“Let’s have those papers,” he ordered.
Simon took them from his breast pocket. The girl received them, and turned on the dashboard light to squint down the roll of plans and read the inscription on the long envelope. Her golden-yellow hair stirred like a shifting halo in the slight breeze.
“Burt Northwade hasn’t got a brother who’s a professor at Toronto,” she explained, “and I’m no relative of the family. Apart from that, most of what I told you was true. Northwade bought this invention from a young Rumanian inventor — I don’t know what sort of a price he gave for it, but he bought it. Actually there’s no patent on it, so the biggest value to a manufacturer is in keeping it secret till he can come out with it ahead of the others. He was going to sell it to Ford, as I told you.”
“What are you going to do with it?” inquired the Saint curiously.
“We’ve got an unwritten offer from Henry Kaiser.”
She went forward and swung back the plank with the red lights, so that the road was clear again. Then she came back. The gray eyes were as frank and friendly as before.
“We’ve been planning this job for a week, and we should have done the job ourselves tonight if I hadn’t seen your photograph in the paper and recognized you at the Windsor. The rest of it was an inspiration. There’s nothing like having the greatest expert in the profession to work for you.”
“What paper do you read?” asked the Saint.
“I saw you in La Presse. Why?”
“I bought an imported New York paper,” said the Saint, conversationally.