There was a pause of intense cogitation.
"Get 'old of Scotland Yard," said the constable, "and tell 'em wot Lady Valerie says."
"While we keep Mr Templar in custody," said the sergeant, seeing light.
"But you can't!" the girl said indignantly. "How can you lock Mr Templar up in your beastly prison for kidnapping me when I'm here to prove that he hasn't done anything of the sort? I mean, I'm the one who's supposed to have been kidnapped, so I ought to have some say about it. Who's got any right to say I've been kidnapped if I say I haven't?"
The sergeant wriggled wretchedly inside his coat.
"I dunno, miss," he said. "But those are the instructions we 'ad from London."
"I won't hear of it!" she said tearfully.
She sat down on the bed beside the Saint and took hold of his arm. Her lovely brown eyes gazed at him with something like worship.
"Do you think we ought to tell them, Simon?" she said.
"Do you?" he replied, not knowing what she was talking about, but with an awful premonition.