of warm milk at a meeting of the World Federation for Encouraging Kindness to Cockroaches,” he said solemnly. “Good-looking fellow with a halo. Is that the guy?”
“What else was he doing?”
The Saint laughed.
“He was risking the ruin of his digestion with some of Ye Fine Olde Englishe Cookinge which is more deadly than bullets even if it doesn’t taste much different,” he said. “But it may have been worth it. There was a parcel shoved into a bloke’s overcoat pocket some time when I was sweating through my second pound of waterlogged cabbage, just like Sunny Jim said it would be, and I trailed the happy recipient to his lair. I suppose I was rather lucky to be listening outside his door just when he was telling his secretary to get an insurance hound over to inspect the boodle–— By the way, have you ever seen a woman with a face like a stoat and George-Robey eyebrows wriggling seductively? This secretary–-“
“Do you mean you-
“That’s just what I do mean, old darling. I toddled straight into the office when this bloke went out, and introduced my self as the insurance hound summoned as aforesaid in Chapter One. And I got out of Hatton Garden with a packet of boodle valued at twenty-seven thousand six hundred and fifty quid, which ought to keep the wolf from the door for another day or two.” The glint of changeless mischief in his eyes was its own infinite elaboration of the theme. “But it’ll bring a lot of other wolves around that’ll want rather more getting rid of; and I expect we can look forward to fun and games.”
She nodded.
“They’ve started,” she said soberly. “There’s a reception committee waiting for you.”
He was quite still for a moment; but the edge of humour in his gaze was altered only to become keener and more subtly dangerous.
“How many?”
“One.”
His brows sloped up in a hair-line of devil-may-care delight that she knew only too well-a contour of impenitent Saintliness that had made trouble-hunting its profession too long to be disturbed when the trouble came unasked.
“Not poor old Claud Eustace again?” he said.
“No. It’s that new fellow-the Trenchard product. I’ve been waiting here three quarters of an hour to catch you as you came along and tell you. Sam Outrell gave me the wire.”
VI
The Saint was unperturbed. He had removed the walrus moustache which had whiffled so realistically before Miss Weagle, and with it the roseate complexion and melancholy aspect on which it had bloomed with such lifelike aptness. The costume which he had worn on that occasion had also been put away, in the well-stocked wardrobe of another pied-a-terre which he rented under another of his multitudinous aliases for precisely those skilful changes of identity. He had left the plodding inconspicuous gait of his character in the same place. In a light grey suit which looked as if it had only that morning been unpacked from the tailor’s box, and a soft hat canted impudently over one eye, he had a debonair and disreputable elegance which made the deputation of welcome settle into clammily hostile attention.
“I was waiting for you,” said Junior Inspector Pryke damply.
“No one would have thought it,” said the Saint, with a casual smile. “Do I look like your fairy godmother?”
Pryke was not amused.
“Shall we go up to your rooms?” he suggested; and Simon’s gaze rested on him blandly.
“What for, Desmond?” He leaned one elbow on the desk at his side, and brought the wooden-faced janitor into the party with a shift of his lazy smile. “You can’t shock Sam Outrell-he knew me before you ever did. And Miss Holm is quite broad-minded, too. By the way, have you met Miss Holm? Pat, this is Miss Desdemona Pryke, the Pride of the
Y.W.C.A.–—”
“I’d rather see you alone, if you don’t mind,” said the detective.
He was beginning to go a trifle white about the mouth; and Simon’s eyes marked the symptom with a wicked glitter of
“What else was he doing?”
The Saint laughed.
“He was risking the ruin of his digestion with some of Ye Fine Olde Englishe Cookinge which is more deadly than bullets even if it doesn’t taste much different,” he said. “But it may have been worth it. There was a parcel shoved into a bloke’s overcoat pocket some time when I was sweating through my second pound of waterlogged cabbage, just like Sunny Jim said it would be, and I trailed the happy recipient to his lair. I suppose I was rather lucky to be listening outside his door just when he was telling his secretary to get an insurance hound over to inspect the boodle–— By the way, have you ever seen a woman with a face like a stoat and George-Robey eyebrows wriggling seductively? This secretary–-“
“Do you mean you-
“That’s just what I do mean, old darling. I toddled straight into the office when this bloke went out, and introduced my self as the insurance hound summoned as aforesaid in Chapter One. And I got out of Hatton Garden with a packet of boodle valued at twenty-seven thousand six hundred and fifty quid, which ought to keep the wolf from the door for another day or two.” The glint of changeless mischief in his eyes was its own infinite elaboration of the theme. “But it’ll bring a lot of other wolves around that’ll want rather more getting rid of; and I expect we can look forward to fun and games.”
She nodded.
“They’ve started,” she said soberly. “There’s a reception committee waiting for you.”
He was quite still for a moment; but the edge of humour in his gaze was altered only to become keener and more subtly dangerous.
“How many?”
“One.”
His brows sloped up in a hair-line of devil-may-care delight that she knew only too well-a contour of impenitent Saintliness that had made trouble-hunting its profession too long to be disturbed when the trouble came unasked.
“Not poor old Claud Eustace again?” he said.
“No. It’s that new fellow-the Trenchard product. I’ve been waiting here three quarters of an hour to catch you as you came along and tell you. Sam Outrell gave me the wire.”
VI
The Saint was unperturbed. He had removed the walrus moustache which had whiffled so realistically before Miss Weagle, and with it the roseate complexion and melancholy aspect on which it had bloomed with such lifelike aptness. The costume which he had worn on that occasion had also been put away, in the well-stocked wardrobe of another pied-a-terre which he rented under another of his multitudinous aliases for precisely those skilful changes of identity. He had left the plodding inconspicuous gait of his character in the same place. In a light grey suit which looked as if it had only that morning been unpacked from the tailor’s box, and a soft hat canted impudently over one eye, he had a debonair and disreputable elegance which made the deputation of welcome settle into clammily hostile attention.
“I was waiting for you,” said Junior Inspector Pryke damply.
“No one would have thought it,” said the Saint, with a casual smile. “Do I look like your fairy godmother?”
Pryke was not amused.
“Shall we go up to your rooms?” he suggested; and Simon’s gaze rested on him blandly.
“What for, Desmond?” He leaned one elbow on the desk at his side, and brought the wooden-faced janitor into the party with a shift of his lazy smile. “You can’t shock Sam Outrell-he knew me before you ever did. And Miss Holm is quite broad-minded, too. By the way, have you met Miss Holm? Pat, this is Miss Desdemona Pryke, the Pride of the
Y.W.C.A.–—”
“I’d rather see you alone, if you don’t mind,” said the detective.
He was beginning to go a trifle white about the mouth; and Simon’s eyes marked the symptom with a wicked glitter of
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