Simon struck a match.

“Is it?”

“Indeed it is.”

“Even about your secret partnership with Doc Spangler?”

Grady’s grin faded. He turned abruptly, went back behind his desk, and sat down. His fingertips tapped a nervous tattoo on the top of his desk for a moment.

“Even if that were true,” he said finally, “would it be a crime?”

The Saint also sat down again, lowering himself through a leisured breath of smoke.

“I always heard you were an honest man, Mike,” he said quietly. “Spangler’s a crook, and you know it.”

Grady flushed.

“I don’t know anything of the sort!” he snapped. “So he served time once. What of it? A man can make a mistake.”