"I wondered why she suddenly decided that she couldn't stay away from the studio a little while after I told her the news," Patricia said slowly. "But I never thought…"
"I did," said the Saint. "I did most of my thinking in Sentinel's office. He was twiddling a pencil — and all at once I remembered that when I was in Bryerby House the Z-Man had been twiddling a pencil too. Only the Z-Man had a different twiddle. Everybody has his own distinctive nervous habits. I started thinking about the Z-Man's twiddle, wondering where else I'd seen it; and all at once it dawned on me that it was exactly like the way Sheila Ireland had been twiddling her cigarette holder last night when she was telling us her tale of woe. It nearly knocked me over backwards."
He looked across at the dishevelled girl who was still writhing hysterically in Hoppy's relentless grasp, with the smeared remains of her make-up disfiguring her face; and his eyes were hard and merciless.
"It wasn't a bad idea to make yourself up not only like a man, but like a fat, repulsive Zeidelmann," he said. "You nearly fooled me until I saw you running away from Bryerby House. There's something funny about the way a woman runs, and that started me thinking. Even then I didn't get the idea, but I was ready for it. You did the voice pretty well too; but that was your business. You only fell down on the little details like pencil-twiddling. And of course nobody would expect you to be a woman. But you were woman enough to make Andy Gump go on putting his head in the noose to try and please you even after he'd come out of stir for the cheques he forged to buy you jewelry. And you were woman enough to know what the threat of disfigurement would mean to a woman." The Saint's voice was like icy water flowing down a glacier. "You got it both ways. You put the boodle into your own bank account, and at the same time your rivals were having breakdowns and getting thrown out of the running and letting you climb higher… I wonder how you'd like it if we made the punishment fit the crime?"
The girl strained madly against Hoppy's iron hands.
"Let me go!" she screamed. "You swine! You couldn't—"
"Let her go, Hoppy," said the Saint quietly.
Mr Uniatz unlocked his fingers, and the girl tore herself free and stood swaying on the edge of the floor.
"Would Andy still love you if you had a Z carved on your face?" asked the Saint speculatively.
He moved the knife in his hand in an unmistakable gesture.