The Saint concentrated on applying mustard to a piece of steak with the infinite care of a painter of miniatures. His face was impassive, but the series of obvious implications tripped through his head with the dainty footsteps of a troupe of charging elephants.
Orlando Flane had good and recent cause to hate Mr Byron Ufferlitz. Orlando Flane had openly threatened Mr Ufferlitz with permanent evidence of his dislike. Orlando Flane had a background which in spite of his slightly effeminate facial beauty might have qualified him as a cool tough hombre. And Orlando Flane had a reason to resent Simon Templar enough to be willing to round out his revenge by trying to stage it so that the Saint would take the rap for it.
Simon looked at Peggy Warden again and said, “Do you think Flane could have killed Byron?”
She stared at him as though the idea stunned her.
“Flane?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“But... he’s an actor,” she said weakly.
He chuckled.
“Most murderers have some other spare-time job, darling. Comrade Condor seems to think it could easily have been somebody from the studio. You must have heard our conversation. If it could have been a writer, a director, or me, it could have been an actor. Byron is dead. Somebody killed him.”
She nodded in a bewildered way.