"No — I didn't think that. A thing like that is hardly in your line, is it?"
"It isn't. So why bring me in?"
"I don't really know," repeated the detective stubbornly, watching his empty porridge plate being replaced by one of bacon and eggs. "In fact, if you wanted to lose me my job you could go right out and sell the story to a newspaper. They'd pay you well for it."
The Saint tilted back his chair and blew a succession of smoke-rings towards the ceiling. Those very clear and challenging blue eyes rested almost lazily on the detective's somnolent pink half-moon of a face.
"I get you, Claud," he said seriously, "and for once the greatest criminal brain of this generation shall be at the disposal of the Law. Shoot me the whole works."
"I can do more than that," said Teal, with a certain relief. "I'll show you the scene presently. Whipplethwaite's gone to London for a conference with the Prime Minister."
The detective finished his breakfast, and refused a cigarette.
After a few minutes they set out to walk to Whipplethwaite's house, where Teal had already spent several hours of fruitless searching for clues after a special police car had brought him down from London.
Teal, having given his outline of the barest facts, had become taciturn, and Simon made no attempt to force the pace. The Saint appreciated the compliment of the detective's confidence — although perhaps it was only one of many occasions on which those two epic antagonists had been silent in a momentary recognition of the impossible friendship that might have been just as epic if their destinies had lain in different paths. Those were the brief interludes when a truce was possible between them; and the hint of a sigh in Teal's silent ruminations might have been taken to indicate that he wished the truce could have been extended indefinitely.
In the same silence they turned in between the somewhat pompous concrete gate-pillars that gave entrance to the grounds of Sir Joseph Whipplethwaite's country seat. From there, a gravelled carriage drive led them in a semicircular curve through a rough, densely-grown plantation and brought them rather suddenly into sight of the house, which was invisible from the road. A uniformed local constable was patrolling in front of the door; he saluted as he saw Teal, and looked at the Saint inquiringly.