"And I feel like a million dollars on it," he said. "Come on— let's go and be rude to Julian!"
In a surprisingly short space of time he was dressed, immaculate and debonair as ever, and they walked up Piccadilly together.
"No alibi?" asked Peter.
"Why bother?" smiled the Saint. "If anything could possibly go wrong, Julian would have a swell job trying to explain exactly why he had the entire capital of the firm in a bag in his room, with a one-way passage booked to Buenos Aires — and I don't think he'd take it on."
He had a faultless sense of time, and Kate Allfield had also learned that in their profession punctuality may be more precious than many alibis. She had just paid off her taxi when they arrived at the Savoy; and Simon could understand the foolishness of Julian Lamantia no less than the foolishness of Peter Quentin. He had always thought her lovely, even at that first meeting at the airport when he had only just discovered the hypnotic powers of her cigarettes in time; and the affair of the Star of Mandalay had shown him something else about her that he saluted in his own way. But it was Peter Quentin's hand that she touched first; and Simon knew that with this adventure one more adventurer came to an end.
They went in together, and Peter and Simon stood aside while the girl approached the hall porter and had her name telephoned up to Mr. Lamantia's room. The reply came back, as they had expected, that she was to be shown up; and the two men strolled along and joined her quite naturally as she was escorted to the lift.
They got out on the third floor, and she stopped the pageboy who accompanied them with a smile.
"I know the way," she said.
Simon slipped a half-crown into the midget's hand, and they brushed past him. In a few yards they had the corridor to themselves.
"You might wander downstairs and drift out, Kathleen," said the Saint. "Go to the Mayfair. We'll join you there in about half an hour."