'We're waiting,' said Bloem at last.
'So I see,' drawled Simon. 'If you can wait a bit longer, there are just one or two more points to clear up. The first is that I'm sure you won't mind the Doctor just examining the bump I must have raised on your cranium when I knocked you out.'
He was watching Bloem closely as he spoke, and his heart sank when he saw that the man was not at all put out. Carn walked up to Bloem with a query, and Bloem nodded.
'Just behind my left ear,' he said.
'Sweetest lamb,' said the Saint through his teeth, 'I'll bet you just hated getting that bit of realism!'
Carn looked at the Saint and shrugged.
'Someone certainly hit him very hard,' he said. 'Saint, you've put your foot in it this time.'
'So I don't think we'll prolong this unpleasant duty,' said Bloem briskly. 'Constable — you have the handcuffs? I'm covering him, and I shall shoot if he attacks you again.'
And then the congregation was increased by one, for a man strutted out of the darkness and stood framed in the open window.
' 'Ere, wassal this?' demanded Grace truculently.
Chapter VIII
THE SAINT IS DENSE
Bloem wheeled with a smothered exclamation, for the interruption came from behind him. Then the Boer slowly lowered his automatic — because Grace was carrying the enormous revolver which was his pride and joy, and that fearsome weapon was waving in a gentle semicircle so that it covered everyone in the room in turn. Orace leaned on the windowsill, well pleased with the timeliness of his entrance and the sensation it had caused.
'Snoldup,' declared Orace brightly. 'Ni jus' come in the nicker time. Looks like a dangerous carrickter, too. Orfcer,' said Orace, with a lordly sweep of his free hand, 'you 'ave the bracelets. Do yer dooty!'
'My good fellow — '
Orace waggled the blunderbuss threateningly in Bloem's direction.
'Lay orf 'me good fellerin'' me!' commanded Orace ferociously. 'Caught in the yack, that's wot you are, an' jer carn't wriggle out av it! Constible! Wot the thunderin' 'ell are yer wytin' for? Look slippy an' clap the joolry on 'im! An' jew jusurryup an' leggo that popgun, or I'll plugya!'
Bloem let the automatic fall, and the Saint picked it up, in case of accidents.
'I can explain,' persisted Bloem.
'Corse yer can,' agreed Orace, scornful. “Never knew a crook 'oo couldn't.'
'Oh, but he can,' said the Saint. 'You can stop flourishing that cannon, Orace, and come right in. I was just wondering how to get hold of you.'
Orace looked doubtful, but eventually he obeyed, clambering lamely over the sill and treating Bloem to a menacing glare as he did so.
'Yessir?'
'A simple case of mistaken identity,' remarked the Saint to the assembled company, in the manner of counsel opening the defence. 'But Mr. Bloem was so very obstinate.... Well, this is Orace, late of His Majesty's Royal Marines, and my servant for years. Orace will now testify that I reached home just after eleven, and didn't leave again until about twenty to twelve.'
The Saint did not even look at Orace as he spoke, for he knew his man. Carn, however, did, and saw Orace register surprise.
'Tha's so,' said Orace. ' 'Oo said yer didn't?'
'You see,' Simon explained, 'Mr. Bloem there was held up by an armed man to-night, and he had the idea that it was me, so he's been trying to arrest me.'
Orace nodded, tilting his head away from Bloem as if the man offended his nostrils.
'Ar,' said Orace derisively. 'The idea!'
The Saint turned to Bloem.
'Perhaps you will now apologize?' he suggested. 'Come, Mr. Bloem, admit that you didn't get a good view of your assailant, and for reasons of your own you jumped to the conclusion that it was me. He might even have been masked.. ..'
The two men's eyes met. There was no misconstruing the Saint's meaning. He was offering Bloem a graceful retreat. Bloem knew that he had weakened his case by confessing that no one but himself had seen the bandit, and his story would never hold water in the face of Simon's alibi. Orace was the one factor which the Tiger, by some incomprehensible oversight, had utterly overlooked. It might even be said that only Grace's arrival at that precise moment made him a factor to be considered: if any time had elapsed between the arrest and its coming to Grace's ears, Orace might by then have been trapped into admitting that he had not seen the Saint since dinner, and possibly the Tiger had banked on some such manoeuvre. But Orace had turned up just when he was wanted, which he had an uncanny gift for doing, and thereby he had upset the Tiger's applecart irretrievably.
And Bloem knew it. He did not show it with a muscle of his face, but his eyes glowed venomously. And the Saint, smiling a little, gazed back with a little blue devil of unholy glee dancing about just behind his lazily lowered lids. For the Saint was thinking of the whack behind the ear which Bloem had suffered for the good of the cause, and that thought made his ribs ache with noiseless laughter ….
'I am deeply humiliated,' said Bloem in a strangled voice. 'As a matter of fact, the man was masked. I let him leave the room, and then followed. When I came out of the garden, I saw Mr. Templar walking away, and immediately concluded that it was he. The real man must have gone off in another direction. I apologize.'
'I accept your apology, Mr. Bloem,' said the Saint stiffly. 'Don't let it occur again.'
His dignity was terrific, and for that shrewd cut he was rewarded with a look from Bloem which ought by rights to have made him vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving a small greasy stain on the carpet, but the Saint's armour was impregnable.
'I'm very sorry. Doctor,' said Bloem unevenly. 'Try to forgive me, Miss Holm. I'd better go.'
The Saint stepped up with the automatic.
'You might need this, with a hold-up man in the neighbourhood,' he murmured mockingly. 'If you meet him again, I trust you will not spare the lead.'
Bloem gazed back malignantly.
'You need have no fear of that, Mr. Templar,' he replied.
He was just going out when Mr. Hopkins awoke to the realization that he had been cheated of the glory of arresting an armed desperado, and that this coolly smiling man who was getting off scot-free had flung him across the room, bruised and shaken him severely, and nearly broken his arm.
' 'Ere,' said the constable, whose idiom was much the same as that of Orace, 'wassal this? Whatever you say, that don't dispose of the charge of assaultin' the police.'
'When an innocent man is treated like a criminal,' said Simon virtuously, 'he may be pardoned for losing his temper. I'm sure Mr. Bloem will agree with me? ... In fact,' added the Saint, taking Mr. Hopkins coaxingly by the arm, 'I'm sure that if you mentioned the matter to Mr. Bloem, he'd stand you a glass of milk and put a penny in your money box. Wouldn't you, Mr. Bloem?'
'Naturally,' said Bloem, without enthusiasm, “naturally I must accept the responsibility for that.”
'Spoken like a gent,' approved the Saint. 'Now toddle along and talk big business under the stars, like good children.'
And he urged Bloem and the constable toward the door. They went obediently, for different reasons. It was a victory that the Saint could not help rubbing in.
He slammed the front door on the pair, and returned hilariously,
'Honour is vindicated,
The detective looked at the Saint and nodded slowly.
'I think we might,' he assented. 'Such luck ought to be celebrated. I suppose it would be indiscreet to ask
