13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

for a drink? Or are you waiting for somebody?'

Simon Templar shook his head.

'No—I just dropped in.'

'Splendid!' said the Colonel. 'Splendid! Perfectly splen­did !' He seized the young man's arm and led him across to where Mr. Immelbern waited. 'By Gad, what a perfectly splen­did coincidence. Simon, you must meet Mr. Immelbern. Sid­ney, this is an old friend of mine, Mr. Templar. By Gad!'

Simon found himself ushered into the best chair, his drink paid for, his health proposed and drunk with every symptom of cordiality.

'By Gad!' said the Colonel, mopping his brow and beam­ing.

'Quite a coincidence, Mr. Templar,' remarked Immelbern, absorbing the word into his vocabulary.

'Coincidence is a marvellous thing,' said the Colonel. 'I remember when I was in Allahabad with the West Notting­hams, they had a quartermaster whose wife's name was Ellen. As a matter of fact, he wasn't really our quartermaster—we borrowed him from the Southwest Kents. Rotten regiment, the Southwest Kents. Old General Plushbottom was with them before he was thrown out of the service. His name wasn't really Plushbottom, but we called him Old General Plushbot­tom. The whole thing was a frightful scandal. He had a fight with a subaltern on the parade-ground at Poona—as a matter of fact, it was almost on the very spot where Reggie Carfew dropped dead of heart failure the day after his wife ran away with a bank clerk. And the extraordinary thing was that her name was Ellen too.'

'Extraordinary,' agreed the young man.

'Extraordinary!' concurred Mr. Immelbern, and trod vi­ciously on Uppingdon's toe under the table.

'That was a marvellous trip we had on the Bremen—I mean to Biarritz—wasn't it?' said the Colonel, wincing.

Simon Templar smiled.

'We had some good parties, didn't we?'

'By Gad! And the casino!'

'The Heliopolis!'

'The races!' said the Colonel, seizing his cue almost too smartly, and moving his feet quickly out of range of Mr. Im­melbern's heavy heel.

Mr. Immelbern gave an elaborate start. He pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket and looked at it accusingly.

'By the way, Sir George,' he interrupted with a faintly con­spiratorial air. 'I don't want to put you out at all, but it's get­ting a bit late.'

'Late?' repeated the Colonel, frowning at him.

'You know,' said Mr. Immelbern mysteriously.

'Oh,' said the Colonel, grasping the point.

Mr. Immelbern turned to Simon.

'I'm really not being rude, Mr. Templar,' he explained, 'but Sir George has important business to attend to this afternoon, and I had to remind him about it. Really, Sir George, don't think I'm butting in, but it goes at two o'clock, and if we're going to get any lunch——'

'But that's outrageous!' protested the Colonel indignantly. 'I've only just brought Mr. Templar over to our table, and you're suggesting that I should rush off and leave him!'

'Please don't bother about me,' said Simon hastily. 'If you have