The Saint tapped Peter Quentin on the shoulder as the court rose, and they slipped out ahead of the scanty assembly of spectators, bored reporters, dawdling solicitors, and traditionally learned counsel. Simon Templar had sat in that stuffy little room for two hours, bruising his marrowbones on an astonishingly hard wooden bench and yearning for a cigarette; but there were times when he could endure many discomforts in a good cause.
Outside, he caught Peter's arm.
"Mind if I take another look at our plaintiff?" he said. "Just over here — stand in front of me. I want to see what a snurge like that really looks like."
They stood in a gloomy corner near the door of the court, and Simon sheltered behind Peter Quentin's hefty frame and watched James Deever come out with his solicitor.
It is possible that Mr. Deever's mother loved him. Perhaps, holding him on her knee, she saw in his childish face the fulfilment of all those precious hopes and shy incommunicable dreams which (if we can believe the Little Mothers' Weekly) are the joy and comfort of the prospective parent. History does not tell us that. But we do know that since her death, thirty years ago, no other bosom had ever opened to him with anything like that sublime mingling of pride and affection.
He was a long cadaverous man with a face like a vulture and shaggy white eyebrows over closely-set greenish eyes. His thin nose swooped low down over a thin gash of a mouth, and his chin was pointed and protruding. In no respect whatsoever was it the kind of countenance to which children take an instinctive shine. Grown men and women, who knew him, liked him even less.
His home and business address were in Manchester; but the City Corporation had never been heard to boast about it. Simon Templar watched him walk slowly past, discussing some point in the case he had just won with the air of a parson conferring with a churchwarden after matins, and the reeking hypocrisy of the performance filled him with an almost irresistible desire to catch Mr. Deever's frock-coated stern with the toe of his shoe and start him on one sudden magnificent flight to the foot of the stairs. The Manchester City Corporation, Simon considered, could probably have kept their ends up without Mr. Deever's name on the roll of ratepayers. But the Saint restrained himself, and went on peaceably with Peter Quentin five minutes afterwards.
"Let us drink some Old Curio," said the Saint.
They entered a convenient tavern, lighting cigarettes as they went, and found a secluded corner in the saloon bar. The court had sat on late, and the hour had struck at which it is lawful for Englishmen to consume the refreshment which can only be bought at any time of the day in uncivilised foreign countries.
And for a few minutes there was silence…