The uniformed sergeant started a threatening gesture, but the plainclothes man checked it with an almost imperceptible movement of his hand.
“My daughter, Sue,” Inverest said.
“A willowy blonde?” Simon said slowly. “With short curly hair and gray eyes?”
“You were with her at the Colosseum — just before she was kidnaped.”
It all clicked in the Saint’s recuperating mind, with a blind and devastating simplicity — even to a reaction of hers which had puzzled him at the time.
“I was talking to a girl like that,” he said. “I’d just made some silly crack about the State Department, and I noticed she took it in a rather funny way. But I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was. And then I got slugged over the head myself. If there were any witnesses, they must have seen that.”
“That was seen,” said the plainclothes man. “But it did not explain your presence there.”
“I was unable to leave,” said the Saint. “I was knocked cold, remember? Do you always arrest any innocent bystander who gets hurt at the scene of a crime?”
“When your pockets were searched for identification,” said the plainclothes man suavely, “it was found out at once who you are. Therefore you were brought here. I am sure that being arrested is not such a new experience for you.”
Simon turned to the Secretary.