"It seems years since I called out the Old Guard, souls," said the Saint, glancing at Roger and Monty. "But this is one evening when your little Simon has need of you."
"What's it all about?" asked Monty expectantly; and Simon drained his glass and told them as briefly as he could about the leprousness of Major Bellingford Smart.
"But," said the Saint, "I am about to afflict him with much sorrow; and that's where you stiffs come in. We are going to settle down to a bridge party. Peter, your janitor saw me come in, and at about a quarter to ten we shall send for him and bribe him to go out and buy us some more ice — which will give him another chance to observe that I'm still here. But as soon as he's brought the ice, which I'm afraid I shall have to leave you toughs to use, I shall hop nimbly out of the window on to the roofs below, descend smartly to the area at the back, proceed thence to the street, and go about my business, returning in about an hour by the same route. As soon as I'm in, we shall ring for the janitor again and demand further supplies of Scotch. He will reply that it's past closing time, and there will be some argument in which I shall play a prominent part — thereby establishing the fact that we have been together the whole jolly evening. And so we shall. We shall have been playing bridge steadily all the while, and there will be four markers all filled up with the identical scores to prove it — in addition to your solemn oaths. Do you get me?"
"What is this?" asked Roger Conway. "An alibi?"
"No more and no less, old dear," answered the Saint seraphically. "I spent this afternoon wading through passenger lists, and discovered that there actually is a Captain Bourne sailing on the Otranto from Tilbury at seven o'clock tonight, which saved me the trouble and expense of booking a passage in that name myself. So when Major Bellingford Smart tries to put over his story it will indubitably receive the polite ha-ha. You soaks are just here in case the episode comes to the ears of Claud Eustace Teal and he tries to work me into it."
Roger Conway shrugged rather ruefully.
"You're on, of course," he said. "But I wish there was more action in it."
Simon looked at him with a smile; for those two had shared many adventures in the old days, as also more recently had Monty Hayward; and he knew that both men sometimes looked back a trifle wistfully on those days out of the respectable surroundings that had subsequently engulfed them.
"Perhaps we may work together again before we die, Roger," he said.
Monty Hayward had another suggestion.