"I don't know. You see, I owe three weeks' rent now, and they won't let me in until I pay it. I guess I'll take a stroll up to the park."
"It's healthy enough, but a bit drafty." He smiled at her suddenly with disarming frankness. "Look here, what would you say if I suggested that we wander around to a little place close by here where I can get you a room? It's quiet and clean, and I don't live there. But I'd like to do something about you. Stay there tonight and meet me for dinner tomorrow, and let's talk it over."
She met him the following evening, and he had to do very little more than keep his ears open to learn everything that he wanted to know.
"They're in Oppenheim's study — on the second floor. His daughter's room is next door to it, and the walls aren't very thick. He was showing them to her yesterday afternoon when I was there. He has a big safe in the study, but he doesn't keep the emeralds in it. I heard him boasting about how clever he was. He said, 'Anybody who came in looking for the emeralds would naturally think they'd be in the safe, and they'd get to work on it at once. It 'd take them a long time to open it, which would give us plenty of chances to catch them; but anyhow they'd be disappointed. They'd never believe that I had a million and a half dollars' worth of emeralds just tucked away behind a row of books on a shelf. Even the man from the detective agency doesn't know it — he thinks the safe is what he's got to look after.' "
"So they have a private detective on the job, do they?" said the Saint.
"Yes. A man from Ingerbeck's goes in at seven o'clock every evening and stays till the servants are up in the morning. The butler's a pretty tough-looking guy himself, so I suppose Oppenheim thinks the house is safe enough in his hands in the daytime… Why do you want to know all this?"
"I'm interested."
She looked at him with an unexpected clearness of understanding.
"Is that what you meant when you said you'd like to do something about me? Did you think you could do it if you got hold of those emeralds?"
The Saint lighted a cigarette with a steady and unhurried hand, and then his blue eyes came back to her face for a moment before he answered with a very quiet and calculating directness.