“What’s your wife’s name?” the Saint asked irrelevantly.
“Lola May. Why—”
“Nothing at all.”
And so, “ruptured duck” conspicuous on his blouse, his six stripes heralding relative solvency, his candid gray eyes clean of suspicion, he was the ideal candidate for one of crook-dom’s oldest and dirtiest rackets — with a new and up-to-date come-on.
“So then,” said the Saint, “she came out of the bedroom in something that was next to nothing and in less time than it takes to tell it you were in a, shall we chastely say, compromising position.”
The sergeant glared.
“It wasn’t quite that way,” he amended. “She launched herself at me like a runaway steam roller.”
“I see. In any event, when the door opened—”
“They came in through the window. Off the fire escape.”
“Um. Authentic touch, that. When the window opened to admit her — ‘husband’ and the ‘detective’ with his little camera, the exploding flash bulb illumined a scene in which one and one added up to a very damning two.”