“Even Jack the Ripper must have had his social hours,” he said. “Please consider me on my best behaviour. You need have no fears for your sapphires, your silver, or your honour, though the latter...” He beamed at Mrs Wingate, who snickered again, unaware that the sentence might have been finished in many more ways than one, and at least half of them unflattering.
Elliott introduced himself. “—since Laura is too flustered, I gather,” he said gravely. “Miss Varing? How do you do? Meeting two such notable figures is rather an event. I’ll celebrate it by joining you in a drink.”
He beckoned to a passing tray.
“To crime,” the Saint suggested, and they drank, though Mrs Wingate had a moment’s startled pause first.
“To crime,” Elliott repeated. “I’m surprised to hear that from you, Mr Templar. I thought the Saint changed sides a while ago.”
“There was a war on at the time,” Simon said casually, “and some of it seemed sort of important. But now I’m back to stirring up my own trouble. You might call it my private reconversion problem... As a matter of fact, I’m working on a case now, and I find I haven’t lost much of my knack.”
“A case?” Elliott asked.
“Yes. It should interest you, in view of the work you’ve been doing among Chicago’s poor. Have you ever heard of someone called the King of the Beggars?”
Simon threw out the phrase with perfect carelessness, and just as airily made no point of watching for a reaction.
It would have made little difference if he had. Stephen Elliott’s Santa Claus eyebrows merely drew together in a vaguely worried way; while Mrs Wingate bridled as if her position in the Social Register had been questioned, and then said, “It’s fantastic. Utterly fantastic. I’ve heard rumours, of course, but — Mr Templar, you must realise that such things are... are...”