The Saint's brain gave one last dizzy lurch, and then settled into a clear thin stratospheric stillness as the last disjointed fragments of the picture he had been working for fell into mesh. In some strange way that one incongruous touch had reconciled all other incongruities — the freakish fellowship of Dr. Zellermann with Cookie and Kay Natello, of all of them with Sam Jeffries and Joe Hyman, even the association with the lobster-eyed James Prather and the uninhibited Mrs. Gerald Meldon. His own mistake had been in accepting as merely another piece of the formula the one ingredient which was actually the catalyst for them all. It was a weird and yet strangely soothing sensation to realise at last, with the utter certainty of psychic confirmation, that the man he had been looking for, the anchor thread of the whole fantastic web, was Mr. Ferdinand Pairfield.
3
Simon became aware of Avalon's fingers cramping on his arm, and knew that her perceptions were stumbling after his, less surely for one thing because she still lacked so much background that he had not been able to sketch for her, but following him more in mad surmise than with the integrated sureness that directed him.
He pressed his hand over hers and went on listening, as Pairfield said: "It'd be dreadful to lose you, but of course you know how much the FBI would like to know the truth about why you became a refugee from Vienna. I've taken care of you all this time, but I can't go on doing it forever. If you let me down and anything happens—"
"I don't want to let you down, Ferdinand," Zellermann said; and through all the measured confidence of his accents Simon had a vision of the smooth brow shining like damp ivory. "But our methods are getting nowhere. I think he'll die before he tells us what he knows."
"He'd better not," Ferdinand said in the same deadly bell-like voice. "I want all the information he has. And I shall not assist you. You know the sight of torture and pain sickens me. I should simply die."
"You didn't seem particularly affected in the case of Foley."
"Oh, but I was! When I stuck that knife in him, I almost fainted. It was thrilling! But that's another case in point. It should have been unnecessary for me to do it. You knew that he was toying with the idea of selling us out, and blackmailing us to boot. You should have handled it."
The Saint could almost see Zellermann shrug.
"You won't come and help us?"