And so, he reflected cheerfully, it was going to happen to him again.
It was true, as he had told Quercy, that he hadn’t come to Paris with any intention of getting into trouble. But trouble had that disastrous propensity for getting into him. It was, of course, originally Quercy’s fault for ordering him to report at the Prefecture. The summons had been most courteously phrased, but it had been an order, just the same. The Saint had an unpardonably rebellious attitude towards all orders, especially police orders. That had prepared the ground. And then, the Inspector had rashly proceeded to plant a seed. It was not that Simon could legitimately resent his warning, which had been most discreetly and even benevolently phrased, but nevertheless it had the ingredients of a challenge. The Saint had never found it easy to leave a challenge alone. And unfortunately, there was an intriguing murder mystery immediately to hand for fertilizer. Even so, he might have been able to resist, but then he had seen the girl. It was harder still for him to leave a pretty girl alone. And hadn’t Quercy himself invited him to enjoy the pretty girls? And so upon fertilizer and seed and cultivated ground, to conclude the metaphor, had fallen the warm rain of her presence, and the result was inevitable, as it had always been...
The Saint ordered a Suze, paid for it at once so that he could leave at any moment, and waited.
An hour passed before she came out, and he got up and threaded his way nonchalantly through the traffic. She stood outside the Palais, looking hopefully up and down the street for a taxi, and Simon timed his crossing so that he arrived beside her as one came by, and their hands met on the door handle.
They looked at each other with the surprise, confusion, and incipient hostility normal to any two people caught in such a deadlock, the Saint playing his part exactly as if the accident was none of his making, and then he smiled.
“A photo finish,” he said. “Shall we flip for it, or are we lucky enough to be going the same way?”
She smiled back — he had counted on the sound of a familiar accent to earn that.
“I’m going to my hotel — the Georges Cinq.”
“Mine too,” said the Saint, truthfully, although his answer would have been the same whatever she had said.
As the cab turned along the Quais des Grands Augustins he knew that she was looking at him more closely.