"But we don't need to use bluff any more," he said. "I'm strong for having everything in its right place, and the place for bluff has gone by, Cullis."
"Get on!"
"I am a brilliantly clever man," said the Saint, in his airy way, "and picnics like this are sitting rabbits to me. I worked this one out for your special benefit, and you've enjoyed it so much, too… You see, it would have been perfectly easy to bump you off, but that wasn't all we wanted. Waldstein and Essenden had been bounced too rapidly, and we weren't making the same error over you. We wanted to hear you sing to us here before you passed on to join the herald angels; but we quite appreciated that we weren't a sufficient audience. Jill and I are simple souls whom the world has used hardly, and Duodecimo is another piece of shop-soiled driftwood on the sea of life—"
"Cut the cackle," rasped Cullis, with a new venom in his voice. "If you're just trying to gain time—"
"I'm unbosoming in my own style, brother," said the Saint plaintively. "Give me a break. And now where was I?… Oh, yes. Duodecimo is another piece of shop-soiled driftwood on the—"
"I'll give you three minutes more. If you've got anything to say—"
"O. K., Algernon. Then let's put it that your word would probably outweigh anything that Jill or I or Duodecimo could say. So there had to be a witness who couldn't be challenged. And who could be a more ideal witness than the chief commissioner himself?"
The Saint saw Cullis's eyes narrow down to mere pin points, and laughed again.
"I went to the chief commissioner. I borrowed his own house. We came down here this evening and set the stage very carefully. Those bullet holes which you saw in the door upstairs were placed there three hours ago by special permission of the proprietor. The bars on the window were installed this afternoon and chopped about while you were travelling down. I personally staged the scene, wrote the dialogue, and produced the soul-stirring drama now drawing to its close — and all in one rehearsal. A microphone behind that picture of an indecently exposed lady throwing geraniums at a nightingale has been picking up all your winged words and relaying them, if not to all stations, at least to one — with a sergeant sitting on his Pitman diploma at the other end and taking them all down. Another connection upstairs gave up the personal lowdown on every word of your recent backchat with Duodecimo — which would have been enough to hang you by itself. But we are thorough. We didn't even stop there. Half a minute after you heard the front door slam behind the chief commissioner just now, he was creeping in through the back door and sprinting up the back stairs to hear some more of the story from his private broadcasting station. No, I shouldn't even shoot now, Cullis, because I think I heard Auntie Ethel coming back—"
Cullis heard the rattle of the door behind him, and spun round.