stagger and collapse. His glare lost none of its fundamental bellicosity. It was only quieter, and perhaps more calculating.
'Oh, did you?' he said.
The Saint fingertipped a cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket. For his part, the approach was all ploughed up anyhow. He had given Titania Ourley little enough script to work with, and now that she had gone defensively back into simple facts it was no use worrying about what other lines might have been developed. Simon resigned himself to some hopeful adlibbing, and smiled at Mr Ourley without the slightest indication of uncer-tainty in his genial nonchalance.
'You see?' he murmured. 'Tiny has brains as well as beauty.'
Ourley's red face deepened into purple again.
'You leave my wife out of this!' he bellowed. 'And as for you, you can get out of here this minute, Mister Templar. When you've got any authority to come barging into other people's affairs----'
'You heard the name,' Simon replied softly. 'Did you ever hear of the Saint asking for any authority?'
' 'And seem a saint when most I play the devil',' said another voice, a deep cultured voice from somewhere else in the hall.
Simon looked around for it.
He saw, in one of the doorways, a tall spare man whose dinner clothes seemed to have been poured over his figure, smiling and twirling a Martini glass in one manicured hand. Gray at the temples, his face was hard and almost unlined, cut in the aquiline fleshless pattern of a traditional Indian chief.
'I don't want to break anything up,' he said, 'but all the excitement seemed to be out here.' Ignoring Ourley, he sauntered towards the Saint with his free hand outstretched. 'I've heard a lot about you, Mr Templar. My name's Allen Uttershaw. I'm supposed to run that Uttershaw Mining Company. I heard somebody talking about iridium. Are you going to get that stolen shipment back for us?'
'I don't know,' said the Saint. 'I'm afraid I only heard about you a few days ago.'
' 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen',' Uttershaw said tolerantly, his smile widening.
Ourley made a gesture of frightful frustration with his cigar.
'What is all this?' he barked. 'Who said that?'
'John Kieran,' said Uttershaw gravely; and Simon looked at him with new interest. It began to seem as if Mr Allen Uttershaw might be quite a fellow.
Mr Ourley didn't have the same pure intellectual detachment. He repeated his outraged gesture with italics in smoke.
'Dabbity dab dab dab!' he roared. 'Has everybody gone nuts? First I find my wife has brought this meddler into my home to spy on me, and then you keep on quoting poetry. Or maybe it's me that's crazy.'
'Milton!' said Mrs Ourley sternly.
Uttershaw took Simon by the arm and started to lead him easily into the living room from which he had emerged.
'Milton, I'm ashamed of you,' he said. 'What will Mr Templar think of your hospitality?'
'I don't give a dab dab what he thinks,' fumed Ourley, pattering helplessly after them. 'My hospitality doesn't include welcoming crooks and spies with open arms.'
'Now, after all--surely Mr Templar is at least entitled to the chance of saying something for himself.' Uttershaw turned to a tray on which a shaker and a row of glasses were set out. 'How about a drink, Mr Templar?'
'Thanks,' said the Saint, with equal urbanity.
He took the glass that Uttershaw handed him, gazed into it for a moment, and then swept his cool blue eyes again over the faces of the other two men.
'I didn't exactly come here to spy,' he said frankly. 'I didn't actually come here with any plans at all. But after what Mrs Ourley told me, I was certainly anxious to talk to'--he inclined his head--'Mr Ourley. I thought I might possibly get you to talk to me. You know that I'm interested in the iridium situation, and it seems that you've had some dealings with the black market. You might like to tell me about it.'
'My wife is an irresponsible imbecile,' Ourley said balefully. 'I'm just a business man with a contract to fill, and I'm filling it.'
'Anyone who buys in a black market, of course, is technically compounding some sort of misdemeanor,' Simon went on im-perturbably. 'But in this case it goes a little further. Iridium isn't so common that a black market can just scratch it up out of a junk pile. And Mr Uttershaw will certainly remember a recent robbery in which two men were killed. It seems rather obvious to me that at least some of this black market iridium is coming from that stolen shipment which started the shortage in the first place. In that case, anyone who buys it is not only receiving stolen goods, but in a sort of way he's an accessory to murder.'
'Fiddlesticks!' exploded Ourley. 'What do you propose to do when you get some information--turn it over to the Junior G-Men or cash in on it yourself?'
'Milton!' repeated Mrs Ourley, aghast from her quivering bust to the crimson-tipped toes that protruded through the front of her evening sandals.
'Considering my reputation, the question is not out of order,' Simon said equably. 'And the answer is that I shall deal with any facts I can get hold of in whatever way I think they would do the most good.'
'Well,' rasped Ourley, 'in that case I'd be seventyseven kinds of a dab dabbed idiot if I told you anything--if I knew anything, that is,' he added hastily.
Simon's gaze was dispassionately unwavering.
'Would you say the same thing to the police or the FBI?'
'You're dabbity dab well right I would. My business is still my own business until these dabbity dab New Dealers take what's left of it away from me.'
Uttershaw stepped up with a gold lighter for the cigarette which the Saint was still holding unlighted between his fingers.
'Do you know anything about this iridium black market, Milton?' he inquired curiously.
Ourley's mouth opened, and then closed again like a trap before it parted a second time to let out words.
'I have no information to give anyone,' he said; 'especially to interfering dab dabs like this. And that's final.'
'I only wondered,' Uttershaw said suavely, 'because naturally I'm interested myself. Of course that iridium shipment of mine was insured, but I couldn't insure my legitimate profit, which would have been quite reasonable. And after all, we all have to make some kind of living. Besides, I can't help hating to think that some crooks are making a fantastic profit where I'm really entitled to a fair one. Personally, I wish Mr Templar a lot of luck. And I'm sure the Government would be behind him.'
'Don't talk to me about the Government!' Ourley blared, his face ripening again. 'What I still want to know is what right a meddling son of a dab blab like this Templar has to go around sticking his nose into my business and making passes at my wife and crashing into my house to cross-examine me. And I want him the hell out of here!'
' 'The eagle suffers little birds to sing',' Uttershaw remembered soothingly; and Ourley's eyes bulged with his blood pressure.
'I wish everybody would stop throwing quotations at me,' he howled. 'Who said that?'
'Clifton Fadiman--or was it F P A?' said Uttershaw good-humoredly.
Simon Templar emptied his shallow glass and set it down. It seemed rather sadly clear that he was not going to make any substantial progress there and then, and his nibble still left him a secondary line that might be more profitable to play on. He had that in his mind as he bent over Mrs Ourley's diamond-sprinkled hand with somewhat exaggerated formality.
'It's been nice to see you again--Tiny,' he said, and added with a malice that saved him from shuddering: 'Perhaps we shall dance that immortal rumba one of these days.' He bowed to the spluttering Mr Ourley. 'I still hope you'll think this over, Milton. I do really. Prison life is so slimming,' he said; and shook hands with Uttershaw. 'If you hear anything in professional circles, I'm at the Algonquin. We might have lunch one day.'
'I'd love to,' Uttershaw said cordially. 'I'd still like to know why you should take so much trouble.'
Simon turned at the door. There were certain little touches and lovely curtains that he could never
