"No."
"Well, what the devil did you come for?"
"I thought you might like to tell me something about it," Teal said woodenly. "What is all this about, and what has Luker got to do with it?"
The Saint reached for a cigarette.
"Quite apart from the fact that I don't see why I should be supposed to know, haven't you thought of asking him?"
"I have asked him. He said he'd never seen these men before; and they say they've never heard of him."
The Saint lighted his cigarette. He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs under the table.
"Then it certainly does look very mysterious," he said, but his blue eyes were quiet and searching.
Chief Inspector Teal turned his venerable bowler on his blue-serge knees. He had got his spearmint nicely into condition now — a plastic nugget, malleable and yet resistant, still flavorous, crisp without being crumbly, glutinous without adhesion, obedient to the capricious patterning of his mobile tongue working in conjunction with the clockwork reciprocation of his teeth, polymorphous, ductile. It was a great comfort to him. He would have been lost without it. What he had to do was not easy.
"I know," he said. "That's why I came to see you. I thought you might be able to give me a lead."