"He means your harem candidates," said Patricia. "The wild flowers that droop shyly at you from the hedges as you pass by. This one must be pretty tough if she still hasn't given way to your manly charms."
Simon reached for a cigarette and flicked his thumbnail thoughtfully over a match.
"She's tough, all right," he said. "But I don't know how tough. She'll need all she's got to sit in on this game. She's sitting in, and I'm still wondering whether she really knows what the stakes are. There was one time tonight when I thought we were going to get somewhere, but she closed up again and went home."
"You started to get somewhere, then," said Peter.
The Saint nodded.
"Oh yes, I started. But I didn't finish, so we might just as well forget about it. She knows something, though — I found that out, even if she didn't admit it. But she's going to play her own hand; and so she'll probably get her throat cut, as I was saying. It makes everything very difficult."
He sat up in an access of unruly energy, and his blue eyes went over them with an almost angry light.
"God damn it," he said quietly, "it's a complete and perfect setup — with only the foundation missing. I've worked it all out a dozen times since we talked it over at Anford, and I expect you have, too. We'll run over it again if you like, and get it all in one piece."
"All right," said Peter. "You run over it. We like hearing you listen to yourself."
"Here it is, then. We've got our friend Luker, the arms wangler. He's on a job. In this case he's in on it with a couple of his stooges named Sangore and Fairweather — two highly esteemed gentlemen with complete faith in their own respectability but completely under his thumb for any dirty work he wants to put in. Also vaguely related is Lady Valerie, a sort of spare-time entraоneuse for Fairweather. Okay. On the other side you have well-meaning but not very agile professional pacifists Kennet and Windlay. Somehow or other they dig up inside information about the job Luker is on. This is where their lack of agility shows up. They threaten exposure unless Luker drops it. Okay. Luker has no intention of dropping it. The first move is through Fairweather, to sic Lady Valerie on to Kennet and see if she can seduce him from his irritating ideals. This fails. Lady Valerie is therefore used for the last time to lure Kennet down to Whiteways for a conference, where he meets with a fortunate accident. The coroner, a staunch friend of the aristocracy, is probably persuaded that Kennet was caught in a drunken stupor, and keeps the inquest nicely hamstrung to save scandal. Everything goes off smoothly; and meanwhile Windlay is mysteriously murdered, apparently by some prowling thug. Okay again."