He buttoned his coat and held out his hand.
"Is that all you've got to say?" barked the detective; and Simon raised his eyebrows.
"What more can I add? You've got a gorgeous collection of clues, and I know you'll make the most of them. What poor words of mine could compete with the peals of praise that will echo down the corridors from the chief commissioner's office—"
"All right," said Teal blackly. "I'll know where to find you if I want you."
He stood and watched the Saint's broad elegantly tailored back pass out through the door, with a feeling as if he had recently been embalmed in glue. It was Hot the first time that Mr Teal had had that sensation after an interview with the Saint, but many repetitions had never inured him to it. All the peace and comfort had been taken out of his day. He had set out to attend to a nice, ordinary, straightforward, routine murder; and now he had to resign himself to the expectation that nothing about it would turn out to be nice or ordinary or straightforward or routine. Nothing that brought him in contact with the Saint ever did.
He turned wearily round, as if a great load had been placed on his shoulders, to find his subordinates watching him with a kind of smirking perplexity. Mr Teal's eyes glittered balefully.
"Get on with your work!" he snarled. "What d' you think this is — an old maids' home?" He strode across to the telephone and switched his incandescent glare onto the fingerprint expert. "Have you finished with this?"
"Y-yes sir," stammered the man hastily. "There's nothing on it except the deceased's own prints—"
Mr Teal was not interested in that. He grabbed off the microphone and dialled Scotland Yard.
"I want somebody to tail Simon Templar, of Cornwall House, Piccadilly," he snapped when he was through to his department. "Put a couple of good men on the job and tell 'em to keep their eyes open. He's a slippery customer, and he'll lose them if they give him the chance. I want to know everything he does for twenty-four hours a day until further notice… Yes, I do mean the Saint — and if he gives them the slip they'll need some saints to pray for them!"