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."That rather tears it," he said slowly; and Teal's eye kindled with triumph."So you weren't quite so smart ""Oh, no," said the Saint diffidently."I was just thinking of it from yourpoint of view.You see, just at that time I was at the Hirondel factory atPage 28 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlStaines, talking about a new blower that I'm thinking of having glued on tothe old buzz-wagon.We had quite a conference over it.There was the worksmanager, and the service manager, and the shop foreman, and a couple ofmechanics thrown in, so far as I remember.Of course, everybody knows that thewhole staff down there is in my pay, but the only thing I'm worried about iswhether you'll be able to make a jury believe it."A queerly childish contraction warped itself across Mr Teal's rubicundfeatures.He looked as if he had been sud-denly seized with an acute painbelow the belt, and was about to burst into tears.Both of these diagnoses contained a fundament of truth.But they were far fromtelling the whole story.The whole story went too far to be compressed into a space less than volumes.It went far back into the days when Mr Teal had been a competent and contentedand common-place detective, adequately doing a job in which miracles did nothappen and the natural laws of the universe were re-spected and cast-ironcases were not being perennially dis-integrated under his noise by a bland andtantalizing buc-caneer whose elusiveness had almost started to convince him ofthe reality of black magic.It coiled through an infinite history ofincredible disasters and hair breadth frustrations that would have wrung thewithers of anything softer than a marble statue.It belonged to the hystericalsaga of his whole hopeless duel with the Saint.Mr Teal did not burst into tears.Nor, on this one unpre-cedented occasion,did he choke over his gum while a flush of apoplectic fury boiled into hisround face.Perhaps there were no more such reactions left in him; or perhapson this one occasion an inescapable foreboding of the uselessness of it allstrangled the spasm before it could mature and gave him the supernaturalstrength to stifle his emotions under the pose of stolid somnolence that hecould so rarely preserve against the Saint's fiendishly shrewd attack.Buthowever he achieved the feat, he managed to sit quite still while his hotresentful eyes bored into the Saint's smiling face for a time before hestruggled slothfully to his feet."Wait a minute," he said thickly.He went over and spoke to a tall cadaverous man who was hovering in thebackground.Then he came back and sat down again.Simon trickled an impudent streamer of smoke towards him."If I were a sensitive man I should be offended, Claud.Do you have to bequite so obvious about it when you send Sergeant Barrow to find out whetherI'm telling you the truth? It isn't good manners, comrade.It savours ofdistrust."Mr Teal said nothing.He sat champing soporifically, staring steadfastly atthe polished toes of his regulation boots, until Sergeant Barrow returned.Teal got up and spoke to him at a little distance; and when he rejoined theSaint the drowsiness was turgid and treacle-thick on his pink full-moon face."All right," he bit out in a cracked voice, through lips that were stiff andclumsy with the bitterness of defeat."Now suppose you tell me how you didit.""But I didn't do it, Claud," said the Saint, with a serious-ness that edgedthrough his veneer of nonchalance."I'm as keen as you are to get a line onthis low criminal who takes my trademark in vain.Who was the bloke theypicked up this afternoon ?"For some reason which was beyond his understanding, the detective stoppedshort on the brink of a sarcastic come-back."He was an Admiralty draughtsman by the name of Nancock," he said; and thegauzy derision in the Saint's glance faded out abruptly as he realized that inthat simple answer he had been given the secret of Mr Osbett's remark-ablechemistry.XIPage 29 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlIT WAS as if a distorting mirror had been suddenly flattened out, so that itreflected a complete picture with brilliant and lifelike accuracy.The figuresin it moved like marion-ettes.Simon even knew why Nancock had died.He himself, ironically for Teal'sdisappointment, had sealed the fat man's death-warrant without knowing it.Nancock was the man for whom the fifteen-hundred-pound packet of Miracle Teahad been intended; Nancock had been making a fuss at the shop when the Saintarrived.The fuss was due to nothing but Nancock's fright and greed, but tosuspicious eyes it might just as well have looked like the overdone attempt ofa guilty conscience to establish its own innocence.Nancock's money had passedinto the Saint's hands, the Saint had got into the shop on the pretext ofbringing the same package back, and the Saint had said: "I know all about yourbusiness." Simon could hear his own voice saying it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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."That rather tears it," he said slowly; and Teal's eye kindled with triumph."So you weren't quite so smart ""Oh, no," said the Saint diffidently."I was just thinking of it from yourpoint of view.You see, just at that time I was at the Hirondel factory atPage 28 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlStaines, talking about a new blower that I'm thinking of having glued on tothe old buzz-wagon.We had quite a conference over it.There was the worksmanager, and the service manager, and the shop foreman, and a couple ofmechanics thrown in, so far as I remember.Of course, everybody knows that thewhole staff down there is in my pay, but the only thing I'm worried about iswhether you'll be able to make a jury believe it."A queerly childish contraction warped itself across Mr Teal's rubicundfeatures.He looked as if he had been sud-denly seized with an acute painbelow the belt, and was about to burst into tears.Both of these diagnoses contained a fundament of truth.But they were far fromtelling the whole story.The whole story went too far to be compressed into a space less than volumes.It went far back into the days when Mr Teal had been a competent and contentedand common-place detective, adequately doing a job in which miracles did nothappen and the natural laws of the universe were re-spected and cast-ironcases were not being perennially dis-integrated under his noise by a bland andtantalizing buc-caneer whose elusiveness had almost started to convince him ofthe reality of black magic.It coiled through an infinite history ofincredible disasters and hair breadth frustrations that would have wrung thewithers of anything softer than a marble statue.It belonged to the hystericalsaga of his whole hopeless duel with the Saint.Mr Teal did not burst into tears.Nor, on this one unpre-cedented occasion,did he choke over his gum while a flush of apoplectic fury boiled into hisround face.Perhaps there were no more such reactions left in him; or perhapson this one occasion an inescapable foreboding of the uselessness of it allstrangled the spasm before it could mature and gave him the supernaturalstrength to stifle his emotions under the pose of stolid somnolence that hecould so rarely preserve against the Saint's fiendishly shrewd attack.Buthowever he achieved the feat, he managed to sit quite still while his hotresentful eyes bored into the Saint's smiling face for a time before hestruggled slothfully to his feet."Wait a minute," he said thickly.He went over and spoke to a tall cadaverous man who was hovering in thebackground.Then he came back and sat down again.Simon trickled an impudent streamer of smoke towards him."If I were a sensitive man I should be offended, Claud.Do you have to bequite so obvious about it when you send Sergeant Barrow to find out whetherI'm telling you the truth? It isn't good manners, comrade.It savours ofdistrust."Mr Teal said nothing.He sat champing soporifically, staring steadfastly atthe polished toes of his regulation boots, until Sergeant Barrow returned.Teal got up and spoke to him at a little distance; and when he rejoined theSaint the drowsiness was turgid and treacle-thick on his pink full-moon face."All right," he bit out in a cracked voice, through lips that were stiff andclumsy with the bitterness of defeat."Now suppose you tell me how you didit.""But I didn't do it, Claud," said the Saint, with a serious-ness that edgedthrough his veneer of nonchalance."I'm as keen as you are to get a line onthis low criminal who takes my trademark in vain.Who was the bloke theypicked up this afternoon ?"For some reason which was beyond his understanding, the detective stoppedshort on the brink of a sarcastic come-back."He was an Admiralty draughtsman by the name of Nancock," he said; and thegauzy derision in the Saint's glance faded out abruptly as he realized that inthat simple answer he had been given the secret of Mr Osbett's remark-ablechemistry.XIPage 29 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlIT WAS as if a distorting mirror had been suddenly flattened out, so that itreflected a complete picture with brilliant and lifelike accuracy.The figuresin it moved like marion-ettes.Simon even knew why Nancock had died.He himself, ironically for Teal'sdisappointment, had sealed the fat man's death-warrant without knowing it.Nancock was the man for whom the fifteen-hundred-pound packet of Miracle Teahad been intended; Nancock had been making a fuss at the shop when the Saintarrived.The fuss was due to nothing but Nancock's fright and greed, but tosuspicious eyes it might just as well have looked like the overdone attempt ofa guilty conscience to establish its own innocence.Nancock's money had passedinto the Saint's hands, the Saint had got into the shop on the pretext ofbringing the same package back, and the Saint had said: "I know all about yourbusiness." Simon could hear his own voice saying it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]