"Wouldn't it be better for him to get back as quickly as possible?" suggested Patricia. "If they think he's trying to dodge them it'll only make it look worse."
"The trouble is there may be people looking for him who'd be a lot more dangerous than poor old Teal," said the Saint.
He spoke quite casually; but there was a shade of meaning in his voice that cut a tiny crease between Patricia's eyebrows and made Graham stiffen up.
Simon opened out his blood-spotted handkerchief and touched the cut in his chin.
"Hadn't any of you noticed the damage to my beauty?" he enquired. "Or did you think I'd been having a shave while I was out?"
They looked at him in perplexity merging into a groping fragment of comprehension. And the Saint smiled.
"I collected that on my way home — just after I left Ingleston's, to be accurate. I was getting into a taxi when some sportsman came by and turned on the tap. All I got hit by was a bit of broken glass, but that wasn't his fault. If he'd been a better shot it would have been the last time I made the headlines."
Complete understanding left them still silent, absorbing the implications according to their different temperaments and backgrounds. The frown smoothed out of Patricia's forehead, to be replaced by an expression of martyred resignation. Graham put down his tankard and mopped his brow with an unsteady hand.
"But who—"
"It's pretty obvious, I think," said the Saint. "Somebody knocked Ingleston off — we know that. For the sake of simplicity let us call him Pongo. Pongo was hanging around last night, waiting for Ingleston to come home, and he saw you come out. He'd have been watching the place pretty closely, so he wouldn't have forgotten your face, even if it didn't mean much to him at the time. Later on Ingleston arrives, Pongo accosts him and goes in with him — the evidence shows that he was somebody Ingleston knew — and while Ingleston is pouring out some drinks Pongo gets to work on him with a hammer he's brought along for the purpose. Then after Ingleston has been removed Pongo gets on with the real business of the evening and starts looking for whatever he came to find. He tears the whole place apart — it looked as if a tribe of monkeys had been through it — but my guess is that he doesn't find what he's looking for because it's already gone."