"Who?" snapped Teal, and burst past him into the room, to see the answer to his question lying still and sprawled out in the middle of the rich carpet.
It was Maurice Vould.
Teal went over to him. He could barely distinguish the puncture of the bullet in the back of Vould's dinner jacket, but the scar in his shirt-front was larger, with a spreading red stain under it. Teal opened the dead man's fingers and detached an old Italian dagger, holding it carefully in his handkerchief.
"What happened?" he asked.
"He started raving," said Yearleigh, "about that bill of mine. He said it would be better for me to die than to take that bill into the House. I said: 'Don't be silly,' and he grabbed that dagger — I use it as a paper-knife — off the desk, and attacked me. I threw him off, but he'd become a maniac. I got a drawer open and pulled out this revolver, meaning to frighten him. He turned to the window and yelled: 'Come in, comrades! Come in and kill!' I saw another man at the window with a scarf round his face, and fired at him. Maurice must have moved, or I must have been shaken up, or something, because I hit Maurice. The other man ran away."
Still holding the knife, Teal turned and lumbered towards the open french windows. Ormer and Walmar, who had arrived while Yearleigh was talking, went after him more slowly; but the Saint was beside him when he stood outside, listening to the murmurs of the night.
In Teal's mind was a queer amazement and relief, that for once Simon Templar was proved innocent and he had not that possibility to contend with; and he looked at the Saint with half a mind to apologise for his suspicions. And then he saw that the Saint's face was deeply lined in the dim starlight, and he heard the Saint muttering in a terrible whisper: 'Oh, hell! It was my fault. It was my fault!"
"What do you mean?' asked the startled detective. Simon gripped him by the arm, and looked over his shoulder. Ormer and Walmar were behind them, venturing more cautiously into the dangerous dark. The Saint spoke louder.
"You've got your job to do," he said rather wildly."Photographers — finger-prints—"
"It's a dear case," protested Teal, as he felt himself being urged away.