refrained. Simon looked at the girl again.
'I'm leaving,' he said. 'We shall meet again. Quite soon. I promised to get you in three weeks, and two and a half days of it have gone. But I'll do it, don't you worry!'
'I'm not worrying, Templar. And next time you give me your word of honour——'
'Be suspicious of everything I say,' Simon advised. 'I have moments of extreme cunning, as you'll get to know. Good-afternoon, sweetheart.'
He went put, leaving the door open, and walked down the stairs. He saw Pinky Budd standing in the hall with six men drawn up impassively behind him; but it would have taken more than that, at any time, to make Simon Templar's steps falter.
The girl spoke from the top of the stairs.
'Mr. Templar is leaving, Pinky. His men are waiting for him outside.'
'Now that,' said the Saint, 'is tough luck on you— isn't it, Pinky?'
He walked straight for the door, and the guard stood aside without a word to give him gangway. Only Budd stood his ground, and Simon halted in front of him.
'Getting in my way, Pinky?'
Budd looked at him with narrowed, glittering eyes. They were of a height as they stood, but Budd would have been a couple of inches taller if he had straightened his huge hunched shoulders. His long arms hung loosely at his sides, and the ham-like fists at the end of them were clenched.
'Nope, I'm not getting in your way. But I'll come 'n' find you again soon, Templar. See?'
'Do.'
The Saint's hand came flat in the middle of Budd's chest and overbalanced him out of the road. And Simon Templar went through to the door.
A few strides up the street he stopped and laid half a crown on a harmonium.
'Do you know a song called 'A Farewell'?' he asked.
'Yes, sir,' said the serenader.
'Play it for me,' said the Saint. 'And miss out the middle verse.'
He went on towards Buckingham Palace Road as soon as he had heard the introductory bars moaned out on the machine; and his departure was watched by vengeful eyes from the drawing-room window.
'You let him get clean away,' snivelled Weald. 'We had him——'
'Don't be an imbecile!' snapped the girl. 'He only came to see if he could tempt us into doing anything foolish. And if we had, he'd have been tickled to death. And I just asked him to come so I could get to know a little more about him, for future reference. He's——'
'What's that bull with the organ singing?'
They listened. The words of the unmelodious performance came clearly to their ears. The troubadour, startled by the magnitude of the Saint's largesse, was putting his heart into the job.
