Simon Templar grinned amiably, and beckoned a waiter for the bill. The orchestra yawned and went into another dance number; but the floor show had been over for half an hour, and Dora's Curfew was hurrying the drinks off the tables. It was two o'clock in the morning, and a fair proportion of the patrons of the Palace Royal had some work to think of before the next midnight.
'Maybe you're right, Claud,' said the Saint mildly.
'I know I'm right,' said Mr. Teal, in his drowsy voice. And then, as Simon pushed a fiver on to the plate, he chuckled. 'But I know you like pulling our legs about it, too.'
They steered their way round the tables and up the stairs to the hotel lobby. It was another of those rare occasions when Mr. Teal had been able to enjoy the Saint's company without any lurking uneasiness about the outcome. For some weeks his life had been comparatively peaceful. No hints of further Saintly lawlessness had come to his ears; and at such times he admitted to himself, with a trace of genuine surprise, that there were few things which entertained him more than a social evening with the gay buccaneer who had set Scotland Yard more mysteries than they would ever solve.
'Drop in and see me next time I'm working on a case, Saint,' Teal said in the lobby, with a truly staggering generosity for which the wine must have been partly responsible. 'You'll see for yourself how we really do it.'
'I'd like to,' said the Saint; and if there was the trace of a smile in his eyes when he said it, it was entirely without malice.
He settled his soft hat on his smooth dark head and glanced round the lobby with the vague aimlessness which ordinarily precedes a parting at that hour. A little group of three men had discharged themselves from a near-by lift and were moving boisterously and a trifle unsteadily towards the main entrance. Two of them were hatted and overcoated—a tallish man with a thin line of black moustache, and a tubby red-faced man with rimless spectacles. The third member of the party, who appeared to be the host, was a flabby flat-footed man of about fifty-five with a round bald head and a rather bulbous nose that would have persuaded any observant onlooker to expect that he would have drunk more than the others, which in fact he obviously had. All of them had the dishevelled and rather tragically ridiculous air of Captains of Industry who have gone off duty for the evening.
'That's Lewis Enstone—the chap with the nose,' said Teal, who knew everyone. 'He might have been one of the biggest men in the City if he could have kept off the bottle.'
'And the other two?' asked the Saint incuriously, because he already knew.
'Just a couple of smaller men in the same game. Abe Costello—that's the tall one—and Jules Hammel.' Mr. Teal chewed meditatively on his spearmint. 'If anything ever happens to them, I shall want to know where you were at the time,' he added warningly.
'I shan't know anything about it,' said the Saint piously.
He lighted a cigarette and watched the trio of celebrators disinterestedly. Hammel and Costello he knew something about from the untimely reincarnation of Mr. Titus Oates; but the more sozzled member of the party was new to him.
'You do unnerstan', boys, don't you?' Enstone was articulating pathetically, with his arms spread around the shoulders of his guests in an affectionate manner which contributed helpfully towards his support. 'It's jus' business. I'm not hardhearted. I'm kind to my wife an' children an' everything, God bless 'em. An' any time I can do anything for either of you—why, you jus' lemme know.'
'That's awfully good of you, old man,' said Hammel, with the blurry-eyed solemnity of his condition.
'Less have lunch together on Tuesday,' suggested Costello. 'We might be able to talk about something that'd interest you.'
'Right,' said Enstone dimly. 'Lush Tooshday. Hic.'
'An1 don't forget the kids,' said Hammel confidentially.
Enstone
