“You didn’t even say anything about it when I talked to you this morning.”
“Of course not. Nothing had been changed. You’d still have thought I was trying to put over a clever story. But you can check on it yourself now. I did. According to the night man at the Château Marmont, that note was delivered by a medium-sized man in a buttoned-up tweed overcoat and a bushy red beard. A disguise, of course. And of course it sounds phony as hell. I could just as well have done it myself, with my knees bent to cut my height down. I knew you’d think that, and I’d have been crazy if I’d told you.”
Condor chewed audibly on his flake of timber.
“I like having my mind put straight for me,” he said. “So you played secrets. Did you know who the murderer was then?”
“No,” said the Saint honestly. “I had to get away and think and investigate for a bit. But I had to find him. I had to find him before he got me into some more trouble that I wouldn’t be able to get out of so easily. I knew it must have been somebody who hated my guts. Somebody who was tough enough to kill Ufferlitz in the first place, and vicious enough to try and frame me for it. A guy with two motives.”
“And you found him all by yourself.”
“Yes,” said the Saint. “Orlando Flane.”
They stopped for a traffic light. Simon shifted into low gear and held the clutch out. He kept his eyes ahead, but he knew Condor was still watching him.
“You tell it,” said Condor. “It’s your story.”
“There wasn’t much to it. I’d taken a part away from Flane. He was on the skids, and that part might have saved him, but I took it away. I didn’t mean to. It was Ufferlitz’s idea. Flane was just letters in lights to me. But he didn’t understand that. His brain was all rotten with alcohol, anyway. He was drunk at Giro’s last night when we were there. You can check on that, too. And I guess he was just too mad to have any sense.”