“B... But—” She broke off. “Simon, if you’re going to be coy—”
“Not at all. Come over for breakfast, and I’ll try to give you a general idea what happened.”
“And just what has your little colleen, Connie Grady, got to do with all this?”
“I haven’t decided yet. We’ll talk about it at breakfast.”
“I’ll be there,” she said ominously. “And it had better be good.”
“It will be. The freshest eggs, the crispest bacon, the best butter—”
“I don’t mean that. Good night, Lothario.”
Simon thoughtfully pulled off a shoe.
Hoppy Uniatz had disposed of the remains of his pint, and had taken advantage of the interruption to begin a strategic circling manoeuvre towards the Saint’s bottle. This was a more or less instinctive gravitation; his receding brow was grooved by a stream of excogitation that flowed with all the gusto of a glacier towards its terminal moraine.
“Boss,” Hoppy ruminated, “I got an idea.”