don't know, sir. The door—opened from the inside— one of those damn smoke-bombs thrown out—started all this. Couldn't see—any more, sir.'
'Let's get some air,' gasped Teal.
They reeled along the corridor for what seemed to be miles before the smoke thinned out, and after a while they reached a haven where an open corridor window reduced it to no more than a thin grey mist. Red-eyed and panting, they stared at one another.
'He's done it,' said Teal huskily.
That was the bitter fact he had to face; and he knew without further investigation, even without the futile routine search that had to follow, that he would never see the crown of Cherkessia again.
The other members of the party were blundering down towards them through the fog. The first figure to loom up was that of Prince Schamyl himself, cursing fluently in an incomprehensible tongue; and after him came the form of the Southshire Insurance Company's private bloodhound. Teal's bloodshot eyes glared at that second apparition insanely through the murk. Mr. Teal had suffered much; he was not feeling himself, and in the last analysis he was only human. That is the only explanation this chronicle can offer for what he did. For with a kind of strangled grunt, Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal lurched forward and took hold of the offensive handlebar moustaches, one in each determined hand. . . .
'Perhaps now you'll tell me how you did it,' said Patricia Holm.
The Saint smiled. He had arrived only twenty minutes, before, fresh as a daisy, at the hotel in Paris where he had arranged to meet her; and he was unpacking.
From a large suitcase he had taken a small table, which was a remarkable thing for him to have even in his frequently eccentric luggage. He set it up before her, and placed on it a velvet-lined wooden box. The table was somewhat thicker in the top than most tables of that size, as if it might have contained a drawer; but she could not see any drawer.
'Watch,' he said.
He touched a concealed spring somewhere in the side of the table—and the box vanished. Because she was watching it closely, she saw it go: it simply fell through a trapdoor into the hollow thickness of the top, and a perfectly fitted panel sprang up to fill the gap again. But it was all done in a split second; and even when she examined the top of the table closely it was hard to see the edges of the trapdoor. She shook the table, but nothing rattled. For all that any ordinary examination could reveal, the top might have been a solid block of mahogany.
'It was just as easy as that,' said the Saint, with the air of a conjuror revealing a treasured illusion. 'The crown never even left the room until I was ready to take it away. Fortunately the Prince hadn't actually paid for the crown. It was still insured by Vazey's themselves, so the Southshire Insurance Company's cheque will go direct to them—which saves me a certain amount of extra work. All I've got to do now is to finish off my alibi, and the job's done.'
'But Simon,' pleaded the girl, 'when Teal grabbed your moustaches ——'
'Teal didn't grab my moustaches,' said the Saint with dignity. 'Claud Eustace would never had dreamed of doing such a thing. I shall never forget the look on that bird's face when the moustaches were grabbed, though. It was a sight I hope to treasure to my dying day.'
He had unpacked more of the contents of his large bag while he was talking; and at that moment he was laying out a pair of imperially curled moustachios with which was connected an impressively pointed black beard. Patricia's eyes suddenly opened wide.
'Good Lord!' she gasped. 'You don't mean to say you kidnapped the Prince and pretended to be
Simon Templar shook his head.
'I
