Teal glared around the room as if he was ready to start in and tear it apart without further parley, but even in his glare there was the beginning of a kind of hopeless doubt. The very way that the Saint had so readily told him to go ahead was almost a guarantee that there would be nothing to find, that he would only be laying himself open to more derision from that maddeningly bantering tongue. He had to brace himself to keep plunging on before he thought too much about it and lost steerageway.
"We'll search the room all right while you're in the cell next to Urivetzky," he retorted venomously.
"And what's going to put me there?"
"I am! I know what you were doing at that house tonight—"
"How could I have been doing anything," Simon protested, "when I wasn't there?"
"I know you were there all right—"
Simon shook his head.
"Somebody must have been playing tricks on you. We've all been sitting quietly here, telling stories and talking about architecture."
Teal swallowed, choked and got his voice back.
"Are you trying to tell me that I'm raving mad?" he bugled again. "After I spoke to you myself on the telephone?"