, and that for some reason or other she shot him. The woman, of course, will be you. But your finger-prints are not known to the police, and there will be nothing to incriminate you unless I should write and tell them, in an anonymous letter, where they scan find the owner of the fingerprints on the gun, I don't want to have to do that."

"Then what do you want?"

"Your loyal support," said Baxel. "To-morrow you will go to Coulter's and tell them that your doctor has advised you to take a rest cure, as you are in danger of a nervous breakdown. You will tell your brother the same story. Then you will go down with me to an inn in South Wales, which I have recently purchased, and in which I have installed an expensive laboratory. There you will work for me--and it will only be for three weeks. At the end of that time, if you have done your work satisfactorily, you will be free to go home and return to your job, and I will pay you a thousand pounds for your services. Incidentally, I can assure you that you will not be asked to do anything criminal. I required a qualified chemist on whose silence I could rely--that is all. Therefore I took steps to secure you. I do not think any jury would be likely to hang you, but you would certainly go to prison for a long time--if you were not sentenced to be detained at Broadmoor during His Majesty's pleasure--and fifteen years spent in prison would rob you of the best part of your life. As an alternative to such a punishment, I think you should find my suggestion singularly acceptable."

"And what am I supposed to do in this laboratory?

He answered her question in three brief sentences, and she gasped.

"Why do you want that?" she answered.

"That is no concern of yours," answered Raxel. "You will not be asked to associate yourself with my use of it, and so you need have no fear that you will be incriminating yourself. I promise you that when you have made a sufficient quantity for my ends, I shall ask nothing more of you. Nothing shall be done to stop your return home, and no one need ever know what you have been doing. You can, if you like, adopt me as your physician, and tell any inquirers that you are taking a cure under my personal supervision. We can arrange that. Also, I give you my word of honour that no harm shall come to you while you are in my employ."

He looked at his watch.

"It is half-past ten," he said. "You have hardly been unconscious an hour, though I expect you have been wondering how many days it has been. There is plenty of time for you to give me your answer and be back at the flat by the time your brother returns. And there is only one answer that you can possibly give."

2

Besides the huge flying Hirondel that was the apple of his eye, Simon Templar possessed another and much less conspicuous car which ran excellently downhill, and therefore he was able to descend upon Llancoed at a clear twenty miles an hour.