Simon stopped walking and looked at it.
There was a showcard in the centre of the window—the same card, as a matter of fact, which Mr Teal had seen. But the Saint was taking no chances.
'Let's make sure,' he said.
He led her the rest of the way up the street for a block beyond the turning where Mr Teal would have branched off on the most direct route to his lodgings, and back down the opposite side; but no other drug-store window revealed a similar sign.
Simon stood on the other side of the road again, and gazed across at the brightly lighted window which they had first looked at. He read the name 'HENRY OSBETT & CO.' across the front of the shop.
He let go Patricia's arm.
'Toddle over, darling,' he said, 'and buy me a packet of Miracle Tea.'
'What happens if I get shot?' she asked suspiciously.
'I shall hear the bang,' he said, 'and phone for an ambulance.'
Two minutes later she rejoined him with a small neat parcel in her hand. He fell in beside her as she came across the road, and turned in the direction of the lower end of the street, where he had left the car.
'How was Comrade Osbett?' he murmured. 'Still keeping up with the world?'
'He looked all right, if he was the fellow who served me.' She passed him the packet she was carrying. 'Now do you mind telling me what good this is supposed to do ?'
'We must listen to one of their broadcasts and find out. According to the wrapper, it disperses bile——'
She reached across to his hip pocket, and he laughed.
'Okay, darling. Don't waste any bullets—we may need them. I just wanted to find out if there were any curious features about buying Miracle Tea, and I didn't want to go in myself because I'm liable to want to go in again without being noticed too much.'
'I didn't see anything curious,' she said. 'I just asked for it, and he wrapped it up and gave it to me.'
'No questions or stalling?'
'No. It was just like buying a toothbrush or anything else.'
'Didn't he seem to be at all interested in who was buying it?'
'Not a bit.'
He held the package to his ear, shook it, and crunched it speculatively.
'We'll have a drink somewhere and see if we've won anything,' he said.
At a secluded corner table in the Florida, a while later, he opened the packet, with the same care to preserve the seals and wrappings as he had given to the first consignment, and tipped out the contents on to a plate. The contents, to any ordinary examination, consisted of nothing but tea—and, by the smell and feel of it, not very good tea either.
The Saint sighed, and called a waiter to remove the mess.
'It looks as if we were wrong about that eccentric millionaire,' he said. 'Or else the supply of doremi has run out.... Well, I suppose we shall just have to go to work again.' He folded the container and stowed it carefully away in his pocket; and if he was disappointed he was able to conceal his grief. A glimmer
