he said dryly, 'it looks like you've got your answer.'
'To one question,' she said. 'You haven't answered the other. What shall I tell Judd?'
Simon studied her for the space of a couple of pulse-beats. In that time, he thought with a swiftness and clarity that was almost clairvoyant. He saw every angle and every prospect and every possible surprise.
He also saw Patricia standing aghast in the doorway behind the gorilla shoulders of Mr Uniatz, and grinned impudently at her.
He stood up, and put out his hand to Angela Lindsay.
'Go back and tell Morrie and Judd that we found out where the dough was last night,' he said. 'Verdean had buried it in a flowerbed. A couple of pals of mine dug it out in the small hours of this morning and took it to London. They're sitting over it with a pair of machine-guns in my apartment at Cornwall House now, and I dare anybody to take it away. That ought to hold 'em. . . . Then you shake them off as soon as you can, and meet me at the Stag and Hounds opposite Weybridge Common in two hours from now. We'll take you along with us and show you Hogsbotham's nightshirts!'
She faced him steadily, but with a suppressed eagerness that played disturbing tricks with her moist lips.
'You mean that ? You'll take me in with you ?'
'Just as far as you want to be taken in, kid,' said the Saint.
He escorted her to the front door. There was no car outside, but doubtless Messrs Kaskin and Dolf were waiting for her a little way up the road. He watched her start down the drive, and then he closed the door and turned back.
'You'd look better without the lipstick,' said Patricia judicially.
He thumbed his nose at her and employed his handkerchief.
'Excuse me if I seem slightly scatterbrained,' he remarked. 'But all this is rather sudden. Too many things have happened in the last few minutes. What would you like to do with the change from fifteen thousand quid ? There ought to be a few bob left after I've paid for my last lot of shirts and bought a new distillery for Hoppy.'
'Have you fallen right off the edge,' she asked interestedly, 'or what is it?'
'At a rough guess, I should say it was probably 'What' '. The Saint's happy lunacy was too extravagant to cope with. 'But who cares ? Why should a little thing like this cause so much commotion ? Have you no faith in human nature ? The girl's better nature was revived. My pure and holy personality has done its work on her. It never fails. My shining example has made her soul pant for higher things. From now on, she is going to be on the side of the Saints. And she is going to take care of Judd and Morrie. She is going to lead them for us, by the nose, into the soup. Meanwhile, Professor Uniatz has shaken the scientific world to its foundations with bis new and startling treatment for cases of concussion. He has whopped Comrade Verdean on the turnip with the end of his Betsy and banged his memory back, and we are going to lay our hands on fifteen thousand smackers before we go to bed tonight, And we are going to find all this boodle in the bedroom of Ebenezer Hogsbotham, of all the superlative places in the world, I ask you, can life hold any more?'
He exploded out of the hall into the study, and went on into the secret room, leaving her staring after him a trifle dazedly.
He was bubbling with blissful idiocy, but his mind was cool. He had already diagnosed the effects of the Uniatz treatment so completely that his visit was really only intended to reassure himself that it had actually worked. He studied Verdean coldbloodedly. The bank manager's eyes were vacant and unrecognizing: he rolled his head monotonously from side to side and kept up a delirious mumble from which the main points of the summary that Hoppy Uniatz had made were absurdly easy to pick out. Over and over again he reiterated the story—how Mr Hogsbotham had asked him as a neighbour to keep an eye on the house during some of his absences, how he had been entrusted with a key which he had never remembered to return, and how when he was wondering what to do with the stolen money he
