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patiently. “I’m only a bodyнguard of sorts. I didn’t sell myself to you as a detective.”
    “But you must have some idea.”
    “No more than I had last night.”
    A general quietness came down again, casting a definite shadow as if a cloud had slid over the sun. Even Freddie Pell man became still, holding his head carefully in the hands braced on either side of his jawbones.
    “Last night,” he said soggily, “you told us you were sure it was someone inside the house. Isn’t that what he said, Esther? He said it was someone who was here already.”
    “That’s right,” said the Saint. “And it still goes.”
    “Then it could only be one of us-Esther or Lissa or Ginny.”
    “Or me. Or the servants.”
    “My God!” Freddie sat up. “It isn’t even going to be safe to eat!”
    The Saint smiled slightly.
    “I think it is. Ginny and I were talking about that. But I’ve eaten … Let’s take it another way. You put the finger on Johnny Implicato last Christmas. That’s nearly a year ago. So anybody who wanted to sneak in to get revenge for him must have sneaked in since then. Let’s start by washing out anybody you’ve known more than a year. How about the servants?”
    “I hired them all when I came here this season.”
    “I was afraid of that. However. What about anybody else?”
    “I only met you yesterday.”
    “That’s quite true,” said the Saint calmly. “Let’s include me. Now what about the girls?”
    The three girls looked at each other and at Freddie and at the Saint. There was an awkward silence. Nobody seemed to want to speak first; until Freddie scratched his head painfully and said: “I think I’ve known you longer than anyone, Esther, haven’t I?”
    “Since last New Year’s Eve,” she said. “At the Dunes. You remember. Somebody had dared me to do a strip tease—”
    “-never dreaming you’d take them up on it,” said Ginny.
    “All right,” said the Saint. “Where did you come in?”
    “In a phone booth in Miami,” said Ginny. “In February. Freddie was passed out inside, and I had to make a phone call. So I lugged him out. Then he woke up, so we made a night of it.”
    “What about you, Lissa?”
    “I was just reading a book in a drug store in New York last May. Freddie came in for some Bromo-Seltzer, and we just got talking.”
    “In other words,” said the Saint, “any one of you could have been a girl friend of Johnny’s, and promoted yourselves in here after he was killed.”
    Nobody said anything.
    “Okay,” Freddie said at last. “Well, we’ve got fingerprints, haven’t we? How about the fingerprints on that knife.”
    “We can find out if there are any,” said the Saint.
    He took it out of the pocket of his robe, where he had kept it with him still wrapped in his handkerchief. He unwrapped it very carefully, without touching any of the surfaces, and laid it on the table. But he didn’t look at it particularly. He was much more interested in watching the other faces that looked at it.
    “Aren’t you going to save it for the police?” asked Lissa.
    “Not till I’ve finished with it,” said the Saint. “I can make all the tests they’d use, and maybe I know one or two that they haven’t heard of yet. I’ll show you now, if you like.”
    Angelo made his impassive appearance with two glasses of orange juice for Lissa and Esther, and a third effervescent glass for Freddie. He stood stoically by while Freddie drained it with a shudder.
    “Anything else, Mr. Pellman?”
    “Yes,” Freddie said firmly. “Bring me a brandy and ginger ale. And some waffles.”
    “Yes, sir,” said the Filipino; and paused, in the most natural and expressionless way, to gather up three or four plates, a couple of empty glasses, and, rather apologetiнcally, as if he had no idea how it could have arrived there, the kitchen knife that lay in front of the Saint with everyone staring at it.
    5
    AND THAT, Simon reflected, was as smooth and timely a bit of