'You're still ragging,' she accused — 'and I wish you wouldn't.
'But what's the use?' he temporized. 'In any case, either you love him already or you don't. Which is it?'
'I do,' she answered defiantly.
He made a gesture of humorous despair. 'If that's true, nothing anyone can say will change you. The law is taken out of my hands. If I say I believe in him, you'll fall on my neck and say how wise I am to see deeper than everybody else. If I say I don't believe in him, and advise you to give him up, you'll call me a spiteful old fool, and rush off and fall on his neck and tell him that you don't care what the rest of the world says. So what can I do?'
'Just give me your honest opinion. What would you advise me to do if I were your daughter, for instance?'
He winced.
'Still harping on my gray hairs!' he protested. 'However, shall we stick to our former argument? You love him, and that's all there is to be said. I've had a lot of experience with lawbreakers, and unofficially I'm broadminded about them. There are only three kinds of criminal. The first is the small sneak-thief who's been brought up to it from childhood: he's petty, whining, or bullying according to size, and he spends most of his life in prison — but to him that's part of the game. Obviously, Templar doesn't fall into that category. The second type is the clever man with a kink: he does fairly well for himself, till one day he makes a slip and ends up in the dock. He may be bred to it like the first kind, or he may drift into crime because he thinks he sees bigger rewards for his cleverness there than in legitimate professions. But he's a coward and a snake — and, obviously again, that lets Templar out. The distinction's rather a fine one, but I think you can put it that the worst kink in type the second is that he can't laugh like a completely sane man; and Templar's got such a refreshingly boyish sense of humour. The third and last type is the Raffles. He's common in fiction, but he only occurs once in a blue moon outside a novelist's imagination; he does it more for the thrill than anything. Templar might be that, quite easily; but that kind is always clean, and if he loves you you've nothing to worry about. So suppose we agree that that's the worst we can say about him — and we can even excuse some of that on the grounds of youthful high spirits and an impetuous desire for adventure. Are you satisfied?'
Lapping had delivered this discourse in a kindly and charitable way, such as a man might use who had seen too much of the world to judge anyone hastily and who understood enough to be able to pardon much, and Patricia found it hard to doubt his sincerity. Still, she had a card or two yet to play, and she did not intend to let the Saint down by allowing herself to be too easily won.
'You're a wonderful help, Sir Michael,' she said. 'You've more or less expressed what I feel myself.... It's a comfort to know that I'm not alone in my lunacy.'
'I think, though,' he warned her, 'you ought to ask the young man to give his own explanation. If he trusts you, and if he's the type I gather he is, he'll make a clean breast of it all. Hasn't he told you anything about himself?'
She was instantly on her guard.
'What sort of things?' she countered, and he showed surprise that she should ask such a question.
'Well, things! He can't have expected you not to be at all curious about the reason for these extraordinary goings-on.'
'He just told me I must be patient and believe in him. He said it would be dangerous for me to know too much, but that once it was all cleared up and the enemy was out of the way he'd be able to explain it all.'
'And who is this mysterious enemy?'
'Mr. Templar calls him the Tiger — I don't know why.'
Lapping knitted his brows for a time in thought.
'I seem to recognize the nickname,' he said. 'Wait a minute.... Wasn't there a sensation in the papers some time ago? A Chicago gang called the Tiger Cubs had broken a bank and escaped with an enormous sum of money in gold — something of the sort.'
She kept her face perfectly blank.
'I can't remember,' she said. 'It doesn't convey anything to me.'
'I can't place it on the spur of the moment, but I'm certain it was something like that. But a Chicago gang leader in Baycombe! That sounds rather far-fetched.'
'I know it does,' she granted ruefully, 'But so do some of the true things I've told you this afternoon.'
His hand just touched her arm. He smiled again — his frequent friendly smile that was so nearly irresistible even to her newborn suspicion of everything and everybody. But one thing checked her impulse to believe in him and look for enemies elsewhere. She was looking into his face, and she would have sworn that there lurked in his eyes a glimmer of suppressed amusement.
'Then shall we give it up?' he said. 'We could argue for hours, and get no farther. All you can do is to possess your soul in patience. Sooner or later events will prove whether your intuition is right or wrong, and then you will be able to make your decision with a clearer vision. Meanwhile, you can only act as your heart dictates. There's a trite and priggish piece of sentimental moralizing for you! But what else can an old fogey offer?'
'You're too silly!” she iaughed. 'I'm awfully grateful.'
'Then, having temporarily settled the fate of the greatest romance in history; what about the tea you promised yourself?'
She thanked him, and he rose and went into the house to give the order and tidy himself up.
She was glad of the respite, for she was finding it a strain to obey the Saint's injunction and maintain the pose of a kind of cross between a sleuth, a conspirator, and a fugitive with a price on her head., And Lapping, after so obligingly leading the conversation into the path she wanted it to follow, had given her no help at all. He was very winning and benevolent, and quite at his ease. All her baiting of the trap and stealthy stalking of her quarry had yielded not a trace of a guilty conscience. But there was still the disturbing matter of his amusement to account for. She had an uncomfortable and exasperating feeling that he was quietly making fun of her — that her crude and clumsy attempts to make him give himself away afforded him a secret malicious delight. He had given nothing away, and that fact only reenforced her growing belief that he had something to give if he chose to do so.
It was a disconcerting realization to have to face — that Lapping had read through her studied innocence and seen her for nothing more or less than the emissary of the Saint, and that he was simply playing with her. Would any law-abiding man, however tolerant, have been quite so broad-minded? She began to doubt it, while she had to admit that her grounds for doing so were very flimsy. If Lapping were high up in the Tiger Cubs, he would be a clever man, and a clever man would know that to try to turn her against the Saint would immediately arouse suspicion of his motives; whereas by taking the Saint's part he might hope to inveigle her into regarding him as a potential ally. But how could an ex-judge, most of whose life had been led in the glaring light of publicity, have managed to enter such a gang as the Tiger's? Her brain reeled in a dizzy maze of impossible theories, of profound subtleties and super-crafty countersubtleties. If Lapping were in league with the Tiger, and had seen through her, how high would he be likely to rate her intelligence? For according to that rating he would be skilfully gauging her psychological reactions to his insidious attack, so that on the very points where she thought he had betrayed himself he would have fooled her into making exactly the deductions he wanted her to make. And to beat him at that game she would have to be just a shade cleverer than he gave her credit for being — and how clever was that? For the first time she got an insight into the true deadly technique of the 'sport' she had taken up so light- heartedly.
Now Lapping emerged from the house, carrying a folding table. Behind him followed his housekeeper with the tray of teachings. For an instant Patricia was seized with panic. Suppose Lapping were one of the Tiger Cubs — even the Tiger himself — and had discovered her object and decided to remove her? The tea could be drugged, cakes could be poisoned. She choked back an impulse to rush away, forcing herself to think of Simon. What would the Saint have done in the circumstances? Well, for a start, he'd never have allowed them to arise. But how would he face them if they had arisen? She compelled herself to deal logically with her fear, and the answer came. Whatever Lapping might be, and however much he suspected, he wouldn't dare to do anything to her just then, because of the possibility that the Saint might be keeping an eye on the proceedings, watching and waiting to see if Lapping would fall for the temptation and so incriminate himself. The answer was sound. Patricia relaxed, and greeted Lapping with a friendly smile when he arrived.
