"This is Lady Whipplethwaite's statement," he said, taking out a notebook. "I'll read it to you."
" 'I first met Mr. Vallance in Brisbane fifteen years ago. He fell in love with me and wanted to marry me, but I refused him. For five years after that he continued to pester me, although I did my best to get rid of him. When I became engaged to Sir Joseph he was insanely jealous. There was never anything between us that could have given him the slightest grounds for imagining that he had a claim on me. For a few years after I was married he continued to write and implore me to leave Sir Joseph and run away with him, but I did not answer his letters.
" 'Six months ago he wrote to me again in London, apologizing humbly for the past and begging me to forgive him and meet him again, as he said he was completely cured of his absurd infatuation. I met him with my husband's consent, and he told me that he had been studying art in Paris and was getting quite a name among the Moderns. I liked his pictures, and when he begged me to let him paint me a picture of our house to give me I asked him down to stay, although Sir Joseph was very much against it. Sir Joseph has never liked him. They have had several heated arguments while he has been staying with us.' "
Teal closed the notebook and put it away. "As soon as the theft was discovered," he said, "Sir Joseph wanted me to arrest Vallance at once, and I had a job to make him see that we couldn't possibly do that without any evidence."
They had reached a rustic seat at the end of the tennis-court, Teal rested his weight on it gingerly, and produced a fresh packet of chewing gum.
"Our problem," he said, gazing intently at the tennis players, "is to find out how the man who opened the safe got in here — and got out again."
Simon nodded quietly. "The tennis players would hardly make any difference," he remarked. "They'd be so intent on their game that they wouldn't notice anything else."
"And yet," said Teal, "the man who did it had to pass the constable in front or the constable at the back — and either of them should have seen him."
"It sounds impossible," said the Saint; and the man beside him put a slip of gum in his mouth and masticated stolidly.
"It does," Teal said, without moving a muscle.