"I'm sending my Boy Scout material back for you to look after," he said. "Feed him some ginger ale and keep him happy till I get back. I wouldn't flirt with him too much, because I think he's a rather earnest soul. And if there should be any inquiries tell Orace to hide him in the oven and don't let anybody know we've got him."
"Does this mean you're getting into trouble again?" she demanded ominously. "Because if you are—"
"Darling, I am about to have a conference with the vicar about the patterns for the next sewing bee," said the Saint and hung up the receiver.
He lighted a cigarette as he sauntered down to the corner and across the street towards the house which he had been meaning to visit. The scene was still more or less the same, one or two new idle citizens having joined the small accumulation of inquisitive loafers, and one or two of the old congregation having grown tired of gaping at nothing and moved off. The policeman still stood majestically by the door, although the man in the bowler hat no longer obstructed the opening. The policeman moved a little to do some obstructing of his own as the Saint ambled up the steps.
"Do you live here, sir?"
"No," said the Saint amiably. "Do you?"
The constable gazed at him woodenly.
"Who do you want to see?"
"I should like to see Chief Inspector Teal," Simon told him impressively. "He's expecting me."
The policeman studied him suspiciously for a moment; but the Saint was very impressive. He looked like a man whom a chief inspector might have been expecting. He might equally well have been expected by a prime minister, a film actress or a man who trained budgereegahs to play the trombone; but the constable was not a sufficiently profound thinker to take this universal view. He turned and led the way into the house, and Simon followed him. They went through the hall, which had the empty and sanitary and freshly painted air common to all houses which have been recently converted into flats, and through the half-open door of a ground-floor flat a strip of curl-papered female goggled at them morbidly as they went by. At the top of the empty and sanitary and freshly painted stairs the door of another flat was ajar, with another policeman standing beside it.