"Yes." She flounced up and took hold of the sergeant's arm. "You see," she said, "Mr Templar and I are going to be married."
Simon Templar leaned back on his elbows just a split second before he would have fallen back on them. His brain whirred like a clock preparing to strike.
The sergeant blinked.
The constable gulped, and then his face opened in a great joyful romantic beam.
He said: "Wot?"
She said: "Yes. You see, we only just fixed it up last night, when we found out we were in love. And — and we didn't want any publicity. I mean, you know what the newspapers would do with anything like that. So we thought we'd just run away. I suppose some of my friends have been trying to get hold of me, or something, and when they found I'd disappeared they thought something frightful had happened to me, and so they told Scotland Yard and started all this silly scare; but there's nothing in it really, and we've just eloped, and we're going to get married as soon as we can fix it up, and you can't arrest Mr Templar because that would spoil everything and it 'd be in all the papers and we'd get all the limelight that we're trying to get away from. You do understand, don't you?"
The Saint lay completely back and closed his eyes, because he could think of nothing else to do.
And she had the nerve to sit down beside him and kiss him.
And then the constable was pumping his limp hand and saying: "Well sir, may I 'ave the honour of being the first to congratulate you."
"You may, Reginald," said the Saint feebly. "Indeed you may. And for all I know, you may be the last."